Arts 41 Ente

KERI GUTEN COHEN
Special to The Jewish News

s she helps usher the world's
museums into the future,
international consultant
Elaine Heumann Gurian
draws on her past — especially a rich
Jewish heritage — for inspiration.
"My cultural Judaism informs every-
thing; it's the foundation of my ability
to do all I do," says Gurian from her
office at Cranbrook Institute of Sci-
ence, where she has been acting direc-
tor since last spring. She took over the
museum's $17.5 million expansion pro-
ject after her friend, former director
Daniel Appleman, died of brain cancer.
Implementing Appleman's vision
for expansion of exhibits and space
was a tribute; bringing the museum's
staff successfully through difficult
change and making the museum invit-
ing is her calling.
From New Zealand's national muse-
um, Te Papa, and the National Muse-
um of the American Indian to the
United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, Gurian has forged a reputa-
tion for helping museums reinvent
themselves with an eye toward inclu-
siveness.
"People want to tell their stories,"
Gurian explains. "When we make
these stories public, people can see
themselves and can be proud."
Gurian understands the need to be
inclusive because she grew up as an
outsider in this country. Her parents
emigrated froth Germany before
World War II to seek their fortunes
when inflation devastated the German
economy.
They settled in New York. Though
more secular than religious, they
always were surrounded by other Jews.
"My neighborhood was almost
completely Jewish; my father's busi-
ness was all Jewish," says Gurian, 61.
"I went to Brandeis and didn't enter
the non-Jewish world until I left college.
That's not atypical of New York Jews.
You don't know you're not integrated."
But you know that fear, as Gurian's

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1/29
1999

80 Detroit Jewish News

Acting Director Elaine Heumann Gurian takes the
Cranbrook Museum of Science in a new direction.

ed to her skills and interest. Museums
Long Island, provided an upscale
mother did, of feeling like an outsider
were just beginning to reinvent them-
lifestyle, complete with stereotypical
in mainstream institutions.
selves in order to reach more people
expectations. So she went to college,
"The work I do with museums is
more effectively.
became an art teacher, married a doc-
all informed by making the outsider
"We were lucky Elaine landed at
tor, had children, moved to the sub-
feel comfortable and safe. That comes
the museum when the ideas of
urbs, drove a station wagon and did
from my own experience as a city
hands-on, interactive exhibitions
volunteer work.
youngster unfamiliar with museums
were bubbling up," says Signe Han-
When she was 31, she finally
and scared to enter," she says.
son, who worked with Gurian dur-
acknowledged she
Inclusiveness is essential
ing those early years and now is
didn't fit the stay-at-
for the survival of today's
director of exhibitions at the Boston
Elaine Gurian:
home-mom ideal. She
museum, says Gurian, who
Children's Museum. "Elaine could
'Museums are working
joined the workforce,
harder to be places of
urges her clients to consider
wrap
words around those concepts
falling serendipitously
pleasure and intrigue
that people learn in different
and
articulate
museum philosophy
into museum work.
and still be valuable."
ways, not just from viewing
at
a
heady
time
when we were break-
She was at the Boston
artifacts and reading labels.
ing
ground.
She
was absolutely a
Children's Museum
Today's museums need to be
driving force here."
for 16 years.
more interactive, more savvy about
Gurian left Boston to become a
During her tenure there she became
entertaining visitors while educating
deputy
director at the Smithsonian
Miss Elaine the Culture Lady, making
Institutions,
where her proudest
them.
regular appearances on television's
Though Gurian has earned an
accomplishments were establishing the
"Romper Room" with puppets or art
international reputation in the muse-
African-American Museum Project
from the museum.
urn field, working with museums was
and the Experimental Gallery.
Gurian entered the museum field
not her chosen career. Her father, who
Gurian developed a niche as a •
in the 1960s, at a time perfectly suit-
became a successful land developer in