“Many people have this extraordinary desire to connect with works of art,” said DIA director Graham W.J. Beal, who said people “do not want a mall-like experience” when they go to a museum.
In Cleveland, more than US$204 million has been raised for a project lasting into 2012, one year more than first planned.
The expansion and renovation will unravel a sometimes confusing labyrinth of galleries and corridors to create a more visitor friendly feel for what’s ahead in a museum with a collection of 43,000 items, including works by Rodin, Monet, Degas, Gauguin, Renoir and Van Gogh.
For art patrons, “It means that they’re not going to have to spend as much time figuring out where they are, that they’ll be reassured by what they can see ahead of them,” Jeffrey Strean, CMA director of design and architecture, said during a hard-hat tour.
That should relieve visitor fatigue, he said.
“Hopefully, we’ve built into the finished project places to stop — not only amenities — but places just to stop and rest, places to find out more, places to eat, places to shop,” he said.
World-class art must compete with shopping malls and “every other sort of entertainment for folks these days,” Strean said.
“We have to kind of make it as unobstructed and comfortable a thing as it can be.” But the art always comes first, according to Wilson of the Nelson-Atkins.
“If you do not have in some way on your terms a meaningful relationship in those galleries, with works of art, the coffee isn’t enough to bring you back,” he said. “There are too many places where you can get coffee today.” Part of that transition is a trend toward making museums more community friendly, reflecting local interests and traditions, such as the southern Appalachian music and crafts programming of the Roanoke museum. The goal is to attract visitors and keep them for longer stays.
“Museums are very complex institutions,” said Saul Ostrow, who teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art. “They are not just warehouses, storehouses of art. They are educational institutions, they are social, they bring people together. They imbue values and standards to the community. They offer a whole other range of experiences.”
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