CRYSTAL BRIDGES MEMBER MAGAZINE
APRIL 2017
1 VOL VI ISSUE I
FOUNDING ENDOWMENTS
N E X T G E N E R AT I O N F U N D
THANK YOU
Windgate Charitable Foundation Doug and Shelley McMillon Family Paul and June Carter Family The J.M. Smucker Company
Jack and Melba Shewmaker Family
Pamela and Wayne Garrison Neff and Scarlett Basore
Reed and Mary Ann Greenwood
G L O B A L I N I T I AT I V E F U N D Chuck and Terri Erwin Reed and Mary Ann Greenwood
Stella Boyle Smith Trust Harriet and Warren Stephens
Marvelyn Stout
SPONSORS
Constance Caplan
Bob and Marilyn Bogle Pamela and Wayne Garrison
James Dyke and Helen Porter Thomas Lon Smith
John and Christy Mack P. Allen Smith
Loreen Arbus
Acorn: The Influence Company Becky and Bob Alexander Paul M. Angell Family Foundation Neff and Scarlett Basore Robert and Nancy Brooks Ken and Liz Allen AMP Sign and Banner Arkansas Community Foundation Arkansas Humanities Council Arvest Bank Avis Bailey Frank and Pat Bailey Bank of America, U.S. Trust Bentonville Film Festival Bill and Beverly Bickell Family Blakeman’s Fine Jewelry Blue Rhino James and Emily Bost Rosalind and John Brewer Briar Rose Bakery Lynn and Joel Carver
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David Yurman Enterprises
The Murphy Foundation Roy and Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust, Bank of America, N.A. Trustee Christie’s ConAgra Brands Terri and Chuck Erwin George’s, Inc. Greenwood Gearhart Inc.
Galen, Debi and Alice Havner JTH Productions KFSM-TV CBS Kimberly–Clark Mitchell Williams
Chip and Susan Chambers Rick and Beverly Chapman Consulate of Mexico in Little Rock David and Cathy Evans Family Ferguson Law Firm Rui J.P. de Figueiredo Jr. and Natalia Ferretti Flintco Cindy Flynt Walters and Betty Flynt Harrison and Rhonda French Family Denise and Hershey Garner David and Jane Gearhart Gelmart International Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla Arts Foundation Meza Harris Charles and Shannon Holley HOWSE
Terra Foundation for American Art The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Fund Univision Arkansas William Reese Company
inVeritas J.P. Morgan Just-Us Printers Randy and Valorie Lawson/ Lawco Energy Group MillerCoors Moon Distributors Inc. Morris Foundation Inc. Nice-Pak Products, Inc. Nickelodeon Northwest Arkansas Naturals Onyx Coffee Lab Pinnacle Car Services Premier Dermatology & Skin Renewal Center Procter & Gamble
Sue and Charles Redfield Roblee Orthodontics Rockline Industries Dennis and Evelyn Shaw Esther Silver-Parker Mark and Diane Simmons Charitable Fund Steinway & Sons Tartaglino Richards Family Foundation The Hershey Company The Segal Family Foundation The William M. Fuller Foundation Demara Titzer Wright Lindsey Jennings
CRYSTAL BRIDGES MEMBER MAGAZINE
APRIL 2017
VOL VI ISSUE I
C MAGAZINE IS THE MEMBERSHIP PUBLICATION FOR CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART.
Member Priority Line: 479.418.5728 MON • TUE • 8 am to 5 pm WED • THU • FRI 8 am to 9 pm SAT • SUN 10 am to 4 pm
COVER: Dale Chihuly, Sole d’Oro, 2017, 13 1/2 x 14 x 14’, THIS PAGE, TOP LEFT: Fire Orange Basket in process, The Boathouse hotshop, Seattle, 2013, THIS PAGE, TOP RIGHT: Photographer unknown, Buckminster Fuller in front of his last dome prototype made of fiberglass, early 1980’s. Courtesy, The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller. THIS PAGE, BOTTOM: Ghada Amer. Photo by Brian Buckley.
Purchase gift memberships with a 10% discount at CrystalBridges.org/Membership.
FEATURES
DALE CHIHULY
TESTING THE LIMITS
A MAN OF THE UNIVERSE BUCKMINSTER FULLER
DROPPED STITCHES
A CONVERSATION WITH GHADA AMER
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WHAT’S NEW
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MEMBERS
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ACQUISITIONS/NEW ON VIEW
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EXHIBITION SPOTLIGHT
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CHIHULY-INSPIRED PROGRAMS
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TRAILS & GROUNDS
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THE VAULT
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BACK STORY
28
A CLOSER LOOK
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CELEBRATIONS
36
PHILANTHROPY
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MUSEUM STORE
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LAST WORD
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This summer, you will be able to explore and enjoy the museum’s north grounds like never before.
MEMBER MAGAZINE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHIEF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION OFFICER
Rod Bigelow DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Sandy Edwards CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER
Jill Wagar DIRECTOR OF CURATORIAL AFFAIRS
Margi Conrads DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Diane Carroll EDITOR
Linda DeBerry CREATIVE SERVICES MANAGER
Anna Vernon LEAD DESIGNER
Laura Hicklin CONTRIBUTORS
Chad Alligood Alejo Benedetti Mindy Besaw Drew Divilbiss Lauren Haynes Dylan Turk Jill Wagar EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Alison Nation PHOTOGRAPHY
Marc Henning Stephen Ironside Dero Sanford Beth Hall MEMBERSHIP & DEVELOPMENT
THE COMPLETION OF THE NORTH ELEVATOR AND PAVED TRAIL WILL MAKE IT EASIER TO ACCESS THE NORTH FOREST AND THE NORTH LAWN; and we’ll have new attractions to encourage you to do both.
Ana Aguayo Robyn Alley Hannah Brown Jodi Burks Brandi Cline Angela Hodges Emily Ironside Anne Jackson Kaylin McLoud Megan Martin Ashley Wardlow
The opening of the temporary exhibition, Chihuly: In the Forest, brings art and nature together on the Museum grounds in an exciting new way. I for one am looking forward to experiencing the otherworldly beauty of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures in the Museum’s north forest. This exhibition promises to be something of a Wonderland experience, with magical creations to see at every turn of the trail—and especially stunning at night, when the works will be illuminated! This summer will also see the installation of Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome on Crystal Bridges’ north lawn. The addition of the dome solidifies the Museum’s commitment to architecture as one of our three primary focuses, along with art and nature. With the opening of Fuller’s dome, our guests can experience the work of three world-class architects in one visit: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian house, Moshe Safdie’s breathtaking design of the Museum itself, and Fuller’s futuristic vision for American domestic architecture.
Do we have your email address? If you’re not getting special announcements, event reminders, and our eNewsletter, then the answer is no.
Don’t miss a thing. Send your email address to embership@crystalbridges.org Environmentally friendly 100% Recycled (post-consumer waste) Made with renewable energy
There’s so much to look forward to! LINDA DEBERRY EDITOR
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Acid Free
WHAT’S NEW?
STORIES FROM THE WALL
GUESTS SHARE FAMILY MIGRATION STORIES IN THE BORDER CANTOS EXHIBITION “MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER LEFT EUROPE AS A YOUNG LADY AROUND 1900-1910. She took the name of the man she came to America with as his “indentured” servant to hide her identity. To this day, no one in her family knows her real last name, where she came from, or why, exactly. We assume she was Jewish and fled in response to the pogroms and mob attacks on Jews. I’m glad you came, Great Gma Minnie. I wish I knew your name.”
Stephen Ironside
“1-6-69 MY ABUELA PLACED HER TWO CHILDREN ON A PLANE IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT. No idea if she’d see them again. My dad was 15, fleeing Castro. 19 years later I was born in New Jersey. Free. Free to do and be whatever I wanted. Today I work for an institution that is a platform for our most essential freedom: speech. Gracias Abuela, Gracias Papa.”
“MY PARENTS AND I CAME TO THE US LEGALLY. We worked hard and we never
“MY GRANDMOTHER CROSSED THE GERMAN WALL WHEN IT WAS BARBED WIRE. For three years she
took anything for granted. Nothing was free. Today, we are US citizens, and it was a long and expensive journey to get here.”
lived in basements filled with rats until finally escaping to France.”
“MY PARENTS LEFT EL SALVADOR DURING THE CIVIL WAR. They
“BOTH MY PARENTS ARE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. When they were deported
crossed the border at the age of 18 and made it to Los Angeles, California, with nothing on their backs but HOPE.”
I was sent to a foster home with a family that abused me.”
“MY FAMILY WAS DEPORTED FOR BEING JEWISH FROM AMSTERDAM to Poland then to Lvov to the gas chambers. My grandma escaped to the USA.”
“MY GREAT GRANDFATHER MISSED THE TITANIC BY ONE DAY, IMMIGRATING FROM FRANCE. He then settled in Louisiana to open a frog farm.”
“ABUELA LEFT ECUADOR FOR THE US IN 1970. As a seamstress, she would
“MY MOTHER CROSSED THE BORDER, PREGNANT, THROUGH A MOUNTAIN, RISKING HER LIFE AND MINE. She
eventually save enough to help sponsor my grandpa, mom, and uncles.”
was near death when an American couple helped them with water and a ride.”
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WHAT’S NEW?
ALICE WALTON RECEIVES CULTURAL LEADERSHIP AWARD THIS PAST NOVEMBER, CRYSTAL BRIDGES BOARD CHAIR, ALICE WALTON (pictured, right, with AFA Director Pauline Willis), received the prestigious American Federation for the Arts Cultural Leadership Award. These awards are given annually to an artist, museum leader, or philanthropist in
recognition of their outstanding contributions to the art community. The American Federation of Arts is the leader in traveling exhibitions internationally. A nonprofit organization founded in 1909, the AFA is dedicated to enriching the public’s experience and understanding of the
visual arts through organizing and touring art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishing exhibition catalogs featuring important scholarly research, and developing educational programs.
“ Ms. Walton’s singular commitment to the
arts, as well as her pioneering efforts to bring world-class art to her community in Bentonville deeply resonate with the AFA’s mission of bringing art of the highest quality to communities throughout the country.
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PAULINE WILLIS, AFA DIRECTOR
SINCE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S BACHMAN-WILSON HOUSE OPENED AT CRYSTAL BRIDGES in November of 2015, more than 100,000 visitors have toured the structure. With such high traffic, it is imperative that the Museum provide an ongoing program of maintenance and repair of the house in order to assure its availability for generations of visitors to come. To help fund this program, the
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Museum has begun charging a $10 per person fee for guided tours of the house for non-members. Crystal Bridges Members, however, can join a guided tour at no cost. Self-guided tours will continue to be free for all guests, as is the audio guide, now available in both English and Spanish. Reserve your tickets online or by calling our Member Priority Line: 479.418.5728.
Left: Kelly Taub for AFA.
GUIDED TOURS OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT HOUSE NOW A PERK OF MEMBERSHIP
A world of wonder waiting to be explored. Only at Crystal Bridges.
Mitchell Williams
Free for Members. In the Gallery + In the Forest, June 3 – Aug 14, $20. In the Forest, Aug 16 – Nov 13, $10.
Bill and Beverley Bickell Family
Rick and Beverly Chapman Family
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MEMBERSHIP PERKS FOR YOU IN 2017 MEMBER SCOOP SERIES GIVES YOU A BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK Members get a chance to meet and interact with Museum staff and learn more about the inner workings of the Museum. It’s free and exclusively for Crystal Bridges Members!
GET YOUR GUEST TICKETS TO CHIHULY: IN THE GALLERY AND IN THE FOREST!
Watch your monthly Members eNewsletter for upcoming topics and registration information!
Don’t forget that as a Member, you receive a number of Guest Tickets to each Temporary Exhibition. The number of passes available to you depends on your level of membership.
DEEPEN YOUR MEMBER EXPERIENCE WITH artinfusion!
GUEST TICKETS PER ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP CONTRIBUTION Student and Individual Members: 1 Dual/Family Members: 2 Associate Members: 4 Contributing Members: 6 Sustaining Members and above: 12 Guest Tickets may be ordered in the Museum’s main lobby or by calling the Member Priority Line at 479.418.5728.
GO GREEN WITH AUTO-RENEWAL Cut back on paper use by enrolling in auto-renewal the next time you renew your Crystal Bridges’ membership. Just use a credit card and we’ll automatically renew your membership at the same time each year and notify you in advance!
Artinfusion is an enhancement program for Crystal Bridges Members, ages 21 to 40s. Artinfusion PROGRAMS INCLUDE: EXCURSIONS: visits to artist studios, galleries, or arts events MONTHLY INSIGHTS: happy hours with artistic enhancements Artinfusion TRAVEL: an annual travel experience to explore art scenes around the country FREE ADMISSION TO artinfusion SIGNATURE PARTIES: The Black Hearts Ball, Halloween in the Hollow, and Summer Fling. That’s an annual value of approximately $200 per person!
You can add artinfusion to your regular Crystal Bridges membership at any level for just $35 for an individual or $55 for a dual/family Member.
Go online to learn more today at CrystalBridges.org/Membership, or call the Member Priority Line: 479.418.5728.
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2017 MEMBER TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES LONDON (OCT 2–6) ACCESS LONDON: ART ACROSS THE POND
TRAVELING WITH CRYSTAL BRIDGES OFFERS YOU, OUR MEMBERS, A VARIETY OF OPPORTUNITIES TO DISCOVER REGIONAL, NATIONAL, AND INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL DESTINATIONS. Explore major art
This travel opportunity is available for Members giving $10,000 or more annually. Trip highlights include VIP access to Frieze London and Frieze Masters in The Regent’s Park, private collections, museums, and more! Frieze London focuses on contemporary art and living artists. The fair’s exhibiting galleries represent some of the most exciting artists working today, from the emerging to the iconic. To participate in all programmed events, travel days should be on or before October 1 and on or after October 7. The travel fee for this trip is $4,500 per person.
destinations with fellow Members and Museum leadership. Experience the special access opportunities offered through your association with Crystal Bridges. Each trip is designed to give you an inside look into the art world through visits to art fairs, museums, galleries, artist studios, private collections, and more! Travel opportunities are offered to various levels of Membership. Each trip will have a maximum capacity, so please register as early as possible. Registration for each trip can be made online or by emailing anne.jackson@crystalbridges.org. Travel fees vary by trip and cover all meals, transportation at the destination site, and admission fees as scheduled on the itinerary. Transportation to and from the destination and all lodging will be the responsibility of each guest. More details about each trip will be emailed to Members and individual donors at the respective levels of opportunity. We look forward to traveling with you!
MIAMI BEACH (DEC 6–8) ART FAIR 101
OKLAHOMA CITY (APR 21–22)
COMING SOON ARTINFUSION IN DENVER!
Our All-Member “Art in America’s Heartland” trip is full. Watch the Crystal Bridges blog for story and photos in May!
SEATTLE (AUG 3–5) ENGAGE IN THE EMERALD CITY This travel opportunity is available for Members giving $1,500 or more annually. Trip highlights include special access tours and opportunities at the Seattle Art Fair, Seattle Art Museum, private collections, and more! Join us to experience and engage in all that Seattle’s art scene has to offer. To participate in all programmed events, travel days should be on or before August 2 and on or after August 6. The travel fee for this trip is $2,000 per person.
This travel opportunity is available for Members giving $1,500 or more annually. Trip highlights include special access to Art Basel Miami Beach and many other satellite fairs and events during one of the art world’s most anticipated weeks of the year! Art Basel Miami Beach stages leading galleries from across the globe to show significant work from the masters of Modern and contemporary art, as well the new generation of emerging artists. Experience the excitement and dive into Art Basel with us! To participate in all programmed events, travel days should be on or before December 5 and on or after December 9. The travel fee for this trip is $2,500 per person.
The annual artinfusion trip will explore the Denver art world later this year. Dates to be announced. The travel fee for this trip is $750. *Travel fees include all admission fees, meals, and ground transportation as noted on the itinerary. Travel fees do not include airfare or lodging; however, Crystal Bridges will offer discounted hotel rates and group blocks. Trips will be marketed individually, and a minimum number of guests will be required for each trip to make.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT CRYSTALBRIDGES.ORG/ MEMBER-TRAVEL OR CONTACT ANNE JACKSON: 479.418.5789 OR ANNE.JACKSON@CRYSTALBRIDGES.ORG
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ACQUISITIONS & NEW ON VIEW Carmen Herrera Cerulean, 1965 Acrylic on canvas
LEARN MORE ABOUT NEW ACQUISITIONS WITH OUR MONTHLY “WHAT’S NEW” GALLERY CONVERSATIONS. MUSEUM CURATORS AND STAFF HIGHLIGHT NEW WORKS IN OUR
Herrera’s (b. 1915) diamond-shaped abstract painting Cerulean (1965). Herrera was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1915, and studied art in Paris, where she exhibited alongside great abstract artists like Piet Mondrian. She moved to New York in the 1950s. Once there, she was part of an emerging cadre of artists exploring abstract modes of painting, and became close with Leon Polk Smith, among other artists in the Crystal Bridges collection. Beginning in 1965, the year she made Cerulean, Herrera pushed beyond her typical format of rectangular geometric forms and embraced circles and diamonds as formats for her painting. Herrera studied architecture along with art, and the complexity of architectural space deeply informed her painting practice. You can see this attention to three-dimensional space in her painted works, which often take the form of “a cut in space,” as the artist herself once described it. Long neglected due to her status as an immigrant and a woman, Herrera has garnered attention late in her life, receiving her first solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York last year. Though she has been a painter for all of her adult life, Herrera sold her first painting when she was 89 years old. Today, at 101, she still paints every day. When you see this important new acquisition hanging among its contemporaries, remember Herrera’s reflection on her hard-won career: “Don’t be intimidated about anything.” CHAD ALLIGOOD CURATOR
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PERMANENT COLLECTION. GO ONLINE FOR A FULL SCHEDULE.
Carmen Herrera, Cerulean, 1965, acrylic on canvas, 69 1/8 × 68 1/4 × 1 5/8 in. © Carmen Herrera.
ON YOUR NEXT VISIT TO THE 1940S TO NOW GALLERY, YOU’LL FIND SOMETHING NEW ON VIEW: Carmen
ACQUISITIONS & NEW ON VIEW
Alice Neel Hugh Hurd, 1964 Oil on canvas ALICE NEEL (1900–1984) IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AMERICAN PORTRAIT PAINTERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. During her decades-long career,
TOP: Felrath Hines, Untitled (Abstraction), ca. 1960, oil on linen, 48 1/8 in. × 60 in. × 7/8 in. RIGHT: Alice Neel, Hugh Hurd, 1964, oil on canvas, 40 1/4 × 30 1/4 in. Photography by Edward C. Robison III.
Felrath Hines Untitled (Abstraction), ca. 1960 Oil on linen FELRATH HINES (1913–1993) WAS AN ABSTRACT PAINTER WHO SPENT THE BEGINNING OF HIS ARTISTIC CAREER CREATING ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES before developing his innovative style of geometric abstractions. Our recent acquisition, Untitled (Abstraction), above, is a foundational work for Hines as it shows a progression from his abstract landscapes of the early 1950s to his geometric abstractions of the 1970s and ‘80s, while always prioritizing his interest in and explorations of color. Hines’s ability to choose, layer, and connect colors is one thing that allows him to stand out amongst abstractionists of his time. Hines was a member of Spiral, a groundbreaking group of African American artists, active from 1963 to ‘65, who were committed to discussing the role and responsibilities of Black artists in the civil rights movement. In addition to his fine-arts training, Hines trained as an art conservator and spent much of his career working at major North American art museums, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, where he retired as chief conservator in 1984. Hines’s skill as a conservator led fellow artist Georgia O’Keeffe to request that he work on the conservation of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection at Fisk University, which Crystal Bridges now shares with Fisk. LAUREN HAYNES CURATOR
Neel resisted the fashionable avant-garde art movements of the era that favored abstraction or conceptual art. She painted subjects of personal interest to her: the people in her everyday life. Through her use of flat, unmixed color, bold outlines, and expressive brushstrokes, she captured the intimate details of an individual’s personality, instilling her own impressions of her sitters into striking portraits filled with character, complexity, and vulnerability. Born near Philadelphia in 1900, Neel moved to New York City in the 1930s and became an artist with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). During this time she also involved herself in leftist politics, an influence that carried through her entire career. Neel often portrayed people living at the margins of society who were overlooked based on economic status, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality. Her portraits are hardly “pretty”; Neel depicted her subjects with warts, flabby flesh, and all, and used her brush to express the painful inner soul of her sitters as much as their outward appearance. She lived and worked in New York City’s Spanish Harlem neighborhood for many years, and painted many of the everyday people she met there. “I decided to paint a human comedy...” she said. “I painted the neurotic, the mad and the miserable. I am a collector of Souls.” The man featured in this work, Hugh Hurd (1925-1995), left, was an actor and civil rights activist in the 1950s and ‘60s. Along with Maya Angelou, Hurd helped to organize one of the first benefits for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in New York City, and he was a cofounder of the Committee for the Employment of Negro Performers in 1962. LAUREN HAYNES CURATOR STACE TREAT INTERPRETATION MANAGER
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LEFT: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918, platinum print, image: 3 9/16 × 4 1/2 in. Gift of the Doris Bry Trust. Photo by Edward C. Robison III. BELOW: Georgia O’Keeffe, [Pen-Tab sketchbook], n.d., graphite on paper, closed: 11 3/4 in. × 8 7/8 in. Gift of the Doris Bry Trust. Photo by Stephen Ironside.
O’Keeffe Sketchbook & Stieglitz Photograph THE CRYSTAL BRIDGES COLLECTION CURRENTLY HOLDS WORKS REPRESENTING MOST STAGES OF GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S CAREER, so the Museum was thrilled to accept a gift of three O’Keeffe sketchbooks to complement the paintings in the collection. Sketches of sailboats, architectural details, trees, skulls, flowers, a windmill, cows, and landscapes fill approximately 35 pages. From minimal line drawings to renderings in full color, the variety of images and levels of finish provide a rare insight into O’Keeffe’s working methods. While these are the first full sketchbooks the Museum has acquired, studies and sketches form an important, although not always visible, part of the collection. Crystal Bridges owns nature studies by nineteenth-century artists and figure studies by artists such as John Singer Sargent, among others. A photograph of O’Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz was also included in the gift. Stieglitz was a photographer, influential gallery owner, and eventually O’Keeffe’s husband. He began photographing O’Keeffe in 1917, the year she moved to New York. Their first summer together in 1918 (when this photograph was taken) inspired a tremendous output of more than 50 photographs. This particular portrait exemplifies the intimacy that characterized the early years of their relationship. The photograph and sketchbooks are a bequest of Doris Bry, a leading authority on the works of Stieglitz and O’Keeffe. Bry, along with O’Keeffe, organized the Stieglitz estate and together they arranged for institutions across the United States to receive gifts from the Stieglitz Collection, including Fisk University. The Fisk collection is now jointly owned by Fisk University and Crystal Bridges. MINDY BESAW CURATOR
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From minimal line drawings to renderings in full color, the variety of images and levels of finish provide a rare insight into O’Keeffe’s working methods.
TOP: Nari Ward, We the People (black version), 2015, shoelaces, 96 in. × 27 ft. Installation view, The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now, MCA Chicago, July 11—November 22, 2015. BOTTOM: Tom Wesselmann, Dropped Bra (Big Maquette), ca. 1978-1980, enamel on aluminum, 28 × 58 × 22 in. Gift of John Wilmerding. Photo by Edward C. Robison III.
ACQUISITIONS & NEW ON VIEW
Nari Ward We the People (black version), 2015 Shoelaces
Tom Wesselmann Dropped Bra (Big Maquette), ca. 1978-1980 Enamel on aluminum
WORKING IN AND AROUND NEW YORK CITY, Nari Ward Thanks to a gift from board member and longtime Crystal (b. 1963) often uses the detritus from the streets around him— cast-off materials that he gathers and then displays anew in his artworks. In We the People, above, Ward depicts the three most recognizable words of the United States Constitution. The opening phrase of the Preamble is spelled out using holes bored into the wall of the gallery in an outline of the elegant script we associate with the Constitution’s original document. Into each of those holes, Ward inserts a hand-dyed shoelace, allowing the shoestring to hang limply. The effect is surprising: the elegant letters seem to drip down the wall. The work remains striking and impressive, but the refined dignity of the script is tempered by the use of everyday shoelaces.
Bridges supporter, John Wilmerding, we welcome Dropped Bra (Big Maquette), below, into our collection. One of five “big maquettes,” this sculpture was a trial for a larger sculpture of the same subject. An important Pop artist, Wesselmann came to be known for his sensual depictions of women. With Dropped Bra we see the allusion to eroticism in an everyday object. Or do we? In this work, one of the masters of Pop invites viewers to consider how we assign meaning to otherwise banal objects. Although this crumpled bra isn’t particularly sexy, our culture conditions us to think of it as sexy. Wesselmann’s sculpture asks us to examine this predisposition. ALEJO BENEDETTI ASSISTANT CURATOR
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CHIHULY: IN THE GALLERY AND IN THE FOREST “ I want my work to appear like it came
from nature, so that if someone found it on a beach or in the forest, they might think it belonged there. DALE CHIHULY, 1996
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THIS SPRING, CRYSTAL BRIDGES WILL OPEN DUAL EXHIBITIONS BY THE AMERICAN SCULPTOR DALE CHIHULY. Chihuly: In the Gallery and In the Forest will be on view not only inside the Museum’s temporary exhibitions galleries, but also outdoors, along the newly renovated North Forest Trail. This dual exhibition will be the first time Chihuly’s breathtaking glass installations will be on view in a natural forest environment, rather than a botanical garden or other manmade landscape. Although Chihuly’s work has been shown at institutions and botanical gardens across the country, the presentation at Crystal Bridges will allow Chihuly’s work to be seen within the larger context of American art. The indoor exhibition, Chihuly: In the Gallery, features key moments of Chihuly’s body of work, including a collection of the artist’s Cylinders, slumped glass Baskets, Persians, and Venetians, accompanied by original Chihuly drawings related to each series. Chihuly: In the Forest includes forms such as Belugas, Red Reeds, Tumbleweeds, two outdoor Chandeliers, a Boat, and a Sun. These works will be installed in the woods
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at intervals around one loop of the new North Forest Trail (see map and additional information on page 20). This exhibition highlights Chihuly’s signature works and recent creations in a museum-wide experience of light, color, and shape that showcases his innovative techniques and masterful forms. Chihuly sees glass as an art form of fire, breath, light, and gravity, and the exhibition highlights the unique properties of glass as a medium. Chihuly’s art is inspired by the natural world, Indigenous influences, and international experiences, especially with Italian glass masters (and in places such as Japan, Finland, Ireland, and Mexico). His working process follows the long tradition of glassblowing and is based on teamwork. Chihuly is globally renowned for his ambitious site-specific glass installations. Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Chihuly established the glass program at the Rhode Island School of Design and co-founded Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. He has received numerous awards and honorary degrees and has works of art included in more than 250 museum collections.
LEFT: Dale Chihuly, Sole d’Oro, 2017, 13 1/2 x 14 x 14. RIGHT, TOP: Dale Chihuly, Boathouse 7 Neon, 2016, 8 x 27 x 16’, Seattle. RIGHT, BOTTOM: Dale Chihuly, Rotolo Drawings, 2013, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, 2015.
EXHIBITION SPOTLIGHT
MEMBERS SEE IT FIRST! From May 27 through June 2, Crystal Bridges Members will enjoy an exclusive, week-long period to preview the exhibition before it opens to the public on June 3. Reserve your Preview tickets today online or by calling the Member Priority Line: 479. 418.5728. Members at the Circle level and above will have the opportunity to attend the Director’s Reception for the exhibition on the evening of May 27. The event will include a first look at Chihuly’s original glass sculptures, paintings, drawings, and mixed media in the gallery, as well as a special shuttle tour of the outdoor installation featuring the artist’s vibrant, monumental glassworks inspired by the natural world. To renew or upgrade your membership, contact Hannah Brown at 479.657.2367 or at Hannah.Brown@crystalbridges.org. Don’t miss Chihuly: In the Gallery and In the Forest! This promises to be among the most popular exhibitions Crystal Bridges has ever hosted! Reserved, timed tickets will be required. Reserve your tickets today!
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D C
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DALE CHIHULY
TESTING THE LIMITS
LEFT: Dale Chihuly, 2017. RIGHT: Chihuly, David Levy, and hotshop team, The Boathouse hotshop, Seattle, 1993.
LINDA DEBERRY EDITOR
DALE CHIHULY HAS BEEN AN INNOVATOR IN GLASS ART FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS, working in many media including glass, paint, plastics, neon, and ice, and always pushing their boundaries to carry out his distinctive vision. He changed the way we think about glass, stretching the medium (both literally and figuratively) to new realms of possibility. Chihuly began his scholastic career studying interior design and architecture, and his first artmaking experience was with weaving. Chihuly’s initial foray into using glass as a medium was in the form of stained glass, which he incorporated into early fiber works. He knew little about the craft of glassblowing, and discovered it by accident, dipping a pipe into a blob of melted glass and blowing his first glass vessel as an experiment. He was mesmerized, and never looked back.
Chihuly’s process differs from traditional glassblowing in that, rather than maintaining rigid control of the glass during creation, he takes a more organic approach: exploring the glass’s natural movement and reaction to gravity, and experimenting with ways to test the medium’s limits. “The technology hasn’t really changed,” he explained. “We use the same tools they used 2,000 years ago. The difference is that when I started, everyone wanted to control the blowing process. I just went with it. The natural elements of fire, movement, gravity, and centrifugal force were always there, and are always with us. The difference was that I worked in this abstract way and could let the forces of nature have a bigger role in the ultimate shape.”
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“ When you’re working with transparent materials, when
you’re looking at glass, plastic, ice, or water, you’re looking at light itself. The light is coming through, and you see that cobalt blue, that ruby red, whatever the color might be— you’re looking at the light and the color mixed together. DALE CHIHULY, 2000
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medium. His many-colored Macchia series, for which he strove to use every color of glass in his studio, employs a “cloud” layer of white glass between the inner and outer surfaces, which helps to brighten the colors. Using this layering process, he found a way to combine different colors of glass, which normally react negatively when brought together. An auto accident in 1976 left Chihuly without sight in his left eye, limiting his ability to work safely with the molten material in the hotshop. From that time forward he assumed the role of artistic visionary, guiding a team in the development of his artwork. This capacity enabled Chihuly to push the limits of the material in terms of size and form, leading to the realization of complex multipart installations and large-scale sculpture. In this, he is not unlike Andy Warhol, whose Factory studio in New York employed a small army of friends and acquaintances who helped produce Warhol’s famous prints. Today Chihuly continues to push the boundaries and innovate in a variety of media, including paint, sculpture, polyvitro, glass, and neon.
RIGHT: Flora C. Mace, Chihuly, Joey Kirkpatrick, and James Mongrain, The Boathouse hotshop, Seattle, 2012.
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Some have likened Chihuly’s process to that of Action Painters like Jackson Pollock. Chihuly’s paintings are vigorous and gestural, employing acrylic color on paper in riotous color. His method of creating blown glass is also naturalistic and spontaneous, using gravity and the heat of the furnace to develop complex, multipart sculptures of dramatic beauty. One of Chihuly’s major innovations in glassblowing is collaboration among artists. He studied glass working among master craftsmen in Venice and admired their team approach to the art. While most American glass artists were working alone, focusing on personal expression and technique, Chihuly began working with a partner while he was still at the University of Wisconsin, and continued collaborating with other artists, as well as with teams of assistants, throughout his career. Crystal Bridges holds in its permanent collection a neon and glass work from Chihuly’s early period. Created around 1970, this work was made in partnership with fellow artist James Carpenter—part of a body of works inspired by the shapes of exotic flowers. Chihuly is often inspired by natural shapes, and by Native American traditions that also draw upon natural sources. His signature look began with the Baskets series in the late 1970s, which were inspired by the slumping, organic shape of Native American baskets. These morphed into even more organic shapes: the Seaforms series, which evoke the amorphous, fluid forms of jellyfish, sea cucumbers, or the ripples of water. “Water is the one thing that I can assure you is a major influence on my work and my life and everything I do,” he said, and he claims to draw inspiration from the rainy climate of the Pacific Northwest, which he calls home. Over his long career, Chihuly has created forms inspired by a wide range of sources: Navajo blankets, Ikebana flower arrangements, Japanese fishing floats, Pueblo pottery, Baroque decorative arts, Murano Art Deco pieces, and more. In so doing, he has invented a number of innovative ways to get what he wants from his sometimes challenging
STATE OF THE ART ARTIST FLORA MACE (LEFT) HAS COLLABORATED WITH CHIHULY AND FELLOW ARTISTS JOEY KIRKPATRICK AND JAMES MONGRAIN, CREATING GLASS-THREAD “DRAWINGS” THAT WERE INCORPORATED INTO SOME OF HIS NAVAJO BLANKET CYLINDERS SERIES.
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CHIHULYINSPIRED PROGRAMS AT CRYSTAL BRIDGES CHIHULY: IN THE GALLERY AND IN THE FOREST WILL BE ON VIEW AT CRYSTAL BRIDGES AS A DUAL INDOOR AND OUTDOOR EXHIBITION from June 3 through August 14, with the outdoor exhibition remaining on view on the museum grounds through November 13. The exhibition has prompted a flurry of inspired programming at the Museum, which will take place through the summer and into the fall. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s ahead:
ESPECIALLY FOR MEMBERS WEEK-LONG EXCLUSIVE MEMBER PREVIEW May 27 through June 2
MEMBER SCOOP Friday, June 2, 9 to 10 am
LEARN ABOUT THE ART
An exclusive opportunity to enjoy the gallery exhibit before the Museum opens to the public. In conjunction with this special tour, Museum staff will discuss the collaborations taking place behind the scenes to develop programs and a valuable guest experience. Limited capacity.
CHIHULY EXHIBITION OPENING LECTURE Friday, June 2, 7 to 8 pm Tina Oldknow, former Curator of Modern Glass at Corning Museum of Glass, introduces the Chihuly exhibition. Oldknow worked closely with Chihuly on exhibitions such as Chihuly over Venice and will share insights on his work.
ART BUZZ - ALL ABOUT GLASS Beginning August 23 This three-part series will take a special twist on glass arts, and includes wine, appetizers, and conversation.
COMING THIS SUMMER CHIHULY NIGHTS Every Saturday night from June 3 to August 12, 6 to 10 pm
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Spend your Saturday nights this summer enjoying our music series, Chihuly Nights. Explore the stunning exhibition Chihuly: In the Forest transformed into a magical woodland with live music, circus acts, artist demonstrations, artmaking, outdoor games, a food truck, and more. Tickets are free for Members.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Dale Chihuly, Neodymium Reeds and Seal Pups, 2012, Chihuly Garden and Glass, Seattle. Dale Chihuly, Boathouse 7 Neon (detail), 2016, 8 x 27 x 16’ The Boathouse, Seattle. Dale Chihuly, Azure Icicle Chandelier (detail), 2016, 17 1/2 x 9 x 8 1/2’. Dale Chihuly with Tumbleweeds, Tacoma Dome, Tacoma, Washington, 1993.
Members will have a full week to view Chihuly: In the Gallery and In the Forest before the exhibitions open to the public. Make plans to join us! Timed tickets required.
COMING SOON
MAKE ART MINI ARTMAKING WORKSHOPS Join our series of mini adult workshops inspired by the exhibition. Each evening workshop will feature a new studio project that draws inspiration from this special exhibition and is led by local, practicing artists. Register for each workshop separately. Members receive 20% off registration fee.
CRAFT SQUARED Enjoy hands-on artmaking plus two glasses of craft beer for a Friday evening of foam and fun!
» DRAWING June 23, 6:30 to 8:30 pm Grab a squirt bottle and discover drawing processes inspired by the exhibition.
» TWISTED July 21, 6:30 to 8:30 pm Get inspired by the art in the exhibition and discover what you can safely melt to create your own sculptural works of art!
ART BY THE GLASS Sip wine while making art with our art educators on a Friday night.
» MISSHAPEN MASTERPIECE August 25, 6:30 to 8:30 pm Reshape the way you make art in this evening class pairing wine with artmaking. We’ll look at how artists use angles, edges, and shapes!
ADULT WORKSHOPS Spend a Sunday afternoon learning a new technique and take a work of art home.
» WEAVING WITH GLASS: ELEANOR LUX July 16, 1 to 5 pm Led by Eureka Springs artist Eleanor Lux, this workshop covers the basics of tapestry weaving using a variety of colors and patterns, including glass beads and objects. LOOK FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THESE AND OTHER PROGRAMS INSPIRED BY THE CHIHULY EXHIBITION IN YOUR MEMBERS CALENDAR OF EVENTS, OR CHECK THEM OUT ONLINE AT CRYSTALBRIDGES.ORG/CHIHULY.
» JEWELRY August 20, 1 to 5 pm Create wearable works of art in this workshop covering the basics of wire wrapping and bead setting.
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CHIHULY: IN THE FOREST The new North Forest Trail opens just in time for Crystal Bridges’ first outdoor exhibition. Chihuly: In the Forest will feature several installations of Dale Chihuly’s stunning signature glass sculptures along the near loop of the new trail.
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TRAILS & GROUNDS
“ The forest functions on its own different time scale.
The real payoff is not for this generation, but for the next, that’s how we look at it. CLAY BAKKER, TRAILS
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AND GROUNDS MANAGER
WALK THIS WAY NORTH FOREST TRAIL OPENING SOON
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LINDA DEBERRY EDITOR
Dale Chihuly, Neodymium Reeds and Seal Pups, 2012, Chihuly Garden and Glass, Seattle.
THE OPENING OF THE UPCOMING TEMPORARY EXHIBITION CHIHULY: IN THE GALLERY AND IN THE FOREST is also the grand re-opening of Crystal Bridges’ North Forest Trail. A year in the making, this 1.1-mile paved trail will dramatically increase accessibility of the Museum’s natural landscape, especially for visitors with wheels (be they wheelchairs, strollers, or mobility scooters). The new trail is 10 feet wide, paved, and includes public restrooms. Although there are some areas of gentle incline, the path has been engineered to soften any steep grades, so that guests with mobility issues will be able to experience the North Forest for the first time. A hawk’s-eye view of the new trail shows a large figure eight that crosses through the center of the forest. The trail will also have access to electricity, which means the exhibitions team will be able to light the outdoor artworks that will be featured in the Chihuly: In the Forest exhibition. Viewing hours will be expanded so that guests can take advantage of the opportunity to view these stunning artworks by night. Over time, the entire North Forest Trail will be lighted. Careful consideration is going into the lighting plan in order to balance the need for accessibility and safety with the Museum’s desire to keep light pollution to a minimum, both for the quality of the guest experience and for the wildlife that calls the forest home. As planning moves forward for the eventual installation of permanent artworks along this trail, the grounds team and curatorial team are entering unknown territory. “We are introducing art into a natural setting that creates a viewing experience that’s unique,” said Clay Bakker, Trails and Grounds Manager. Unlike most sculpture gardens, this trail will preserve
its wild forest nature, while still functioning as an “outdoor gallery” for thoughtfully placed and curated artworks. “Landscape architects don’t typically go to school to learn to work with curators,” said Scott Eccleston, Director of Operations. “We want this to be a different experience and there are very few roadmaps of how to do it.” Bakker and Eccleston are both quick to point out that the opening of the new trail and installation of its first exhibition is only the beginning of a long-term vision for the Museum’s North Forest. “We’re planning for outcomes that go well beyond our own work, here,” Bakker said. “The forest functions on its own different time scale. The real payoff is not for this generation, but for the next, that’s how we look at it.”
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A Man of the Universe 22
DYLAN TURK CURATORIAL ASSISTANT
RICHARD BUCKMINSTER FULLER WAS THE FORWARDTHINKING DESIGNER OF THE FLY’S EYE DOME, WHICH WILL BE INSTALLED ON CRYSTAL BRIDGES’ NORTH LAWN THIS SPRING. “Bucky,” as he was most commonly known, was an author, designer, thinker, and philosopher whose broad scope of work and revolutionary ideas touched nearly every aspect of modern American life. When Fuller received the Presidential Medal of Freedom—America’s highest civilian honor—in 1983, President Ronald Reagan remarked:
“ A true Renaissance Man, and
one of the greatest minds of our times, Richard Buckminster Fuller’s contributions as a geometrician, educator, and architect-designer are benchmarks of accomplishment in their fields.
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Buckminster Fuller
Born on July 12, 1895, into one of the most venerable and free-thinking families of Massachusetts, Fuller inherited a legacy of courage and public service. Yet his early career was less than promising. He entered Harvard University, as all Fuller men did, in 1913, but was quickly expelled after he drained his bank account entertaining the chorus girls from Ziegfeld Follies during a night out at the swankiest clubs in Manhattan. After his expulsion, Fuller’s family decided that he would shape up through hard physical work. Fuller began working as an apprentice machine fitter at a textile mill owned by one of his uncles, and he loved it. In the fall of 1914 he was reinstated at Harvard, but expelled the next year for “lacking ambition.” In 1917, after a few years working at Armour and Company, a meat-packing firm in New York City, Fuller enlisted in the US Navy Reserve. There, he proved incredibly apt for engineering by inventing a winch system that allowed rescue boats to raise crashed airplanes from under water to save the pilots from drowning. In the summer of 1917, Fuller married Anne Hewlett, the daughter of prominent New York City architect James Monroe Hewlett. In 1919, Fuller left the Navy to spend more time with
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GEODESIC DOMES A major turning point for Fuller came in 1952 when the Ford Motor Company planned to remodel the Ford Rotunda Building in Dearborn, Michigan. The building was designed to be an architectural showpiece for the company—a cylindrical structure with a massive center atrium crowned in a transparent dome. However, the architects couldn’t figure out how to create a dome that was light enough to be supported by the slender, modern building below. Word of Buckminster Fuller’s experiments with geodesic domes reached Ford officials, so they sent him the problem to solve. Fuller designed an octet truss dome with a translucent plastic skin over the metal structure. The success of the Ford Rotunda Building brought Fuller’s name to the fore in the world of architecture. As the US prepared to defend itself in the Cold War, the Department of Defense commissioned Fuller to design a
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structure that could house radar equipment for the Distant Early Warning system. The structure would need to allow for shortrange radar waves to easily pass through the material while remaining capable of standing up to the harsh temperature and wind conditions at many of the locations where the radar system would be deployed. Fuller created the Radome. It was an almost spherical dome composed of a sturdy plastic that allowed radar waves to pass through. The Radome led to a contract with the Marines for lightweight shelters that could be carried into place by helicopter. By 1959, more than a hundred companies were licensed to manufacture geodesic domes. In St. Louis, a geodesic dome known as the Climatron was constructed out of aluminum and plastic to create a climate- and humidity-controlled tropical paradise of foliage inside. In Baton Rouge, The Union Tank Car Company installed an aluminum dome that was 384 feet across in which to manufacture train cars.
THE FLY’S EYE DOME Even with such incredible success, Fuller continued to push his designs in directions that would anticipate the needs of the future. Fuller believed that if circular openings, called “oculi,” were strategically placed on the dome, similar to the lenses of a fly’s eye, they could allow light and air to enter without compromising the integrity of the structure. In 1966, Fuller began working with John Warren, a young engineer and surf board manufacturer specializing in fiberglass, and Norman Foster, famed and knighted British architect, to develop this structure. Fuller and Warren’s first 24-foot Fly’s Eye Dome prototype was destroyed in a storm. They then further refined the strength of the fiberglass and learned how to enhance the integrity of the whole. After they successfully met the structural needs of the 24-foot dome, they developed 12-foot and 50-foot versions. Today the 12-foot dome is owned by Lord Norman Foster. The 24-foot version is in another private collection. Crystal Bridges acquired the 50-foot structure after it was painstakingly restored by architectural historian Robert Ruben. The installation of the Fly’s Eye Dome at Crystal Bridges will be the first time the structure will have been on view in the US since its original installation in Los Angeles for the 1981 Los Angeles Bicentennial. The Fly’s Eye Dome is sponsored at Crystal Bridges by Ken and Liz Allen, Chip and Susan Chambers, and Harrison and Rhonda French Family.
FULLER ARCHIVE ON VIEW Along with the acquisition of the Fly’s Eye Dome, the Museum has also received Fuller’s complete archive of materials related to its development. The archive contains photographs, drawings, models, and correspondence, and tells the story of the Fly’s Eye Dome program from Buckminster Fuller’s original idea in the late 1960s all the way through his team’s struggle to move forward following his death in 1983. Opening June 30, a focus exhibition of materials from the Fuller archive, never before exhibited publicly, will present a rare exploration into the process of creating the Fly’s Eye Dome.
PREVIOUS PAGE: Photographer unknown, Buckminster Fuller in front of his last dome prototype made of fiberglass, early 1980’s. Courtesy, The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller. THIS PAGE, TOP LEFT: Fuller, John Warren, and unidentified photographer in the 50-foot Fly’s Eye Dome, Los Angeles. TOP RIGHT: R. Buckminster Fuller, 12 Deck 4D Tower, 1928, watercolor and ink. Courtesy, The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller. BOTTOM: Illustration of the Fly’s Eye Dome on Crystal Bridges’ north lawn.
their only child, Alexandra, who had contracted spinal meningitis and infantile paralysis triggered by influenza. Alexandra died in 1922, and Fuller felt partially responsible for her death because of the dampness and draftiness of their home. That same year, Fuller’s father-in-law developed a new system for manufacturing reinforced concrete buildings. Together they formed the Stockade Corporation, a small building company focusing on Hewlett’s system. The company failed to make a profit, and Fuller was fired as president in 1926, but this became his first foray into designing for better housing. One night in 1927, Fuller—feeling worthless and beaten down—walked along the shore of Lake Michigan and contemplated suicide. Later Fuller recounted that as he looked out into the darkness, he heard a voice that told him: “…You think the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to the Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others.” Rather than commit suicide, he re-dedicated his life to humanity. Fuller came to the conclusion that the first step in equality was affordable housing for everyone. The 4D Company was formed with Fuller’s “4D House” as its singular product. The house was designed with efficiency and natural geometry as the guiding characteristics. Fuller’s leading innovation with this structure was the “synergistic” approach to building. “Synergy, well known to chemists, meant the behavior of a whole system that could not be predicted by the behavior of its individual parts,” he explained. The design of the 4D House looked to the design of aircrafts and ships as examples of integrated structures that deflected force from all sides, rather than just from the downward pull of gravity. These were structural models based on what he called “tensegrity”: the balance of tension between elements. The resulting design was composed of a series of hexagonal floors connected to a central pole and secured by tension cables. Fuller’s 4D design was the foundation for his life’s work. Subsequently, he developed many other designs and inventions that looked to nature’s geometry for guidance. The shape of his geodesic domes aren’t mere aesthetic constructs, but are shapes found in the elements that make up the air we breathe, the tissue in our brains, and the particles of the sun—the shapes of the universe.
Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome is currently being installed on the museum’s north lawn, scheduled for completion this summer, Fuller’s Archives will be open in the North Exhibition Gallery on June 30.
AFTER FULLER DIED IN 1983, SCIENTISTS DISCOVERED A NEW CARBON MOLECULE: CARBON 60, WHOSE STRUCTURE WAS SIMILAR TO THAT OF FULLER’S GEODESIC DOMES. IN HIS HONOR, THEY NAMED THE MOLECULE “BUCKMINSTERFULLERENE,” OR MORE COMMONLY, THE BUCKY-BALL. LEO VILLAREAL’S ILLUMINATED SCULPTURE BY THE SAME NAME, LOCATED ON CRYSTAL BRIDGES’ GROUNDS, IS A MODEL OF THIS MOLECULE.
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A LABOR OF LOVE
SOL LEWITT’S MONUMENTAL WALL DRAWING #880: LOOPY DOOPY (ORANGE AND GREEN), which was installed on the wall of the east gallery on Crystal Bridges’ Early Twentieth Century Art Bridge this fall, was the product of a six-week effort by a team of four artists—one Crystal Bridges Assistant Preparator and three interns—working under the direction of two professional “draftsmen” from LeWitt’s studio. While it is considered “on loan” to Crystal Bridges, the artwork was in fact created fresh—painted directly on the wall of the gallery. Although LeWitt himself died in 2007, his studio continues to oversee installation of new incarnations of his artworks in museums around the world. When the loan period for this work has expired, the painting will simply be painted over. Crystal Bridges’ Assistant Preparator Drew Divilbiss was the Museum staff representative on the team who carried out the installation. Museum Editor Linda DeBerry interviewed him about his experience. LD What was the overall procedure for the installation? DD Creating the wall was a process that required four major
stages. The first stage was focused on preparing the physical wall for the design and paint. This meant no fewer than eight rounds of sanding and priming until the wall was almost perfectly smooth and featureless. The second stage involved scaling the composition, creating a grid on the wall, and drawing the image from the gridded mock-up of the artwork. The third stage was the most labor intensive and required the most time. This process created the actual image by taping, masking, and painting each of the two separate parts. The green sections were painted first and the orange section afterward, and many, many layers of paint were applied, as many as three coats a day. Once both sections were painted and the masking was removed, a final varnish was put on the entire wall to prevent fading. LD Was there a book of instructions as to how the work should
be done?
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DD
The process was very detailed and each step was very structured. There was no book with instructions. Each person installing the work was directly instructed by the lead draftsman. As a team, it was very important that we trusted one another to communicate clearly in order to ensure the quality of the work. We depended on each other to help find mistakes. It was nearly impossible to see your own mistakes because of the limited light play on the surface. Each stage of the process was unique and demanded different levels of attention. It was very meditative and liberating. It felt a lot like a sacred ritual; like you were becoming a part of history while participating. LD What was it like working with LeWitt’s studio artists? DD Gabe and Andy, the LeWitt draftsmen, were very insightful
and eager to explain the artist’s intentions. Gabe worked directly with LeWitt for several years and has been recreating wall drawings for him for over 16 years. Now that the artist has passed away, the draftsmen work to maintain the highest quality of work while managing each project. They were a great pleasure to work with. They were very demanding when we were working, but very fun to hang out with outside of the project. We all spent time together outside of work and shared our passions in life. We learned from them and they learned from us. We created art together, both inside and outside of the wall project. We all became close friends. LD How did participating in this installation affect you? DD The most surprising thing was how much I learned from the
project. I’ve been an active studio artist for a long time but this project proved to me that you never stop learning. While working on the wall drawing and learning about the artist’s life, I developed a new appreciation for Sol LeWitt. I also learned a lot about myself. Knowing how a true artist lives,
Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #880: Loopy Doopy (orange and green) (details), 1998/2013/2016, acrylic paint, 17ft. 6 in. × 60ft. 9 in. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, partial gift of the artist and partial museum purchase with funds from Mimi Won and anonymous donor, 2002.48. BOTTOM IMAGE: Photo by Edward C. Robison III.
CREATING A SOL LEWITT WALL DRAWING
THE VAULT
LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT GOES ON BEHIND THE SCENES AT CRYSTAL BRIDGES AT OUR NEW MEMBER SCOOP SERIES (PAGE 40).
creates, and evolves is essential to being an artist. I learned how important it is for an artist to know his/her self and how the art is a part of the life that artist lives. The art is a story of how an artist perceives space, time, and material. The wall project changed a lot about how I look at art and how I create my own work. Every idea matters and is worth seriously pursuing. I learned that my ideas can live long after I am gone.
The hardest part of the project was how bittersweet the experience was. You develop bonds, but everyone goes different ways in the end. We go back to our normal ways of living. I was thought to be the same person I was before the project, but I wasn’t. Something changed and it was me. Whether I grew as a person or just became attached to the project, I wasn’t the same. I embrace the change.
LD What was it like to work with a group of people on one
collaborative project? DD There was an intense level of involvement when working on
the wall drawing. You learn a lot about the artwork, the artist, and each other. Working together six days a week for six weeks creates bonds that you never knew were there until the project ends. Even though we were all very different people with different backgrounds, we shared the experience of creating the wall drawing. The Sol LeWitt wall is much more than what meets the eye to each of the people who created it. It was a moment we shared in our lives and it will never be forgotten.
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“ Years ago I thought Nature was master.
WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE
WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE EN PLEIN AIR BETWEEN 1891 AND 1902, WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE SPENT HIS SUMMERS AT SHINNECOCK, ON THE SOUTH SHORES OF LONG ISLAND. There, he directed the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art, the nation’s first out-of-doors art school. Chase taught classes two days a week, spending full days outdoors with his students while they did their plein air, or “open air,” painting. He encouraged his students to find beauty in landscapes that at first glance seem unremarkable. Shinnecock was an extension of Chase’s art practices in New York, where, in the 1880s he began to experiment with plein air painting. With his color box and wooden panels (and a storage box with grooves so the painted panels would not touch), Chase set up his easel and painted directly outdoors. In the city, he painted scenes in Central Park and Prospect Park, usually of his family engaged in leisure activities. Over 12 summers at Shinnecock, Chase painted the island landscape with a sense of familiarity, while he retained a fresh
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look at the ever-changing light and atmosphere of the outdoors. Seaside Flowers is exemplary of Chase’s Shinnecock landscapes. Here, the scrubby bushes, grass, and shoreline are framed with a diagonal slice of sea on the left and a dirt path on the right. The figures in the painting include Chase’s wife and four of his daughters, whom he often painted. The artist used the people as compositional elements to add visual interest to the landscape, distributing them across the canvas in groups of one, two, and three. Their white clothes and verticality contrast with the green and blue horizontal bands of earth and sky. Seaside Flowers is a blend of nature observed in the outdoors, and the artist’s eye. MINDY BESAW CURATOR
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Now I know different. Art transcends Nature. One must paint what is behind the eye of the artist.
OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: William Merritt Chase, Seaside Flowers, ca. 1897, oil on canvas, 29 x 38 1/2 in. Photo by Dwight Primiano. BOTTOM: Haeseler Studio, William Merritt Chase [photograph], 1900. Photo: Wikimedia commons.
BACK STORY
Mark Tansey, Landscape, 1994, oil on canvas, 71 3/4 × 144 1/2 in. Photo by Edward C. Robison III.
A CLOSER LOOK
MARK TANSEY CHAD ALLIGOOD + MINDY BESAW CURATORS
ALTHOUGH TITLED LANDSCAPE, MARK TANSEY’S PAINTING HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH NATURE. Tansey uses artistic conventions of landscape paintings, such as a horizon line and receding space, but the scene is fantastical and imaginative. A mountain of crumbled figures dominates the center of the canvas, representing dismantled sculptures of prominent (mostly male) figures from throughout history. At the top of the pile, the head of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt rests on its side. Beneath this apex, a bevy of images of world leaders accumulates: several busts of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and other dictators stack one atop the other. To the right, the colossal bust of the late Roman emperor Constantine the Great, today housed at the Capitoline Museums in Rome, stares upward at the clouds. Just below him, a carved statue of an ancient Egyptian ruler, likely Amenhotep III, lays similarly toppled. In the extreme foreground, Tansey depicts a headless reclining nude figure modeled after one of the famous marble statues from the Parthenon known as the Elgin Marbles, which now reside at the British Museum. And to the left of the pile, the face of George Washington from Mount Rushmore, carved by Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln Borglum, lays open to the sky.
The message is contradictory—these leaders’ legacies are preserved through art, but whose legacies will escape the dustbin of history? The image alludes to contemporary mass media, in which bits and pieces of information break loose of their historical grounding and freely combine into new configurations. History becomes one united mass of nostalgia, as Tansey’s single color palette is reminiscent of sepia-toned photographs, old films, or vintage television.
This article mines research conducted by Remi Poindexter, a 2016 Havner Curatorial Intern. Remi is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Art History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, where he is a Five-Year Presidential MAGNET Fellow.
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DROPPED STITCHES GHADA AMER’S BIG BLACK BANG MAKES A BIG IMPRESSION IN THE MUSEUM’S 1940S TO NOW GALLERY. A monumental painting, it lives up to its name: an explosion of fine lines of color, streaking outward to every edge of the canvas like a technicolor shift to warp speed. On close inspection, the lines reveal themselves to be threads: long trails of colored embroidery floss, each anchored to a line of stitching in the canvas surface. Peeking through the chaos of color, almost obscured by the energetic abstraction of threads, are bits of images: a woman’s eye, a hand, a knee…. Over time the viewer recognizes these as a pattern of repeated female figures, and with a little more close looking, those figures reveal themselves (literally) to be nude women, stitched in erotic poses, like the women found in a certain genre of men’s magazines. Amer’s combination of dazzling, colorful abstraction with such earthy imagery is surprising for some; even a bit jarring, perhaps. But the work gives rise to questions: about the artist’s methods, motives, and meanings, of course, but also about ourselves as viewers: what is our reaction? What does it mean to us? The work makes us think about these things; and that is precisely Amer’s purpose. Big Black Bang is one of a series of collaborative works Amer has created with fellow artist Reza Farkhondeh and signed with the acronym “RFGA.” In addition to these collaborations, she also creates sculpture, ceramics, prints, drawings, and gardens. Amer and Farkhondeh have similarly cosmopolitan backgrounds. Amer was born in Egypt, Farkhondeh in Iran, and they both lived in France for many years, meeting in art school in Nice in 1988. Both eventually moved to the United States, where they began working together. Amer and Farkhondeh are now both American citizens.
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Amer’s international background can be heard in her voice. Her accent is difficult to identify until you realize that her English pronunciation has been filtered through Arabic and French, both of which she speaks fluently. She speaks quickly and energetically, and laughs freely as she tells me stories from her life and work. The laugh is utterly contagious. It’s impossible not to laugh with her. As she spoke with editor Linda DeBerry, it became clear that, while she takes her work very seriously, there is a playfulness to this artist that she does not try to contain. LD Tell me a little about your collaboration with Reza Farkhondeh. GA
We have collaborated since 2000 under the acronym RFGA. We studied together at the art school in Nice. Then one day Reza was depressed and he thought it was his painting that made him depressed, so he decided, when I was away, to paint on my canvas. He said, “I’m trying to help you because your background is starting to be a little weak, and if you don’t like it, you can erase it.” I found it very interesting. After three of these I said “we’re collaborating,” and he said, “No, I don’t want to,” because he was scared if he put his name [on the work] he would get depressed. So I decided to create this acronym, RFGA, to keep track of all of the paintings we are doing together. He does his own work, I do my own work, and we have collaboration work.
Ghada Amer, The Big Black Bang - RFGA, 2013, acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas, 102 × 132 in. Photo courtesy Cheim & Read, New York. Opposite: Ghada Amer. Photo by Brian Buckley.
A CONVERSATION WITH GHADA AMER
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GA This one, it was 17 layers of painting, I think, without using
any black. Reza created the black with only colors. You see it as black, but it’s actually done from of all of the colors of the spectrum. Then I have drawn the women, and on the back of the painting, it is all gridded, for my assistant. I made a drawing for her to indicate placement of the color. I sent it out to one of my assistants of embroidery, who worked on it with another person for a year, so—a crazy job. Then she sent it back.
So then—it has to look like a bang, like an explosion, like the beginning of the world. And so we hold the painting upside down Four people hold it and I go underneath. The way I embroider, the thread that is left over is hanging. I don’t add the thread later. I go underneath and I brush it, and then, we say “one, two, three…” and everybody has to let the painting go on the floor. LD You drop it? GA Yes, I drop it! (laughs) So all of the wind that is underneath
GA Yes. Every stitch. (laughs)
makes this explosion action. Then we wrap it in plastic and then we look at it. If we are happy, we spray it with gel medium to fix the thread; and if we are not happy we keep on banging— dropping it until we are happy with the explosion.
LD That explains why it took a year. How many assistants work
LD When did you learn to embroider?
LD So they are hand embroidered?
on each canvas? GA I learned how to sew, not embroider. Because my mother is GA Two assistants, full time, for a year. And the painting took
three months, and the drawing took three months. It’s a long process, it’s almost a year and a half, this painting, to complete.
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an engineer, but she loved dresses and it was expensive to buy readymade dresses, so she went at night to the sewing school. And in order for us to have the dresses, we had to help her. We were her assistants. (laughs)
Ghada Amer, The Big Black Bang - RFGA (detail), 2013, acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas, 102 × 132 in. Photo courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.
LD Can you describe your process in making Big Black Bang?
LD What made you choose embroidery as your medium?
LD I read somewhere that you said you didn’t like to go buy those
magazines? Is that still true? GA I wanted to paint with thread. Because I discovered that there are
no women in art history. The women have been either erased or they didn’t exist, or maybe never invented their [own style of] painting. And I was very upset about this, so I wanted to paint with thread.
GA No, it is still…I don’t like to go and buy them! I will send Reza
to go and buy them for me. (laughs) And then he said, “You have to choose. If you want these images, you go and buy them!” (laughing) I don’t go anymore, I get them by mail.
LD What inspired you to begin using the sexual images of
women in your work?
LD I see some of the other collaborative works have incorporated
female characters from Disney. What draws you to those characters? GA I started my first embroidery painting in 1991, and I took images
of women at work, how a woman should behave, a little bit romantic, and I thought, “No, an image of submissive women with embroidery, it doesn’t work.” I decided to take an image from the realm of men, so I took it from erotic images. This is what drew me. As well, I am from Egypt and I grew up in France; and growing up I had kind of a strict religious upbringing. So for me sexuality was taboo. So, in a way, it was a rebellious act to show it is okay, what’s wrong with that? For me my work is not about “I can see a naked woman,” you know? We have naked women all over art history, since the beginning of painting! You don’t need my naked woman! (laughs)
GA For me the appeal is the model to follow. It is like, we have been
taught, “Okay this is the princess. She has to look like this. She’s going to marry this prince.” It is something that is totally unreal. When I grew up, I was expecting to be this princess. I was expecting things to go according to the plan of Disney. But it didn’t. It doesn’t for anyone. And then you discover it’s a big lie. Is being a woman to look like a Disney Princess or is it to be sexy and desirable? How do we get free from all of this? Probably we can’t.
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LD In Big Black Bang, the images of the women are almost
GA Yes, for this particular painting it was really about painting
want to do this, I will take all my girls, and I won’t see you anymore!” He was fighting very, very hard for us to become free. He would send us to travel alone. So it was not so strict. We had to pray, we had to learn the Koran. It was important for him that we had good religion, as well. He was very nervous. He didn’t want us to have boyfriends, for example. But on the other hand, he believed in women’s freedom: freedom of education, for women to work, he was a big believer in that. But a very religious man.
with the thread. And I had to choose between having a very strong explosion or just . . . figuration, and I went for just abstraction.
LD When did you learn that you wanted to be an artist?
LD In that case, why put that much effort into the figures?
GA Well, I always liked to draw. And in this very expensive school
completely obscured. GA Yes because it’s the only way that I could make a bang. LD So it’s as much about the abstract image on the front as the
images embroidered behind it?
GA It’s my only way. I don’t know how to do it otherwise. You know
what I mean? I have no other means to do this. It doesn’t matter if you can see them. It’s most important that they are there. I’m not sure that if I just drew stitches that it would make this effect. LD There are some women—even some feminists—who are
troubled by the erotic nature of the images of women in your work. What do you say to that?
TOP: Ghada Amer and Reza Farkondeh working on a collaborative project. Photo: Jeremy Haik. BOTTOM: Ghada Amer, The Big Black Bang RFGA (verso), 2013, acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas, 102 × 132 in. Photo by Stephen Ironside.
“ I’m just going to talk
at women. I’m not gay, but I have always preferred to draw women. When I go in the street, I like to look at them: how they’re dressed—they are sexy, they are beautiful. Many women like to do the same, you know? Looking doesn’t have to be sexual. It can be just beautiful. So to these women I tell them that, for me, sexuality is an important issue. And you can’t speak about sexuality without speaking about the body; and I don’t want to become like the religious people that have forbidden sexuality. [The women troubled by my images] are talking, for me, exactly like these religious people that are so scared of sexuality that they say that the body is not good. And these [women], as well, are saying that the body is not good, but for other reasons. So I think that “the body is not good” is the problem.
about something that is very close to me and I want to talk about it in a beautiful way because I want people to appreciate and to look at it and I believe in “beauty” as a vehicle.
LD You talked about your upbringing being strict in regard to
“
GA I tell them that I personally like to gaze
we had a little drawing. But then [my parents] were like, “Okay, we are not paying you money to draw, we are paying money to study French, mathematics.” And if they saw me draw they would ask “Did you finish your homework?” And they would give me more homework, and I would do it quickly so then I can draw. Then when I went to university—I was very young when I graduated, I was 16. And I got a huge depression and I couldn’t function. I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t want to go to university, and I didn’t want to go anywhere. I would only draw. My parents said “Okay, you can study architecture [at the art school].” They sent me to take the exam of the art school—I failed. And then they were kind of happy. They said “See, you cannot do it.” But when I was in the art school I loved it! I said “This is exactly what I am looking for!” Then I became a little better, so they told me to go and study something. They told me that if I dropped mathematics I had to replace it with languages or anything that would be easy for me because I was still recovering from depression. And I was fine with that as long as they would let me take art classes at night. They said, “Okay, after you finish the university with languages, then you can go to art school.” I said okay. At that time they were also living in France, GHADA AMER both finishing up their PhDs. Then the third year, they went back to Egypt. And as soon as they went back, I went to take the exam, I got in, and I subscribed to the art school with the money they gave me for the other school. And I told them three months later and this was a big fight. (Laughs)
religion, how do you balance that with your subject matter? LD Your work is sometimes quite political. What do you feel is GA It was very strict only on the sexuality, everything else was so
the role of art in activism?
free, because my father wanted us to be very well educated. We were only girls. I don’t come from a rich family. And when you have girls in the ‘60s in Egypt you don’t spend your money on education.
GA Well . . . it’s not going to change something in the immediate or
LD But your father did. GA My father did. He sent us to bilingual school, which was a
very big deal. They are very expensive schools. We were four girls, and all this money, he spent all of it to send us to the best schools. He thought differently from everybody else. He fought. Like the genital mutilation, he was totally against it. For example, in my family this was the habit—that you do it. And he said, “If you
in the short term. It is a long-term change. For example, in terms of feminism, I’m not going to tell people how to become a feminist. I’m just going to talk about something that is very close to me and I want to talk about it in a beautiful way because I want people to appreciate and to look at it and I believe in “beauty” as a vehicle. Then they will find a way to understand. They will think and they will interpret. I don’t have to think for people. I just provide tools so that people can think for themselves. And this will change the world. I hope.
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NOON YEAR’S EVE DECEMBER 31, 2016 Families celebrated a count-down to the New Year at noon, plus fun activities and performances. Sponsored by Coca-Cola, Arvest Bank and Mark and Diane Simmons.
COLLEGE NIGHT MARCH 11, 2017 Bloom Bash, part of the Museum’s first annual Art in Bloom weekend, was a College Night extravaganza featuring an Iron Florist competition.
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CELEBRATIONS BLACK HEARTS BALL FEBRUARY 11, 2017 Artinfusion’s ultimate anti-Valentine’s Day party returned with speed dating, sound art, dancing, and more. Sponsored by Saatchi & Saatchi X, Ropeswing, The Hershey Company, Wright Lindsey Jennings, Blue Moon Brewing Company, and JTH Productions.
BORDER CANTOS DIRECTOR’S RECEPTION FEBRUARY 16, 2017 Border Cantos was sponsored by the Bentonville Film Festival, Denise and Hershey Garner, Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla Arts Foundation, Frank and Pat Bailey, James and Emily Bost, Lynn and Joel Carver, David and Jane Gearhart, Ferguson Immigration Law, and the Consulate of Mexico in Little Rock. Supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE THE POWER OF A PUBLIC CHARITY JILL WAGAR CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER
THE UNITED STATES IS A COUNTRY STEEPED IN THE RESPECTED TRADITION OF GIVING BACK. Its residents have long been inspired to support worthy causes that uplift humanity. It is in this spirit that Alice Walton and her family chose to give the remarkable gift of Crystal Bridges to Arkansas and the world. Prior to opening Crystal Bridges, the Walton family made the significant decision that the Museum would operate as a public charity* with the hope that those who supported the Museum through their financial contributions would feel a special sense of ownership and, more importantly, help create and sustain innovative programs. Nothing delights us more than to hear you say, “This is my museum.” Truly, it is yours. The support you’ve given to the Museum through your membership is critical, as the IRS requires that one-third of our annual support be contributed by the general public in order to fully qualify and comply as a public charity. As we celebrated our fifth anniversary last November, we reached an important milestone by successfully passing the IRS’s five-year public charity test. The IRS verified that Members and donors, such as you, are contributing at least one-third of our annual support, and we couldn’t be more grateful! Your membership and sponsorship gifts—no matter the size—allows Crystal Bridges to inspire lives while increasing awareness and appreciation of American art—regionally, nationally, and internationally. Our future is ambitious and exciting, and your involvement now and in the years ahead is more important than ever. You have been with us every step of the way and we invite you to continue with us on this amazing journey. Thank you! *Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a public charity under sections 509(a)(1) and 170 (b)(1)(A)(vi) of the IRS code and accordingly exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3).
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PHILANTHROPY
“ We perpetuate the honored
tradition of sharing and hope to inspire others to give.
“
EXCERPT FROM MUSEUM VISION STATEMENT
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MUSEUM STORE
Chihuly Workshop 2017 Studio Editions arE HErE! Each year, Chihuly Workshop collaborates with Dale Chihuly to create four Studio Editions. Each handblown piece is inspired by one of the distinctive series of artworks Chihuly has created throughout his career.
Pictured is the Golden Topaz Basket. Additional 2016 Studio Editions are Atlantis Persian, Rose Blush Macchia, and Byzantine Blue Persian.
David Emery
Crystal Bridges Members receive special pricing on all Studio Editions during the Member Preview of Chihuly: In the Gallery and In the Forest, May 27-June 2. Please call for pricing: 479.657.2310. Come in soon and add one of these remarkable new works to your collection.
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LAST WORD
IN A JANUARY 28, 2017 ARTICLE IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUTHOR FLORENCE WILLIAMS DESCRIBED THE EMOTIONAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND PHYSICAL BENEFITS OF GETTING OUTSIDE. “In general, the more time you spend in nature, the better you will do on measures of vitality, wellness and restoration,” she wrote. The cause for this benefit is what Williams refers to as “momentary awe.” As spring brings the earth to vibrant life, I encourage you to visit the Museum’s trails to seek out and celebrate these fleeting moments of awe. At Crystal Bridges, we are serious about nature. Yes, we have garden parties, celebrations, and family days outside, but we also engage a professional landscape team in creating outdoor experiences that make a big impact. Cody George, our horticulturist, propagates native plant species throughout our grounds. He preserves threatened species and roots out invasives that endanger them, and he thoughtfully balances the needs of flora and fauna (including birds, butterflies, squirrels, and even the always-ravenous deer) to ensure that everyone who visits the trails at Crystal Bridges (last year there were more than 300,000!) enjoys a genuine, natural Ozark forest experience. So, next time you visit the Museum, venture outside. Stop and take a moment to deeply examine a tree or a flower, or look up and take note of the remarkable architecture of the forest. From towering oaks to delicate dogwoods, every tree is burgeoning with life: buds bursting from seemingly dead limbs into vibrant leaves and flowers. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll be rewarded with rare treasures of the woods, like early spring trilliums, a ring of mushrooms, or the lacy yellow blooms of spicebush. Art abounds! The landscape is a constantly evolving work of art in fully immersive 3-D. Of course, I would argue that art also offers those beneficial moments of awe. Who does not feel a sense of wonder at the expansive and sublime landscapes of the Hudson River School painters, or a deep reverence in the presence of Mark Rothko’s luminous color field painting No. 210 / No. 211 (Orange)? These moments connect us with one another as humans and with our heritage and history as Americans. Crystal Bridges offers opportunities to experience the awesome power of art and nature in one beautiful spring day. So don’t delay! Spring in the Ozarks is awe-inspiring, but fleeting. Visit us soon, and enjoy the “vitality, wellness and restoration” of art and nature at Crystal Bridges.
Next time you visit the Museum, venture outside. Stop and take a moment to deeply examine a tree or a flower, or look up and take note of the remarkable architecture of the forest. ROD BIGELOW
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHIEF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION OFFICER
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