Remembering Marilyn Zeitlin, who pushed ASU Art Museum to new heights

The Show is sharing year-end memories of Arizonans who died in 2025.

It's been almost 25 years since Marilyn Zeitlin left her position as director of Arizona State University Art Museum — but many in the creative community still remember her 15-year stint there as the high point of the museum's career.

Zeitlin died this year at 84.

John Spiak joined Zeitlin's staff two years into her tenure. Today, he's director and chief curator of Cal State Fullerton's Grand Central Art Center.

It wouldn't have happened without one of his earliest mentors, Spiak recalls.

JOHN SPIAK: From the moment I met Marilyn, I knew the ASU Art Museum was where I needed to be. … and I don't think I fully had all the skillsets, but what she saw in me was somebody with that was out in the community and, and believed in that process. As well I think she was interested that my degrees were not in the arts. They were in sociology and anthropology. And so for her, and her process and the way she worked, it seemed like a good match.

At that time, Marilyn was deep into working on the project about El Salvador’s Civil War. She was working on a show that ended up being called “Art Under Duress: El Salvador, 1980-present.”

And I would hear stories. She would come back from these adventures and she would talk about crossing the border into El Salvador as the civil war was taking place and meeting with individuals that were being impacted by the atrocities occurring in that country at that time. But as well, meeting with the artists that were documenting those atrocities.

And I mean, the stories were insane, she would talk about — there was a filmer named John Ewing, and they would go in a pickup truck, turn off the lights and cross, you know, through these jungles and across these mountains.

And at that same time, she was, you know, just nominated to be, or just selected to be the U.S. commissioner for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

We were also, you know, the smallest institution ever to do it. The first west of the Mississippi, and only the second educational institution ever to represent the U.S. and, you know, this little museum in Arizona at the time, kind of taking that risk and raising those funds and making that happen.

You know, it's, because everyone believed in Marilyn in Marilyn’s vision, and we, everyone got behind it because she was that kind of a force.

There's a safe way to run a museum, and there is a progressive way to run a museum. And Marilyn definitely ran the ASU Art Museum in a progressive, all out kind of manner. The safe way to do it is, you know, take touring shows, show your permanent collection, do work that doesn't challenge conceptual thought.

Marilyn pushed those boundaries and constantly brought exhibitions, curated exhibitions, allowed us to curate exhibitions that created contemporary dialogue and pushed the dialogue forward as well.

Marilyn, she was fearless. She, she had a way of not caring how she was going to be perceived, as long as she knew what she was doing was the right thing, that the story that needed to be told, no matter how much it was going to hit her. Doing the right thing was always important to her.

Domenico Nicosia

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