In October 2010, the Dallas Contemporary hired Peter Doroshenko as the museum’s new director. Doroshenko isn’t just taking over an administrative position. Once a curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, the Chicago native comes to Dallas after nearly a decade working abroad at art museums and artspaces in England, Belgium, and Ukraine. With that experience, he brings a new vision not only for the Contemporary — but for the very idea of the American arts institution. Doroshenko calls it the “anti-museum,” an organization that must take risks, be willing to fail, and constantly “refresh” its own understanding of itself. We spoke with Doroshenko in advance of this weekend’s openings at the Contemporary, the first group of shows organized by the new director.

Part two of two. You can read part one here.

Is broadcasting the local scene nationally and internationally part of the goal of the Contemporary?

It is great that a local artist can have a local exhibition here, but I think it would be life-changing for them if they showed in New York or Berlin or in Prague. For us, we’re not — we don’t want to be one thing or another, but it is my job to get people out and to make those connections. If I do a project, and I’m doing one this summer in New York at a very large commercial gallery, and I’m doing another project in two years in Europe, a group show — so it’s about connecting here and putting them in those projects, so that way they get out.

We won’t have any curators here at the Dallas Contemporary. What we’re going to do is have one or two, and maybe in the future three, adjunct curators living abroad who will actively support themselves by organizing exhibitions abroad. They will come and do exhibitions for us, to visit and to connect with artists in Dallas and take them back and include them in other projects they are doing. So it is about bringing the world here and taking Dallas to the world. So it is a different kind of model that we are setting up, but unfortunately that is the 21^st century. Artists want curators to come into their studios, and not just a local curator, but people from other parts of the world with different ideas and different thoughts, and hopefully connect with what they’re doing. So it is really being fairly realistic in how the art world is starting to function, and it is really a kind of a jet-set style. But also it’s not being afraid to make commitments to local artists.

What’s your impression of the Contemporary’s new space?

We’re an anti-museum. Not only our programming, but the way we operate: our philosophy and our space. It is really about cutting all the institutional BS out and putting artists back on the pedestal and really giving them the freedom to create a dream exhibition or project that most spaces don’t have the kind of space or capability to do so. So that’s the positive side. The negative side is that there are only going to be x number of artists that can fill a gigantic space. So if you are making very small paintings, it is just not going to work.

Our goal is to finish the capital campaign, which we are well under way to completing, and to have a series of different time schedules with our exhibitions in the building. So the space that we have right now will operate like any other institution — three and a half months and rotating. The larger space, we’ll actually start using in April, even in its raw state. It’ll be up for six to eight months, so that way visitors that come will have the opportunity to see something a few times, and those that come to Dallas once a year will have the opportunity to see it period. And then we have the two kind of annex spaces in front. One in the near future will be a learning center, and the other will be an experimental project space for local, national, international artists just go nuts. Each [exhibition space] will be on a different timescale, operating almost autonomously. So, whoever comes, there will always be something up. And at the same time the exhibits will be so varied and eclectic that it will almost be impossible for somebody not to come and really like something — and really hate something. If that’s possible, then we’re doing our job.

How is the fundraising going?

We’re going to finish it this year, and we have some great individuals on the board moving forward on that. Now that I’m here, we’re going after it. I think everyone is pretty psyched. We want it to be done because we want to finish all the renovations and exterior landscaping by the summer of next year. There are going to be about five different phases of finishing the construction. I think that will help because when people come they will see a lot of change. It will help with the capital campaign, so that when people come they will see results.

Tell me about the initial exhibitions you have lined up. The first ones can make a statement about where the institution is headed. Were you thinking of it in that way?

A lot of it had to do with the space and what could work and what could not work because there is a level of theatrics that has to go on in these kinds of cavernous spaces. I think, secondly, I was very interested in creating a balance of intellectual, populist, and ‘other’ that I think is extremely important — and to not be pigeonholed as one or the other. And also blending. We’re in the Design District. What does that mean? Design is everywhere nowadays, and kind of just exploring what does that loaded word mean now? It was also important to think about what Dallas is, and it is now an arts center. It has always been a retail city, and it used to be an oil city. And it still is. As an outsider, it becomes really, really clear on the strengths, and to play off of those strengths, but also the weaknesses too, and to put that in play.

So for the Michel Verjux, it is really about examining spaces, and the whole aspect of what is the space that we have and how are we going to deal with it  — the theatrics and the whole intellectual discourse of the concept of light, which basically goes back to the ’50s and ’60s. The Sour Grapes, the kind of graffiti component? Well, urban art is everywhere. If you don’t read every week something about Shepard Fairey — a lawsuit, or him doing another museum exhibition —  than you are kind of out of it. And also, we wanted to engage different groups in the community and not to be afraid to do that. We have Juergen Teller. Once again, we’re a retail center. A lot of what is still shocking is that a lot of really well-known artists have never had museum exhibitions in America. And that for me is certainly eye-opening. Not that that is that important, but it gets the artists really excited when you come to them and say, let’s do some kind of a project.

Are there models out there that you can point to and say, ‘that’s what we are building towards?’

Bits of pieces of other institutions exist, but there is no one benchmark that I can say, “Yeah, this is what we are emulating.” The closest would be the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, because of the rawness, the big space, not being afraid to fail. But also, even it has become very institutionalized very quickly. So for us it is really working with the staff and the board to create systems where we will refresh ourselves constantly and try to change as the world changes. It is not an easy thing.