Future Exhibitions - Collections Travel

Reopening

When the Art Museum reopens in spring, 2002, visitors will have the opportunity to see the range and depth of the permanent collection in a way that has not been possible previously. New construction has added 3,400 square feet of additional exhibition space. As a result of the addition and the reconfiguration of some of the existing gallery spaces, more of the museum's outstanding collection will be featured in new galleries. For the first time, the museum will have a gallery dedicated to modern and contemporary art. This means that important paintings such as Milton Avery's Discussion and Robert Henri's portrait Annie Lavelle, both of which were given to the museum by Mr. and Mrs. Roy Neuberger, will be on display on a long-term basis. Two small but wonderful paintings on panel by Phillip Guston will be on view for the first time in more than a decade. Sculptures by major 20th-century artists including Elie Nadelman and Isamu Noguchi will be installed in the galleries rather than languishing in storage. Likewise, in an adjacent space, paintings by 17th-century masters, such as Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene by Daniel Seiter and the exquisite Vanitas Still-Life by Hendrick Andriessen will have a permanent gallery home. Portrait paintings by 18th-century artist Nicolas Largillière and the early 19th-century Merry-Joseph Blondel, which are used by classes in several departments, may be studied without making advance arrangements to have them put on temporary display.

A large section of the museum's addition is devoted to a special exhibitions gallery where temporary loan shows will be installed. For the occasion of the reopening, however, this gallery will also feature the museum's permanent collection. The museum staff is developing plans for a provocative installation that will bring together a broad range of works of art that include depictions of the body. The representation of the figure, whether it be the human body or the body of a god, has been central to ýhe western cultural tradition and in art originating from other cultures as well. The figure has been the central vehicle for imagery that explores the great issues of birth and death, the relationship between humanity and the divine, and the meaning of life itself. The planned exhibition does not aim to embrace these enormous subjects in a comprehensive way but rather to select works from the collection that can be used to pose questions, some serious and some whimsical, about the depicted body.

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