Displaying items by tag: public programs

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, located in St. Louis, will reopen on May 1 following a major renovation that has transformed the lower level of its Tadao Ando-designed building and nearly doubled its public space. Conceived to enhance the Pulitzer’s curatorial and public program, the construction project repurposed offices and storage into 3,700 square feet of new galleries to accommodate additional exhibitions, artist-driven activities, and collaborations. The Pulitzer building is Ando’s first free-standing, public project in the United States, and the renovation, completed in consultation with Ando’s office, marks the first alteration to the building since it opened in 2001.

Dr. Louise Mirrer, President and CEO of the New-York Historical Society, today announced plans for the establishment of a new Center for the Study of Women’s History, located on New-York Historical’s fourth floor within a fully-renovated Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture. A model of innovation, the new Center will include permanent and temporary exhibition galleries and a theater featuring a multimedia film, providing a venue for scholarly research, seminars, and public programs that bridge the gap between “women’s history” and American history. The new Center is scheduled to open in December 2016.

“The new Center for Women’s History will become a destination for discovery of the crucial role that New York women played in our nation’s social, political, and cultural evolution as women struggled for and eventually won the right to vote,” said Dr. Mirrer. “We will highlight the women who changed the course of our history, giving voice, in many cases, to the voiceless, who ushered in the Progressive era and emerged triumphant in the struggle for women’s suffrage.”

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AK has acquired Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bachman Wilson House in Millstone, NJ from architect/designer team Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino. Built along the Millstone River, the house has suffered significant flood damage and relocation has been recommended in order to preserve the structure. The Tarantinos held a multi-year search to find a buyer that could provide an appropriate setting and context for the historic building. The house will be disassembled and relocated to Bentonville, where it will be re-assembled on Crystal Bridges’ 120-acre campus.

The Bachman Wilson house was commissioned in 1954 by Abraham Wilson and Gloria Bachman, whose brother, Marvin Bachman, was an apprentice in the Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin Fellowship. The structure reflects Wright’s Usonian period, which was defined by simplicity and practicality. Crystal Bridges plans to incorporate the house into its educational and public program offerings. In addition, thanks to an ongoing partnership with the University of Arkansas, the museum anticipates making Wright’s house available to the University’s Fay Jones School of Architecture.

Site preparation at Crystal Bridges for the Bachman Wilson House will begin this spring. The museum plans to have the project completed in early 2015.

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA has selected New York-based Ennead Architects to design their $200 million, 175,000-square-foot expansion. The project is part of the museum’s comprehensive, $650 million Advancement Campaign, which was announced in 2011. The goal of the Campaign is to celebrate outstanding artistic and cultural creativity in ways that transform people’s lives. Besides the expansion, which will include galleries, a restaurant and additional space for public programs and education, the endeavor includes reinstalling the museum’s collection, several infrastructure improvements and other initiatives.

Ennead Architects previously designed the renovation and expansion of the renowned Yale University Art Gallery. The firm has also worked on projects at the Brooklyn Museum, Natural History Museum of Utah and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History.

Groundbreaking for the Peabody Essex Museum’s expansion project is expected to commence in 2015 and the new wing is slated to open in 2019. The museum will remain open throughout the renovation process until the final months, when the collection will be reinstalled.

The Museum of Craft and Folk Art (MOCFA) will be closing its doors on December 1, 2012, the date marking the institution’s thirtieth anniversary. Founded in 1982 by craft artist and well-known sculptor, Gertrud Parker, MOCFA is the only folk art museum in Northern California.

After three decades, the Museum’s overseers felt that their mission, to bring recognition and legitimacy to craft and folk art in the contemporary art arena, had been achieved. The poor climate for smaller art institutions was undoubtedly a contributing factor.

Although the art market and leading museums now embraces contemporary artists who borrow from craft traditions, the innovative and daring venues that helped these artists get there are suffering. For instance, this past summer amid financial troubles, the American Folk Art Museum in New York was forced to sell its building on 53^rd Street to the Museum of Modern Art and move to a smaller venue.

The MOCFA has exhibited hundreds of artists and significant local and national craft and folk art collections over the years. The Museum is devoted to collaborating with artists on commissions of new work as well as promoting artist-led projects and public programs. MOCFA has worked ardently to provide a place for makers and artists to come together and create, discuss, and learn. The Museum’s final exhibition, Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers, will be on view from now until December 1.