Beth Racette: Setting artists up for success in Overture Galleries
Shari Gasper
It’s important to me that the artists feel supported. I find out what artists need and explain what to expect from their Overture experience. Helping artists share their art and bring their vision to fruition is very rewarding.
Overture Center’s galleries director Beth Racette strongly believes in the power of the arts to give joy, open people’s hearts, help heal grief and trauma, and build bridges.
“The arts are sometimes very similar to science,” said Racette, who joined Overture, previously the Madison Civic Center, in June 1997. “An artist wants to understand something, so we ask questions and try things, conduct experiments and see what they teach us.”
Overture Galleries’ spring 2023 “Democracy” exhibit, co-curated by Racette and Emily Parkman, featured more than 50 artists who grappled with questions of the current state of democracy. The exhibit exemplified artists’ exploration and search for understanding and was one of Racette’s proudest moments at Overture Center.
Racette has worked to bring all varieties of art to people throughout Dane County and beyond. Through collaboration with organizations and individuals, she has brought creative opportunities to diverse educational and community settings and nurtured local visual artists. Her duties have included grant writing, arts education programs, art residencies, OnStage curriculum guides and the Community Ticket Program.
And since Overture opened in 2004, she has been responsible for the Galleries. The galleries feature local, regional and national artists, representing all types of visual media with at least 50 percent of artists in Gallery I, II and III from Dane County.
When Overture added Playhouse Gallery around 2006, Racette started curating occasional exhibits. In addition to curating “Democracy,” her favorite curatorial projects were “Everything COVID” in fall 2021, “Earthly Kin” in early 2020 and “The Sixties Revisited” in spring 2018.
A life-long artist, Racette actively exhibits her own visual art throughout the region. She works in many media and styles depending on the needs of her current interests. Racette’s art has explored social issues, such as justice and the environment.
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“Man is Not the Measure: Look into my eyes as you destroy me” – Racette’s installation in the “Earthly Kin” exhibition -
"Gaia Grows the Heart of Democracy” from the Gaia Series -
“CoIntelpro Hell” – Racette’s installation in the “Sixties Revisited” exhibition, in which she explores the FBI’s destruction of the Black Panther liberation movement
For more than a decade, she has worked on a project called “Gaia,” which means “Earth,” composed of a series of about 70 paintings that explore the Earth as a living being. The first six years of paintings were self-published in her book, “Gaia,” in 2016.
Racette’s experience as an installation artist has given her valuable skills to assist artists in their exhibitions. She derives much pleasure from solving display challenges and finding ways for the presentation to complement the content and aesthetics of the art.
Over the past 20 years, she has developed the guidelines and procedures to manage four regular galleries, plus the Rotunda Gallery, in which special projects are exhibited. Racette has steadily improved the galleries, especially during the past few years as she has given up other programming responsibilities, making the galleries her central focus.
She curates Gallery I, II and III with the help of a selection committee made up of artists and art professionals encompassing a range of age, race and media expertise. The diversity of the committee results in exhibitions of a variety of perspectives and aesthetic range.
In 2022/23, more than 220 emerging and professional artists—as well as community art projects—exhibited in Overture Galleries.
Once exhibitions are selected, Racette meets with artists to explain the process, communicate due dates and initiate conversations between artists who have been chosen by the curators to exhibit together.
“It’s important to me that the artists feel supported,” said Racette. “I find out what artists need and explain what to expect from their Overture experience. Helping artists share their art and bring their vision to fruition is very rewarding.”
On Overture’s lower level, the spacious Playhouse Gallery allows larger shows with sculptures and installations. Racette often partners with local organizations for these exhibitions. For example, the Madison Fiber Artists were featured in winter 2022/23 with a community garden collaborative workshop and installation. This fall, Forward Theater Company, Madison Arts Commission and Arts + Literature Laboratory will present an exhibition of recent work inspired by and composed from the things we discard, concurrent with Forward’s production of “The Garbologists.”
“Artists get a lot of exposure because Overture draws a large, diverse audience,” said Racette.
Overture Galleries are seen by some of the largest audiences in Wisconsin. Hundreds of thousands of guests visit Overture each year, passing through the galleries on the way into the theaters. Racette aims to further grow the visual arts audiences and patronage at Overture over the next few years.
In both her own art and art administrative work at Overture, she loves nurturing creativity.
Musing about the importance of arts in our world, Racette said, “For some people, art saves our lives. The arts are for everyone. They give enjoyment and refuge.”