SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- A curator with a passion for questions of conservation. An art historian who loves working with living artists to produce new work. One might think that SFMOMA’s Artist Initiative was conceived with Robin Clark in mind as its director.

Clark took the reins in early July to lead the five projects comprising the Artist Initiative, bringing together artists, conservators, and curators to undertake collaborative research projects that shed new light on the work of contemporary artists.

Having contributed deep archival and material research to two SFMOMA exhibitions, Eva Hesse (2002) and Diane Arbus: Revelations (2003) – both “life-changing experiences,” she says – and supported artists creating new work across a range of media in curatorial roles a the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) from 2002 to 2012, Clark has amassed a wealth of experience to bring to her new position. Organizing the 2011 exhibition Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface at MCASD combined intensive oral history interviews with participating artists and material studies with conservators at the Getty Conservation Institute.

Clark jumped right in at SFMOMA: by mid-July artist Julia Scher had arrived to spend three weeks at SFMOMA’s Collections Center, working with departments across the museum to consider how best to document and care for complex, evolving artworks such as her interactive installation Predictive Engineering. Scher designed this piece for the museum’s Van Ness site, later reconfiguring it for the Third Street building, and will restage it for the museum’s reopening in 2016.

The Artist Initiative, made possible through a generous grant form the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, “provides fantastic opportunities for collaborative, interdisciplinary research,” says Clark. “We’re looking forward to exploring these possibilities in depth at the Collections Center and at the expanded museum when it reopens.”