This article was originally posted on DenverPost.com on May 16, 2004.
As the steel skeleton of the Denver Art Museum’s $90.5 million
addition juts higher with each passing day, the building’s angular,
unconventional shape becomes more and more evident.
But if the exterior has begun to reveal itself, the interior
remains something of a mystery. How will the four floors of
galleries look? What art will be shown in them? How will it be
displayed?
As integral as the architecture will be to the Hamilton Building’s
success or failure, nothing is more important than how compellingly
art is shown in the new spaces and how visitors respond to it.
“I think it’s fundamental,” said director Lewis Sharp. “If an
institution doesn’t have the intellectual integrity, the commitment
to have a program and have a sense of how they want collections to
be used, I don’t think they should be in the business.”
At a public forum Thursday at the museum, Sharp will be one of six
speakers outlining preparations for the new galleries and providing
an update on the expansion.
Even before the museum named the renowned Daniel Libeskind as the
project’s design architect in July 2000, broad notions of how the
new galleries should engage the public and what kinds of art might
go in them were already under consideration.
But it was not until a year ago that planning began in earnest. Dan
Kohl, director of museum design, and teams of curators and
educators from each of the areas represented in the addition –
Western American, African, Oceanic and modern and contemporary art
– began the intensive process of selecting artworks and determining
gallery configurations.
“With each group of curators and educators, the story is a little
different,” Sharp said. “But they are each searching for ways to
engage the visitor in exciting, new ways.”
Some have taken an intuitive approach in matching artworks to the
dynamics of the new spaces. But members of the Institute of Western
American Art worked more methodically, deciding on a series of
themes before even beginning to think about how they would be
adapted to the galleries.
“We were meeting in the beginning twice a week,” said Ann Daley,
associate curator of Western American art. “We looked through the
collection and made lists. What are the really strong things that
we have? How do we want to showcase what we have and make it look
different and new?”
While the group reached a consensus on virtually everything, Daley
acknowledged that a few pieces, such as Bruce Nauman’s “Setting a
Good Corner (Allegory & Metaphor)” (1999), spurred debate.
Visitors who think of Western art as paintings by Frederic
Remington or Charles Russell might be taken aback by this video on
loan from the department of modern and contemporary art. The study
in tedium shows Nauman slowly building part of a fence.
The Western American unit opted to keep the current mix of historic
and contemporary works and to add a rotating gallery of works on
paper – the only one at the museum. It also conceived galleries
focusing on three works, including “Release Your Plans” (2001), a
neo-realist painting by Daniel Sprick.
The curators and educators chose Sprick’s canvas to show visitors
how a painting is created. The Glenwood Springs artist carefully
documented each step of the work’s evolution, and the resulting
photographs will be shown with it.
“I can’t think of any other piece where we would have that kind of
documentation, that kind of supporting material to really talk
about process,” Daley said.
Most of the 149 selected objects – more than twice the number
displayed in the current seventh-floor Western galleries – will be
familiar to regular visitors. But some have not been shown before,
including paintings by Harvey Dunn, Theodore Van Soelen and Willard
Nash.
After the team selected the pieces it wanted to show and decided on
the organizing themes, it took its ideas to Kohl, who devised a
configuration that would accommodate them in the new
9,200-square-foot Western American art gallery.
Unlike most conventional buildings, the angled perimeter and
interior structural walls of Libeskind’s addition will not be able
to accommodate artworks. But Kohl said this facet did not inhibit
his designs.
“It was more challenging,” he said, “but I didn’t find it a
negative challenge: ‘OK, I’ve got these very unusual, dynamic
spaces. Now, how do we craft an exhibition form that enhances the
art?’ It’s not worrying so much about the architecture. It’s
worrying about the art.”
To hang the two-dimensional works and divide the space, Kohl has
designed a series of semi-permanent partitions or “art walls,”
which parallel and intersect the building’s structural walls in
patterns echoing the building’s angular forms.
While trying to find the best ways to accommodate the art, he also
has been aware of the need to create visual axes so patrons have a
sense of how to navigate the spaces. Particularly important was
creating an obvious path from the atrium through the Western
galleries to the walkway across 13th Avenue to the existing
building.
“We don’t have normal architecture,” Kohl said. “So what are the
kinds of things I can do as a designer to make you more comfortable
in the space so you don’t feel lost, so you’re not concerned about
where you are in the building?”
The design for the Western galleries, which will be on the second
floor to the right as visitors come up the main staircase, is the
first to be completed. A detailed, 8-foot-long scale model showing
the placement of each of the works in the Western spaces will be
unveiled at Thursday’s forum.
After the expansion’s scheduled opening in 2006, Kohl suspects some
modifications to the new galleries will be inevitable despite the
careful plans.
“The trick is we don’t know this building. We haven’t been in it.
We haven’t seen the public circulate through it or where they feel
anxious.”
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820- 1675 or
kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
See the plans
FORUMPresentation of plans for the galleries in the museum’s $90.5
million addition, and a construction updateDAM’s Schlessman Hall,
100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway; 5:30 p.m. ThursdayFREE720-865-5000 or
www.denverartmuseum.org
