MILWAUKEE MUSEUM UNVEILS NEW WING
The Milwaukee Art Museum unveils its monumental, $100-million, 58,000-square-foot expansion, featuring the dramatic new Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion with its unique moveable sunscreen, on Oct. 14, 2001. Visitors to the museum next Sunday -- admission is free -- can be among the first to see the Burke Brise Soleil spread its wings, as well as the new $8.3-million, 60,000 square foot Cudahy Gardens, designed by landscape architect Dan Kiley. The project also involves renovation and reinstallation of the museum's original buildings, designed by Eero Saarinen and David Kahler. Exhibitions on view include "Chihuly over Venice," a show of glass works designed for the 1996 Venice Biennale, plus "2,000 Years of British Pottery" and "Ray Metzger: Landscapes," among several other shows. For pictures of the incredible space-age architecture, go to the website of CG Schmidt Construction.
Calatrava's expansion increases gallery space from 90,000 to 117,000 square feet, and provides a dramatic new parabolic, glass-enclosed reception hall with a 90-foot-high ceiling. The brise soleil, with its 72 steel fins, rests on top of the hall and is raised and lowered to control temperature and light in the museum. The expansion also includes a new underground parking garage, a 100-seat café and the 250-foot-long Reiman pedestrian bridge that links downtown Milwaukee directly to the lakefront and museum.
LEOPOLD MUSEUM OPENS IN VIENNA
The Leopold Museum unveiled its new building in Vienna on Sept. 22, 2001, with a collection of over 5,000 modern Austrian artworks assembled by collectors Rudolf and Elisabeth Leopold over the last five decades. On view throughout five levels (two underground) are the world's largest collection of works by Egon Schiele, plus works from the Vienna Secession, Viennese Expressionists and the Austrian arts and crafts movement. The 12,600-square-meter, dramatically minimalist structure, designed by Ortner & Ortner architects, anchors Vienna's new MuseumsQuartier at Museumsplatz 1. The museum is open on Friday till 9 p.m. and closed Tuesdays; adult admission is 9 Euros.
The Leopold Museum made international news several years ago when two paintings by Schiele from its collection, on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1998, became the subject of an international art-law case when they were claimed as Nazi-era art loot.
AMON CARTER MUSEUM REOPENS
The Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth reopens on Oct. 21, 2001, following a two-year, $39-million expansion designed by architects Philip Johnson and Alan Ritchie. Debuting in the new 109,000-square-foot building -- which offers three times the exhibition space as the original 1961 building -- is an impressive roster of seven shows. "The Artist and the American West: A Century of Western Art" showcases the collection via works by 52 artists, as does "Revealed Treasures: Drawings from the Permanent Collection." The other five shows are photographic: "Masterworks of American Photography," "Common Ground: Settling Colorado," and shows of works by photographers Robert Adams, Richard Avedon and Laura Gilpin and Eliot Porter.
PULITZER FOUNDATION, BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis unveils its new 23,600-square-foot headquarters, an asymmetrical design in glass and concrete by Tadao Ando that features major public commissions by Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Serra, on Oct. 17. The museum showcases the collection formed by Emily Rauh Pulitzer, foundation president, and her late husband, Joseph Pulitzer Jr., the influential former publisher and editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The collection ranges from Monet and Picasso to Warhol, Guston and Kiki Smith. "This is not a museum," director Laurie Stein told the press. Plans call for no exhibitions, gift shop or crowded galleries; rather, individuals and groups of up to 50 at a time are admitted by appointment; for info call (314) 754-1850.
ANDO TO DESIGN CLARK ART INSTITUTE WING Tadao Ando has been named as architect of a new 85,000-square-foot building for the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., slated to hold new galleries as well as the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. Landscape architect Reed Hilderbrand has been selected to coordinate work on the museum's 140-acre Berkshire site. Ando has designed the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, slated to open in 2002; and the Calder Museum in Philadelphia, scheduled to bow in 2005. Groundbreaking in Williamstown is scheduled for 2004.
NEW SAATCHI GALLERY OPPOSITE WESTMINSTER?
Talk in London has the Saatchi Gallery moving into the former quarters of the London Greater Council (disbanded in 1986) in County Hall by the Thames, opposite Westminster. The 1922 palace, owned by the Japanese Shirayama property group, would need approval from English Heritage for any changes. Charles Saatchi's "epic collecting habit," writes Maev Kennedy in the Guardian, "has long since burst the confines of the gallery he built in north London to house it."
BRAZIL ALTAR COMING TO GUGG AFTER ALL
Brazil has lifted its ban on shipping a rare baroque altarpiece to New York City for display as the centerpiece of ""Brazil: Body & Soul," the survey of 350 works opening at the Guggenheim Museum, Oct. 19, 2001-Jan. 27, 2002. A Brazilian court had blocked the loan out of fears of terrorist attack. The monumental, 48-foot-tall gold-encrusted altarpiece fills almost 60 crates, according to an AP report, and will be displayed in the Guggenheim rotunda. Until now it has been housed in the 16th-century St. Bento monastery in Olinda in northeastern Brazil.
ART IN GENERAL CELEBRATES 20 YEARS
The cutting-edge Tribeca alternative space Art in General kicks off its celebration of its 20th anniversary tomorrow night, Oct. 9, 2001, with a gala reception for two major shows: "Art in General on Canal," a group of public sculptures along Canal Street by Matthew Bakkom, Gelatin, Godzilla, Yoko Inoue and Sontext (click here for map); and "Looking for Mr. Fluxus: In the Footsteps of George Maciunas," curated by Grady T. Turner and Raimundas Malašauskas.
BECKS FUTURES IN NEW YORK
Had your fill of Young British Art? No? Then hie thee to Sotheby's York Avenue headquarters, where the exhibition "Becks Futures 2," Oct. 8-22, 2001, presents 25 works by 10 artists working in the UK, winners of prizes totaling £65,000 sponsored by Beck's Beer and selected by the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. The show includes paintings by Tim Stoner, who won the first prize, along with the other nine short-listed artists: Shahin Afrassiabi, Fabienne Audéoud and John Russell, Simon Bill, David Burrows, Brian Griffiths, Dan Holdsworth, Gemma Iles, DJ Simpson and Clare Woods.
LINDSEY BROWN OPENS IN CHELSEA
Add a new gallery to your rounds in West Chelsea. Lindsay Brown opened in suite 612 of the Chelsea Fine Arts Building at 526 W. 26th Street with a show of recent paintings by the Scottish artist Gwen Hardie, Sept. 19-Oct. 13, 2001. Coming up is an exhibition of works by the New York designer and artist Elizabeth Cannon. For more info call (212) 252-4885.
NAUMANN OPENS WITH MAN RAY
Crusading Dadaist art historian Francis M. Naumann, author of Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Abrams), among other tomes, opens his new commercial gallery in Manhattan with "Man Ray in America: Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Photographs of the New York/ Ridgefield (1912-1921) and Hollywood (1940-50) Years," Oct. 27, 2001-Jan. 5, 2002. The show features 55 works that trace Man Ray's overlooked contribution to the history of American modernism, including the major paintings Elderflowers (1914) and Leda and the Swan (1941). Francis M. Naumann Fine Art is located at 22 East 80th Street (upstairs from the Old Master gallery operated by his twin brother, Otto Naumann); for more info call (212) 472-6800. Francis Naumann plans two shows a year; coming up is "The Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven," the first exhibition ever of work by the elusive Dada artist, slated to open next April.
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