How To Make It: 10 Rules for Success to Work at a Museum

There's a big difference between merely working and actually being successful, and these people with careers in the arts know how to reach the top. Museum professionals from around the world have offered their rules for making it in a field where the road to success is anything but clear-cut. We got in touch with curators, marketing professionals, and program organizers, all of whom help international museums function like fine-tuned machines. Check out how these people rose to their positions with our list of How To Make It: 10 Rules for Success To Work At a Museum.

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Rujeko Hockley

Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum

Rule: Know your history, and be gracious.

"First, know who and what came before you: artists and curators, landmark exhibitions, art history, institutional history. Be inspired, but live in your moment, and apply that history to now. It will give you a greater context for your own work. For example, our upcoming exhibition 'Crossing Brooklyn' was partly inspired by the Brooklyn Museum's long tradition, which started in the 1930s, of showcasing contemporary Brooklyn-based artists."

"Second, be gracious—to everyone, but especially to the many, many people who contribute to making exhibitions happen. Believe in your own unique voice, but listen to that of others. Treat people well. You never know whose help you might need or who's going to offer you a chance, now and in the future."

Kevin D. Dumouchelle

Associate Curator, Arts of Africa & the Pacific Islands, Brooklyn Museum

Rule: Lead from a foundation.

"'Know yourself,' on its own, sounds trite-verging-on-hackneyed, but when paired with a critical embrace of change, it can offer powerful results. 'African Innovations,' my current reappraisal of our storied holdings of African art—the first in a planned series—is rooted in years of study and careful consideration of the collection and the stories it can tell. A solid understanding of your field and your values can give you the freedom to experiment. Do your homework, then do something totally different."

Kathy Greif

Marketing Director, The Dalí Museum

Rule: Reflect on the creativity and inspiration that the museum's mission is founded on, and let that be your guiding principal.

"Salvador Dalí was a genius, often inspired by dreams, so it's fitting that this is a dream job. I have to remind myself of that on occasion because this is, after all, a job and can at times present the same challenges as a similar position in corporate America. But when you walk in these beautiful doors and surround yourself with these gifts—the art and its historical importance, the architecture, the talent and passion of my colleagues—it flashes back to reality. This job has purpose and meaning to the world, and I am lucky to be here.

"As for advice, don't take yourself too seriously. This isn't in fact a stereotypical bureaucratic corporation. While museums of course need to make money to continue to operate and grow, don't let yourself get bogged down by that. Reflect on the creativity and inspiration that the museum's mission is founded on, and let that be your guiding principal. The ideas will flow better from that stream of thought than from a pressure-baked bottom-line goal."

Jonathan Gaugler

Media Relations Manager, Carnegie Museum of Art

Rule: Get away from your desk, and knock on doors.

"Even the most tightly-knit museums have loads of brilliant people working on wildly divergent projects. The task of a marketing or press person is to develop a good understanding of what they're working on—researching an upcoming show, restoring a painting, coding a new in-gallery app. These are all possible news stories or marketing messages. How do they all address the overall mission of the museum? If you stare at your monitor all day, you'll have little insight into your own institution, so good luck telling a compelling story to the public that you serve."

Jeffrey Inscho

Web + Digital Media Manager, Carnegie Museum of Art

Rule: Stay hungry, and operate with urgency.

"A progressive museum is one that's adaptable, responsive, and in sync with our increasingly fast-moving world. To achieve this, museum professionals should embrace a culture of cyclical iteration, radical cross-departmental collaboration, and rapid deployment. Resist complacency and stasis at all costs. Stay hungry for innovation, and operate with a sense of urgency. Your artifacts and visitors will thank you."

Esther Esmyol

Curator of the Social History Collections, Iziko Museums of South Africa

Rule: Be appreciative of your position.

"To be a museum curator is a very privileged position because one has the opportunity to closely work with the national estate/collection. Not everybody is so lucky to handle and study beautiful objects from all over the world on a daily basis, to read and learn more about their meaning from a range of sources and contacts (national and international), or has the opportunity to change what we hold in the national estate by developing the collection through the acquisition of new and exciting material/objects."

Dianne Birmingham

Store/Merchandise Director, The Dalí Museum

Rule: It is all about the customer!

"Customers are at the heart of what we do. The last recession had museums and galleries seeking commercial revenue streams, with an emphasis on e-commerce. Museums have become savvier at seeing themselves as businesses and advertising themselves as brands, which can result in positive funding. For instance, many museums state they stand for art and good design, so 'brand' is in their culture, their soul. They honor the fact they are a commercial museum that displays good design with a relevance to the commercial world. It is incredibly important to maintain your organization's brand, so your museum merchandise holds this same relevance for your current and future visitors and provides them with a meaningful shopping experience."

David Wistow

Interpretative Planner, Art Gallery of Ontario

Rule: Address issues that matter to people.

"Over the decades, art museums have viewed themselves as keepers of knowledge to be shared with a public who arrive as empty vessels waiting to be filled up. Most museums continue to be organized around their own traditional values and areas of interest—by country, by style, by date. Many visitors, maybe most, struggle to connect. If we are to play a meaningful role in the cultural life of our community, the future lies in developing exhibitions and installations based on life issues that engage a broad audience."

Corey Keller

Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Rule: Find ways to reconnect to your passion.

"Working at a non-profit organization (or any organization for that matter) can lead to burn out. It's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day details and lose sight of the bigger picture. On days when I feel like I can't go to one more meeting or write one more email, I head out to the galleries and watch our visitors. It reminds me that a museum visit can be a transformative experience, and I get to be part of that."

Amy Homma

ARTLAB+ Manager, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Rule: Inspire chaos.

"In managing the Hirshhorn's digital after-school program for teens, ARTLAB+, I've learned to embrace uncertainty, change, and messiness. True, being part of the federal government means working within institutional structures. But to reach teens, you've got to ride the wave of chaos!"