Pearl Lam (林明珠): Hello, this is Pearl Lam Podcast. Not that I’m just in LA, I am in the Weisman Foundation. I am here together with Billy Weisman, one of my dearest friends, and I’ve known her again for many, many years. And I’m so so happy that she is joining my podcast today. Billy, can you just give the audience or people who’s listening to the podcast about your journey, about who you are?
Billie Weisman: Oh Welcome Pearl, it’s good to see you back in LA. I miss it when you’re not here. But anyway, Fred, my husband Frederick R Weisman started the Foundation in the mid 80s and he wanted our home left as living with art in the late 20th century. So all of the paintings, all of the furnishings, everything is as it was when we lived here. And he felt that by having it in a home environment, it would be more welcoming to.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Living with Art.
Billie Weisman: And so that’s what we’ve carried on. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1994 so I’ve been doing it all since then.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But this is the most amazing foundation because you are just walking into it because it’s not like worshipping art, because you’re living with art. It’s a really different way of feeling with art. Because when I came here, I remember the first time I came here and I saw Brancusi, really precious Brancusi, right next to Brancusi is an unknown artist. So what, what really touches my heart is Fred and you collect art from your heart. Not value, not branding. And you know, everything is from your heart, which is the most beautiful thing.
Billie Weisman: You know, when I finished Graduate School, I could tell you everything in art, what it was supposed to be, everything chronological. And then Fred taught me he’d go like this. Trust your heart. And it’s really, it works.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because I remember you told me a story about you and Fred was driving along the road and then you saw. You saw and Fred saw a piece of art or whatever and you just stopped by and you just bought it. I mean, I mean, this is, this is true love. I think, you know, art is about love and passion.
Billie Weisman: Absolutely.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): This house is a great example for a lot of young collectors or collectors who I always said art is not to be worshipped, art is to be to be living with. And when I walked in here it is totally surprising because you have artworks that artists don’t know. But Yep, you know, you have a Roth call. And then the next thing is, you have, you have Larry River, you, you have Botero outside. It’s totally breathtaking. I think whoever comes to LA, if you haven’t been to the Weisman Foundation, you’re not in LA. It’s a seriously amazing, amazing art collection. So let’s talk about your beginning. Yeah. And I, you know, when we were talking all these years, I knew that you studied in UCLA and then after that you were the conservator at LACMA right?
Billie Weisman: After I finished Graduate School at UCLA.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You studied Art History?
Billie Weisman: Yes, I stumbled into the LA County Museum looking for a job and there was an opening for research in the conservation department and myself being very hyperactive, I went through all the desk drawers in the museum finding spare fingers and toes that had broken off of sculptures. And I found two large piles of photographs of the objects in the museum. And so I started photo files on them and then I researched adhesives to attach the toes and fingers to the pieces. And there wasn’t an object conservation department when I started.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): No?, I mean in LACMA, with all these old artworks, there was no conservation.
Billie Weisman: Oh, there was a conservator. Yes, he was the only conservator.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): One conservator.
Billie Weisman: Yes, and Ben Johnson, and he was a paintings conservator, but objects were left, you know, without anybody paying attention. And I’ve always been a three dimensional person. I love doing that. And so then the head of the Harvard training program came and I was assigned to work with him for a week. And at the end of the week he said, would you like to come and be my intern? And I laughed and he said, why are you laughing? I only take two weeks here, so I took a leave of absence from the museum and went to Arthur Beal’s Training Program at Harvard and objects conservation. And then I came back to the museum and I somewhat started the objects department. And then after that, the following year, I took another leave of absence and went to MIT for metallurgy in order to learn more about the bronze sculpture in the museum.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): How interesting. I mean, and then basically, were you the only one who was the conservator of objects in LACMA at the time?
Billie Weisman: Yes, there was a person, George, who was a structural person. He would work on bases and mounting and all of that, and sometimes we’d work together. But you know, pretty much.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. And then and and then when were you working at Getty?
Billie Weisman: After I’d been at LACMA for 11 years.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): 11 years. Wow.
Billie Weisman: the Renaissance curator requested that I come to the Getty and to work, and I said no thank you, I love my work at LACMA. And they kept trying to woo me over and finally they convinced me, which I wasn’t the happiest time, but I got to work on wonderful pieces. It wasn’t as open as LACMA was with sharing information and research. They were more secretive because some of the pieces in the collection were questioned and they didn’t want to talk about that.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Wow, so and so how long did you stay there?
Billie Weisman: I think it was like three years.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Three years. And did you go back to LACMA after that?
Billie Weisman: Oh, I didn’t go back to work. I had started my freelance business. Because the museum had so much work for conservation, they didn’t want us working on the trustees pieces during working hours. So they let us rent space in the lab and after hours we could work on our, the trustees’ pieces. But most of mine were site sculptures. So I was at the trustees home, Fred Weismann, Eli Broad, Francis Brody, the Starks. I mean I was at all of the trustees’ homes on weekends, so working.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Wonderful. Yeah. And when dd you start collecting art? So it must be starting with your love relationship with Fred, right?
Billie Weisman: Well, I had bought small pieces along the way, but of course I couldn’t afford anything like this. And then I met Fred after I had done a survey of his collection. I met him under a Lozer finals and painting and we just got along very well. And a friend of mine said what is going on with you and Fred Weisman? I said, Jeffrey, nothing’s going on with Fred, Mr Weisman and I, and there was definitely a connection there and everybody could see it but us. And so a couple years later, we finally had dinner alone. It took a long time.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It is wonderful. Because it seems that the whole Weisman foundation when it began or or was building towards it, the art collection is really love. It is your relationship with Fred that builds up this wonderful collection.
Billie Weisman: Well, look at you with the way you collect art too. It has to be. It’s very passionate, isn’t it beautiful?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because you know upstairs and then when you go into the room you have all the pop up of Fred and the pop up of you. It’s just beautiful. It’s a lot of love in it.
Billie Weisman: It was magical.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So you must be really heartbroken when Fred passed away.
Billie Weisman: Devastating, but I found that the best way to keep the person alive in your heart is to carry on for them. And that’s why I closed my private business and then just dedicated my life to this foundation.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): As a director of the Weisman Foundation, you have been carrying this post for nearly 30 years.
Billie Weisman: It has been Pearl.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It has been 30 years.
Billie Weisman: It has been.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Wow. And then, okay, so, so how did you, what was, what was the Fred’s vision for this contemporary Art Museum? Are you still buying art? Are you still collecting?
Billie Weisman: Yes, but not for the house. The house museum stays as it was the day we moved out and moved up the street. What we have always done is when we travel, we purchase art and we do exhibitions in various smaller institutions and we lend to larger institutions, but we do exhibitions. I was just looking at the list. We’ve done like over 120 exhibitions since then.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, because every time when I was talking to you, you said, oh, I’m in Minnesota, I mean, I don’t know where else. And because your exhibition is travelling, right? It’s a travelling exhibition and you were curating these exhibitions.
Billie Weisman: Early on we did an Asian Tour and a European Tour, and those were tours. Now we do specific exhibitions for different institutions. It may have the same title, but we’d like to place them somewhat like we do in the house, in a way where the art speaks to one another in the space. And if you use the same exhibition over and over again in different spaces, you can’t always create that rapport. So yeah, I recreate them for each space.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So what is your curatorial perspective on each exhibition? Do you work with the museum and the museum will tell you, your museum curator together will tell you the direction or you just build up your thoughts about it and then you curate towards that direction?
Billie Weisman: Both ways, but mostly from our position, I like to get somewhat of a psychological profile of the community, what the population is, how they are and how responsive they are to contemporary art. And then I figure out hooks to draw people in. And we also include local artists in our exhibition. Amazing. We’ll put a local artist next to an Ellsworth Kelly or a Warhol or whatever that’s great, thereby giving credibility to the lesser known artist. If it holds up, Fred would say put it there. If it doesn’t, don’t. So.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Well, so this has been going on even before Fred passed away.
Billie Weisman: Oh yes, the house was never actually even a foundation until many years after he passed away. But when we were living here, the bedroom door would fly open and he’d bring people up through on a tour. I used to be a very private person, but it was like living in a fishbowl. And Fred would say, isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it beautiful? We need to share. I said everything, even the master bedroom. He said Oh yes, so that’s the way it is.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean, I’m always totally flabbergasted because you were collecting art like upstairs there’s a Nam June Paik, but when you bought an Nam June Paik who knew? Who knew Nam June Paik at that time, no.
Billie Weisman: No, I mean.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean, it’s just after he died. I mean, he passed away years after, then you know, and then the museum was doing exhibition curators, writers writing about and all of a sudden Nam June Paik was there, but you had it a long time ago. Same thing, I saw this Alan Jones table. Yeah. It’s breathtaking.
Billie Weisman: Fred had an incredible eye, He really did. Even the art dealers say that the most difficult piece in an exhibition Fred would gravitate towards and say, I want it.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So have you been, now after I mean after Fred passed away, has your foundation, is the foundation still collecting?
Billie Weisman: Yes. We don’t have the budget that he did when he was living, but we still purchase art and we continue with purchasing emerging artists. Occasionally at auction we’ll buy a more established artist, but a good example of that is when I bought our McCracken at auction in New York. It was a time when nobody in New York was really paying attention to McCracken, so I got a fabulous Pepto Bismol pink playing. And I mean, it costs next to nothing and now the price is so high. But we’re not excited when the prices go up. We want it because we love it and it’s nice that we can share it and other people recognise the importance of it.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I really enjoy it when you take me to all those emerging artists in LA. It was really exciting because I like how you, you know, have a great eye. You don’t just say, say about Fred because you have a great eye. And every time you take me to all the artists, I really totally enjoy it because there’s a completely different perspective as well. Well, and I remember I went to your office and then all of a sudden I saw the water drop artist Kim Tschang-Yeul, which I had just opened the exhibition, and you were saying to me, I had him, I bought him years ago.
Billie Weisman: Where he had him for about 30 years, so I was.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Just, I mean, Billie, you’re incredible. I mean, this is how exciting it is. So do you go to every art fair and most of the art fair?
Billie Weisman: Most of them, yeah.
Pearl Lam: And then you go around and you see different artists even if you don’t, the foundation doesn’t have the full budget to buy established artists? You still go around?
Billie Weisman: Absolutely. You know, when we would go to galleries together, Fred and I, we’d circle around in opposite directions and both of us would usually go like that and that would be it. Other times, if I followed him, I would see his fingertips shaking and I would say done deal. And sure enough, he would get so excited it would vibrate to his fingertips.
Pearl Lam: Wow. Hey, let me ask you then, how many travelling exhibitions do you do each year?
Billie Weisman: Probably, anywhere from 2 to 4, but usually about 3.
Pearl Lam: 3.
Billie Weisman: Yeah, and they’re all somewhat unique. I try to alter the titles a bit and alter the pieces also.
Pearl Lam: This is around, this is in America, limited to America?
Billie Weisman: These days, it’s America. What happened was the government really changed all of that. We had to destroy all of our crates. We had to use government stamped wood on the crates. And the crates are so expensive. So we haven’t travelled internationally for a while, but we do travel throughout the United States. I’m currently working on exhibitions in Fort Lauderdale and Oklahoma and Cal State, LA, you know, different location. We do quite a bit around LA though, and they’re usually smaller institutions, not the big ones, usually have a whole staff of curators and they don’t want anybody from the outside taking their space.
Pearl Lam: But you land, I remember even last year, the Mark Rothko show you loaned paintings there, right? You loaned. You loaned your Rothko.
Billie Weisman: Absolutely.
Pearl Lam: So in average how and how many works do you loan to international museum and to do shows?
Billie Weisman: As many as a half a dozen a year, sometimes three. We’re also lending to the Reina Sofiya and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And oh, Louis Vuitton, again, we’re lending to in two weeks. It’s the pop show with Wesselman.
Pearl Lam: So you’re also doing that? Yeah.
Billie Weisman: Wow, so a lot to prepare for.
Pearl Lam: A lot to prepare for. And then and what is your vision?
Billie Weisman: My vision is carrying on what Fred’s original intention was, which is to keep the foundation, the house museum as it is and in perpetuity and.
Pearl Lam: How and how could you sustain this to build this, I mean to build importance in and in the future so people will always remember that as a Weisman Foundation.
Billie Weisman: Well, as long as it catches a person’s eye like yours, people will come back. And then the word of mouth we have with social media these days though, we have more people coming than we did before. We never advertised in the past but we always had people coming through and actually we had more international groups coming through than local. Our next door neighbour who had lived here for 18 years had never come in and they said what took you so long? And she said I was afraid to ask. And I said why? Why? It’s a public institution, it’s a foundation. And so our doors are open, but you have to arrange for a tour by appointment because we have limited parking in the inside the gates and also because it’s a house you have to be guided through on a tour.
Pearl Lam: So next thing is, are you looking at a younger, you know, for the foundation to go on forever and how are you going to groom a director? I mean, so that you can pass your job to her or him because he or she has to have this passion, because you have this great passion.
Billie Weisman: Oh, that’s a hard thing to pass
Pearl Lam: Yes, it’s very hard.
Billie Weisman: You either have it or you don’t, and I had the advantage of knowing Fred.
Pearl Lam: I mean to build the longevity of the foundation. So are you looking for a younger director so that you can guide her or him to carry the torch?
Billie Weisman: The board has been pressing me for years to find a replacement if I ever wanted to retire or whatever.
Pearl Lam: Yes, so you can go travelling with me.
Billie Weisman: But in the back of my mind, I keep my eyes open and I do have some prospects and I have them written down in a secret envelope, much like the Academy Award.
Pearl Lam: And actually one of the stories I would very much like you to share with the audience is this athlete that is this Private Jet that you mentioned Fred has and is completely an art, an artist jet that you have an arrow shape and Joe Goode, right, yes. So can you describe for the audience?
Billie Weisman: Well, it happened.
Pearl Lam: This is in 1980s, huh?
Billie Weisman: Yes, this happened before Fred and I had ever had dinner alone together. I was working at LACMA at the time. I was a young conservator and he had me working on installing the exhibition in Palm Springs, and I came back and I couldn’t get back there in time for the opening. So his office called and said Mr Weisman wanted to know if you’d like to go on the corporate jet with a group of them to the opening. I said, oh, that would be great because that way I can get there. I couldn’t drive there in time. So I’m on the plane with Mr Weisman at the time, the head of Toyota’s wife, his former girlfriend and Rauschenberg and his friend Terry. And Rauschenberg, Fred and I were sitting in the back of the plane and I said, Mr Weisman, what’s the gentleman like you doing flying around on a normal aeroplane? Remember when Calder had done Braniff Airways and Rauschenberg said, yes, Fred, why don’t you let me paint your corporate plane? Well, Fred.
Pearl Lam: Rauschenberg said that.
Billie Weisman: Yeah, and Fred knew exactly what he wanted to do. When we returned from Palm Springs, he asked Ed Ruscha to paint the corporate plane and he did the exterior and then asked Joe Goode to do the interior. So Ed Ruscha came up with two models. One was with the sunset and the other one was in midnight blue with stars and Fred selected the one in midnight blue with the stars. And then Joe Goode did the ceiling with the cloud formation. And afterwards Fred would say I live with art, I work with art and now I fly with art. Working with art, Frank Gehry had done his corporate headquarters, which he was the one of the first distributors of Toyota in the United States. And he not only had Frank Gehry designed the building, but he had contemporary art next to all the desks. Well, the Japanese were horrified. They said, when are you going to complete the building and this art? And the employees said, do I have to have that next to my desk? And Fred would say, live with it for three months and if you don’t like it, I’ll be glad to move it. Well, at the end of the trial period, everybody was clinging to their art, as they called it. So it shows you what exposure does. I mean you really just have to keep looking and you become more open minded.
Pearl Lam: I think what audiences do know if you have seen the in in, in Spain, I mean Bilbao, I mean the, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain. The first of this museum is built in Minnesota, Minneapolis is the Weisman Foundation. It’s the Weisman Museum. This is the first prototype way before Bilbao has that that Guggenheim Museum. I never knew that because I I was flipping the book and then I saw, I said how come this one must be built after the Bilbao? And there I saw it was Fred Weisman Museum Foundation. It was exactly the same.
Billie Weisman: Absolutely. He was ahead of his time with everything.
Pearl Lam: That was built in what 1990s?.
Billie Weisman: Actually it was 80s. I believe it was the late.
Pearl Lam: 80s well and where did when did the Bilbao built? It’s 1990s or or 2000. I can only.
Billie Weisman: Yeah, it was much later.
Pearl Lam: What is that foundation now doing the Weisman Foundation in?
Billie Weisman: Oh, it’s a museum, and they actually have.
Pearl Lam: You donated.
Billie Weisman: We donated artworks to them, but no institution like somebody from the outside telling them what to do. Yes. So we’ve loosened our reins and they get to do what they want. They curate their own exhibitions and all. Occasionally we will do an exhibition with them. And the same with the Weisman Museum at Pepperdine University. Yes, the same thing.
Pearl Lam: But I remember there was one exhibition that you brought into the Pepperdine, the Weisman Museum.
Billie Weisman: We used to do an annual exhibition. Yeah, for 29 years we did it. And they have new direction now, and we’re not doing them as frequently. I’m not sure when the next one would ever be, but yeah. But we’ve developed relationships with a lot of the other institutions. There was a Carnegie Museum up in Pittsburgh. No, there’s one in California between here and Santa Barbara, and we were doing annual shows there. And we’ve developed a very nice relationship with Cal State LA and we’ve done with Cal State Northridge. And it was the Santa Monica had a museum or they have a museum. We’ve done a couple shows with them. And yeah, wherever people ask, we’ll figure out how to do a show for them.
Pearl Lam: How exciting so, but but Billie, you do travel a lot because see you everywhere and next week I’m going to see you in London as well. Well, well, and then I mean you travel every day and you work from morning to night. Do you feel tired?
Billie Weisman: I’m energised from it.
Pearl Lam: But it’s true because when I came in there, sometimes we just jump from one studio to another studio and you were showing me all round round. But LA recently has changed a lot. It seems that LA today become or becoming the art centre of USA, fighting and competing with New York. Many artists have moved to LA to set up the studio and all these international galleries. They all have the outposts here. What are you thinking about LA? Do you think the Los Angeles would really be able to take over from New York?
Billie Weisman: Haven’t we already?
Pearl Lam: I think so. I think so. So it’s very exciting here now, now, but but we always say there still is not enough collectors because collectors are still, I mean there are more collectors in San Francisco, New York, LA still doesn’t, they don’t have that number of collectors. Is that true?
Billie Weisman: Quality, not quantity. I’m not sure and.
Pearl Lam: What do you think about the museums and compared to New York?
Billie Weisman: Oh, of course New York has fabulous museums. They always will. I mean, they could surpass almost anywhere in the world, but I’m very proud of what LACMA
Pearl Lam: LACMA, Yeah.
Billie Weisman: LACMA is doing with Michael Govan, with MOCA and with the Broad Foundation and with the museum in Westwood. Well, with Annie Philbin, I mean, they’ve done wonders. Yeah. No, we’re, we’re doing it. I mean, we’re starting from scratch. New York had, you know, 100 years over us, and we’re trying to catch up.
Pearl Lam: This before when we talk about private museum we are talking about the Wesiman and the Broad. The Broad of course now is a big establishment. Has the foundation ever thought that they would build something like Broad?
Billie Weisman: We had talked about it early on, in fact, but Fred always wanted the concept of a house museum. We had looked into the Doheny Estate in Beverly Hills to move it the foundation there, but there were too many restrictions, so we didn’t do it. I don’t think we ever will unless there’s problems with being a house museum in a residential area, but we seem to follow more rules than anybody in the street, so I think we’ll probably be here forever.
Pearl Lam: I was told that you’re going to build an annex right next to and to the main house. Can you tell us more something more about it?
Billie Weisman: That was another one of those things I used to tease Fred. After we were together I said we have the fanciest gardener shed in the city. It was a beige stucco building with a red tiled rope and this big piece of property. And I said why not build sculpture garden or a gallery? And he looked at me and said well why not both? And so we interviewed Frank Gehry and Frank said, Fred, I’m already working on so many projects for you, the University of Minnesota Museum, and he was all over the place. Fred was commissioning him to do things. And he said, well, why not Franklin Israel? And so we interviewed him and selected him under Frank Gehry’s suggestion. And we’ve I especially work closely with him designing it. And actually all the papers for that are in the Getty archives. So we’re really happy with the building because we have a yeah.
Pearl Lam: Because you have your office and another exhibition space and your Keith Haring motorbike is there.
Billie Weisman: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, when those arrived, an art dealer brought him on a flat bedded truck and there were five on the truck. Yeah. Keith Haring and LA two. I mean, there were five of them. It was a done deal. We had one everywhere.
Pearl Lam: I love it.
Billie Weisman: The fingers were really twitching at that point.
Pearl Lam: On this point, then, I must say thank you Billy and I see you for dinner and I thank you for giving such precious time to join me on the podcast.
Billie Weisman: Pearl, you are such a jewel to the whole art world. Everybody enjoys you. You are so generous with your time and generosity.
Pearl Lam: Sitting here sharing your journey and your experience with with the audience. Thank you, Billie.
Billie Weisman: Thank you, Pearl. Thank you.
