Julián Zugazagoitia talks about his job running the Nelson-Atkins Museum

As he starts his seventh year in charge of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Julián Zugazagoitia has his hands full as director and CEO of Kansas City’s premier visual arts venue.

The museum is once again pressing an expansion plan that doesn’t sit well with some neighbors, as Zugazagoitia works long days also promoting the museum’s profile locally and nationally.

Born in Mexico, Zugazagoitia (pronounced SZU-ga-sa-GOY-tee-yah) earned his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris, speaks six languages and is the grandson of a Spanish politician and journalist of the same name who was executed by the Nazis during World War II.

We sat down with him the other day to discuss his job and other interests in the Nelson’s Bloch Building. Following is a condensed version of that chat:

Q: Your last name is not the easiest to say. How often do people get it wrong?

A: All my life it has been a difficult name to get, whether it’s in Mexico, where I was born, or in France, or in Italy, or in England — I mean, everywhere where I have lived. It’s challenging because just even seeing it.

Now, it has brought me great good joys and surprises. I remember a session of city council in New York in which the speaker of the House led in chorus everyone at city council to try to pronounce my last name. No one can pronounce it but no one can forget my last name either. Just say Julián (HOO-lian.) Let’s be first name basis.

Q: You like your espresso. (He’s having his first one of the day.)

A: It is something I need. I’ve already had three or four (today), but just drip coffee. I don’t get out of the house without having had at least three cups of coffee.

Q: Describe a typical work day.

A: What I love about my job is there’s no typical day. So some mornings I would come and have my to-do list, my three or four, or when I was more ambitious, 10 things to do today. Today I limit it to three or four. And I’m lucky if I get to them just because things come and then there’s this that was not expected. So, there’s no typical day. You begin walking the galleries. Lunch with a patron, perhaps to discuss a future project and support, and afternoon catching up on your mail — it never happens. And then events. We have every day there’s a new event.

Q: Seems like a 12-hour day at least.

A: Every night and every day there’s something else. Long days. But very fulfilling.

Q: How much of your time is spent talking with donors to get support for the museum?

A: I would say it’s 70 percent of the time. We have grown dramatically in terms of the people we serve in the last five or six years. An increase of almost 40, 50 percent. The budget has not increased that much, so it means that we’re very lean and we’re serving more people, but we need to reinforce and get more support. It takes a lot of time. But I find it, at the same time, it’s a central part of the job because it’s also testing your ideas with patrons and seeing if they’re liking what you’re doing, and if they’re seeing that the direction is right. And so you’re always calibrating, and it’s a loop of feedback.

Q: Sounds like being a political candidate: raising money, selling ideas.

A: I think there is a lot of that. But don’t count for me ever running for office. (Laughs)

Q: What do you do to relax?

A: What I enjoy most doing to relax is seeing art. And it’s almost ironic that I almost cannot do it here, and sometimes I cannot even do it at some others’ museums because if I go sometimes still in high-gear mode to a museum, I’m not looking only at the art, I’m looking at what they’re doing better, and learning from that, and also criticizing what faults they have, so you’re still working.

But a perfect weekend, well, if you ask that of my wife, there’s days I crash, and that I just (lie) horizontal all day in my living room or in my home. And beyond that, it’s just outdoors, being with the kids and looking at art by myself, that is what serenes me.

Q: Two kids?

A: Sixteen and 13. Both teenagers.

Q: That’s challenging.

A: It’s everything but relaxing. (Laughs)

Q: When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: So, I was really on track to be an electronic engineer. It was only the last year of high school, in which I was still on a very scientific path, that with a group of friends, we were also very literary and writing, and I thought I could do both. And things changed, you know.

This story was originally published November 4, 2016 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Julián Zugazagoitia talks about his job running the Nelson-Atkins Museum."