Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture
Three
Questions…
During the weekend of November 9,
2012, 39 members of the Laumeier staff and docent team traveled by bus to
Bentonville, Ark., to experience the first anniversary of the Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art. The best thing about the trip was travelling with
Laumeier Docents and Friends, experiencing the wonderful indoor and outdoor
spaces at Crystal Bridges, looking at and talking about the architecture, the
setting and the art collection. Sharing our knowledge, experiences and
responses with each other—it’s what we love! The trip to Crystal Bridges is one
of the continuing education opportunities offered to Laumeier Sculpture Park
active and honorary docents; it’s also an opportunity for new recruits!
Fieldtrips to other museums, to
view collections and observe other docents in action, offer both educational
opportunities and camaraderie. The Crystal Bridges Museum itself is
site-specific architecture at its best, fitting naturally and jubilantly in the
landscape. Although we had read about the museum and shared articles, including
the celebrated purchase of a Rothko painting—the value of which is rumored to
be from $25 million to $57 million—we were all blown away by the magnitude of
the collection and the building itself.
We toured inside and out, enjoyed
the Crystal Bridges Documentary Film Public Premiere in the Great Hall and
hiked the trails. A few of the Crystal Bridges docents and staff visited St.
Louis during the 2011 National Docent Symposium and graciously returned the
hospitality with their “Greatest Hits” tour. My greatest hits tour would have
included personal favorites, a smaller sculpture by Jackie Ferrara, reminiscent
of our Laumeier Project, 1981, as well as work by Romare Bearden, Jacob
Lawrence, Ursula von Rydingsvard and James Turrell’s, “The Way of Color,”
2009—worth getting up 45 minutes before sunrise to see!
I enjoyed the exhibition, “Moshe
Safdie: The Path to Crystal Bridges”! Would love to tour Safdie’s earlier
buildings, especially “Habitat 67″; what a different approach to public housing
compared to our current discourse about the Pruitt-Igoe public housing disaster
showcased in Juan William Chávez’s “Living Proposal: Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary,
2010-2012,”on view at Laumeier through January 20, 2013.
What I liked least about the trip
was there was not enough time to thoroughly enjoy the collection—which means I
will have to go back!
What would I have changed?
Definitely scheduling more time to look and explore on our own the life-long
learning opportunities across every bridge, yes every bridge, at Crystal
Bridges Museum of American Art!
– Clara Collins Coleman, Curator
of Interpretation
This post by Clara Collins Coleman originally appeared in Laumeier blog in November of 2012. I was on this trip and enjoyed the place thoroughly.
Rothko No. 210/No. 211 (Orange)
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