Agustín Arteaga, new head of the Crocker Art Museum, and I share something in common.
We both worked at the Dallas Museum of Art. I helped organize the Arts & Letters Live literary performance program. Arteaga ran the museum.
Now we cross paths again, this time in Sacramento.
Arteaga became the Crocker’s new Mort and Marcy Friedman director and CEO last July. He calls it “perhaps the best thing to happen to me, to come over here and be at the head of such a great institution.”
“After a long 35-year career, I was thinking about what is really truly meaningful for me,” he says. “I wanted to connect with people, to be able to be closer to the artists and more involved in the arts. When you run a big arts organization like the DMA with 320 employees, it’s very executive. You provide vision and guidance, but at the end you’re always two steps away from major things. You make decisions but you’re not really in the battlefield.”
Arteaga describes himself as “a good generalist” when it comes to art. The Mexico City native trained as a specialist in 20th century modern Mexican art and expanded to all 20th century art.
His enthusiasm and knowledge further expanded when he worked in museums with collections of old masters. At the Dallas museum, which he describes as “an encyclopedic institution,” he fell in love with Islamic art, “which was something completely new for me.”
Arteaga started his journey in architecture school, determined to dedicate his career to preserving historical sites. He enrolled in a master’s degree program for architectural conservation but realized it was “way too technical.”
“I was very well trained to make buildings look pristine and useful for today’s purposes, but not to look at the history and what has happened in those buildings,” he says. “I decided I needed to learn more about history.”
He transferred to art history and never looked back. He earned a master’s and Ph.D. in art history from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City.
High-profile roles followed. He directed Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico and Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. He was founding director of Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires in Argentina.
Arteaga became museum director in Dallas in 2016 and helped attract more diverse audiences. He planned a capital campaign for an upcoming expansion and added more than 25,000 works to the collection.
All of this means he brings plenty of experience and ambition to the Crocker.
“I want to keep the ship going but drive even farther than it does already,” Arteaga says. “The Crocker is a beloved and very successful institution, but I see huge potential to provide opportunities for all staff to be ambitious, to always be thinking about whatever we do locally, helping it resonate and be more visible nationally and internationally.”
He’s making good on those plans. “The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce” runs through May 24 and features masterworks from Arteaga’s former workplace, some of which have never been exhibited on the U.S mainland.
Arteaga loves his new hometown. He and his husband live in West Sac, which means riding a bike or scooter to work. He also loves the “absolutely extraordinary” food scene, which he equates to Paris, New York and Mexico City.
“Sacramento is a great city that has not been fully appreciated or regarded from the outside,” he says. “But it’s the capital of the fourth largest economy in the world—that says a lot. It’s a beautiful place to live, where nature is prodigious and the sense of community is very strong. For a place that looks a little quiet from the outside, when you get here and find out how active it is, it’s very exciting.”
For information, visit crockerart.org.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
