Interesting excerpts about museums and art

[ExNihiloStudio]

The January 2004 issue of Architectural Record has a very interesting interview with an author who is writing about architecture and the display of art. Archictural Record is a monthly magazine published by the American Institute of Architects, the premier professional organization for architects in the United States. Here are a few interesting quotes that I think are relevant to this forum.

“Victoria Newhouse, an architecture historian, is completing Art/Power/Placement (Monacelli Press), an investigation of the manner in which art is displayed and perceived within a museum environment. In the book, which combines history with criticism, Newhouse explores such topics as the shifting venues of some of the best known artworks, including the Victory of Samothrace and the Laocoon.”

Below are the authors words published in the interview.

“Art looks so much better in natural light.” “…the way natural light shifts in tone affects the way you see the artwork.”

“An artist often has a feel for the installation of art objects that is far superior to that of curators and architects. Betty Parsons used to have artists install shows of other artists in her gallery in New York during its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s. The Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen, who died in 1844, played an active role in designing a museum in Copenhagen for his work, which is a model for the use of natural light. He said both horizontal (side light) and vertical (top light) were needed.”

“Actually, the importance of lighting for art was already understood in antiquity. Recent discoveries suggest that in the 7th century B.C. a number of Greek temples had skylights made of Parian marble tiles from the Cyclades. The marble was translucent, like alabaster. Even the Parthenon may have had some form of a skylight, and sidelighting from windows facing the statue of Athena.”

On the plain walls of modern venues: “But without the framework of window alcoves, columns, pilasters, and decorative moldings found in pre-Modern buildings, such as the Louvre, objects often appear to be cast adrift in space.”

“In one installation in 1997, three Torqued Ellipses [by Richard Serra] were displayed inside Dia:Chelsea’s single-story, warehouse like building, across the street from its main four-story art center on West 22nd Street in Manhattan. The gallery was big enough to allow walking around each piece, yet snug enough to provide a framework for them. Placed just a few feet below the dark wood roof beams and wedged into the space illuminated by skylights, each sculpture felt like a powerful coil about to spring. Serra remarked, “The outside of the form reads better. Its definition is clearer in relation to a vertical plane than it would be to a flat, open landscape.” At Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim, the series shown in 1999 was less effective. It was installed with Serra’s long Cor-ten steel Snake (1996), which is part of the museum’s permanent collection. In a gallery bigger than a football field, with ceilings too high to relate to the sculpture, too much space around the pieces, and wall that echoed the curved sculpture, the eight Torqued Elipses lost the tautness achieved by the three in New York.”

“My favorite environment is the artist’s studio, free of preconceived ideas, with no labels or didactic intensions.”

[JAZ]

The January 2004 issue of Architectural Record has a very interesting interview with an author who is writing about architecture and the display of art. Archictural Record is a monthly magazine published by the American Institute of Architects, the premier professional organization for architects in the United States. Here are a few interesting quotes that I think are relevant to this forum.

“Victoria Newhouse, an architecture historian, is completing Art/Power/Placement (Monacelli Press), an investigation of the manner in which art is displayed and perceived within a museum environment. In the book, which combines history with criticism, Newhouse explores such topics as the shifting venues of some of the best known artworks, including the Victory of Samothrace and the Laocoon.”

Below are the authors words published in the interview.

“Art looks so much better in natural light.” “…the way natural light shifts in tone affects the way you see the artwork.”

“An artist often has a feel for the installation of art objects that is far superior to that of curators and architects. Betty Parsons used to have artists install shows of other artists in her gallery in New York during its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s. The Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen, who died in 1844, played an active role in designing a museum in Copenhagen for his work, which is a model for the use of natural light. He said both horizontal (side light) and vertical (top light) were needed.”

“Actually, the importance of lighting for art was already understood in antiquity. Recent discoveries suggest that in the 7th century B.C. a number of Greek temples had skylights made of Parian marble tiles from the Cyclades. The marble was translucent, like alabaster. Even the Parthenon may have had some form of a skylight, and sidelighting from windows facing the statue of Athena.”

On the plain walls of modern venues: “But without the framework of window alcoves, columns, pilasters, and decorative moldings found in pre-Modern buildings, such as the Louvre, objects often appear to be cast adrift in space.”

“In one installation in 1997, three Torqued Ellipses [by Richard Serra] were displayed inside Dia:Chelsea’s single-story, warehouse like building, across the street from its main four-story art center on West 22nd Street in Manhattan. The gallery was big enough to allow walking around each piece, yet snug enough to provide a framework for them. Placed just a few feet below the dark wood roof beams and wedged into the space illuminated by skylights, each sculpture felt like a powerful coil about to spring. Serra remarked, “The outside of the form reads better. Its definition is clearer in relation to a vertical plane than it would be to a flat, open landscape.” At Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim, the series shown in 1999 was less effective. It was installed with Serra’s long Cor-ten steel Snake (1996), which is part of the museum’s permanent collection. In a gallery bigger than a football field, with ceilings too high to relate to the sculpture, too much space around the pieces, and wall that echoed the curved sculpture, the eight Torqued Elipses lost the tautness achieved by the three in New York.”

“My favorite environment is the artist’s studio, free of preconceived ideas, with no labels or didactic intensions.”

Thank you for posting this, Mark. There have been so many discussions about the way art is exhibited, but usually they are mostly about context and philosophy. The thought of using daylight in exhibit spaces would probably give most museum curators hives, but it sounds wonderful to me. Natural light is so alive, fluid, always changing. Your post makes me think that that's probably actually one of the things I like most about outdoor sculpture - natural light.
I thought I would see Richard Serra's Snake when I visited the Guggenheim, Bilbao, but The Art of the Motorcycle was there and platforms had been built over the sculpture so that space could be used. The building itself was the most wonderful thing there, though. It is a gigantic sculpture and the light on the exterior is reflected by its titanium skin and the reflecting pool adjacent to the museum. At night there are colored lights, which is too bad, but it's spectacular no matter when you look at it. And as far as the exhibit spaces there....The building itself has no right angles at all. Every corner of it is unconventional, and there is some natural daylight. We went a day's drive out of our way to see it, and it was certainly worth it.

[fritchie]

The January 2004 issue of Architectural Record has a very interesting interview ... [deletions] ...

Below are the authors words published in the interview.

The Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen, who died in 1844, played an active role in designing a museum in Copenhagen for his work, which is a model for the use of natural light. He said both horizontal (side light) and vertical (top light) were needed.”



The point I like most about this is the reference to horizontal or side lighting. You almost never see this in a building, museum or gallery or whatever, but I accidentally found its value in my first studio, and have used it often since. My first studio was an old garage with wide, large windows on east and west sides, about 4 feet average placement above the floor, and no other natural light. Fluorescents were overhead.

I added a couple of overhead floods, but I had to cover the windows with translucent paper for privacy, and the light was spectacular in both morning and afternoon when the paper was hit by direct sun. The second (and current) studio has no natural lights, but several fluorescents overhead. Again, I added several floods overhead, each with a photographic parabolic reflector, which I use in photography. Generally these reflector-floods are focused on the work, but quite often I turn them to a flat, white wall, and use the bounce light as a horizontal source. It shows the texture of the clay, bronze, or other material in a way overheads never will.

I am talking about sculpting here and not exhibiting, but I also find that shining these reflector-floods down onto the clays at different angles (shallow, steep) helps me see things I otherwise would miss. I work this way with the overhead fluorescents sometimes on, but more frequently off. I guess an advantage of natural light is that it would vary in some of these ways on its own.

[Stephen Casey]

By the way bouncing light off a bright surface is about the only way to see some details like cracks developing in boiler works. In fact if you dont manipulate the light to its best advantage somebody could get hurt.

We recently visited our new Tacoma Art Museum, a large section of which is a long corridor with almost exclusive natural horizontal lighting. Personally I felt disappointed. The art was placed right against the far wall opposite the windows, leaving a flashlight on a wall effect. The art was behind glass enclosures that doubled the effect of flattening.

Some of the most memerable moments in my life were because of the lighting. If the art had been in the middle of the corridor then I would of seen the shadows and depth of the work, walk around it and see and feel the light change its effects on the work, took part in the delicious nakedness of the horizontal lighting. I have been lucky enough to be in almost empty US Air Force hangers with almost the only light being the hanger doors open to differant amounts bathing me in this light, faintly at first then blindingly as i approached it. I remember as a child waiting for my father walking through that light many times and feeling like the most powerful entity on Earth. I was the sculpture on display. And I knew it.

Instead the curators of our towns pride and joy chose to mirror the straight yet angled lines of the exterior of the museum. And yes the building was the most empressive part of the visit but I went there to see the art. And not the floating glass globs in, yes the reflecting pool outside.

Verticle light seems to me to be the natural orientation (our Sun) so that without it I don't feel like I have command of my enviroment, whether I am designing a sculpture or a gizmo. Used alone but it can easily be deceptive as to depth of elements, which in turn if isolated and faint adds to a terrific moodyness. Great fire campfire story telling.

[Stephen Casey]

Great subject. Thanks Exnihilostudio for typing all that in. Bye the way I wish I could of seen your Crucifixion:Resurrection in person. Some details about the videos in the booths would be nice. The sculpture is on one level simple yet so expresive. In the all though I am not surprised 25 people were involved.

http://www.exnihilostudio.com/crinstallation.html