Another Blog About The Cleveland Museum Of Art

     Page One Hundred Seventy.

The Cleveland Museum of Art with all the new additions. It's massive.

     I went to a volunteer luncheon at The Cleveland Museum of Art yesterday. It was quite small, only

The main entrance since 1970, though actually the back of the building.

for people in the department where I volunteer (marketing & research). but it was very interesting.
     This museum is the first one in America to have a gallery which is 100% interactive. Meaning: they've taken some of the most popular works from elsewhere in the museum and moved them into one gallery, then created computer interaction around each item. For example: you can walk up to the computer below a Picasso and click on any section of the painting and find that exact same
color or shape elsewhere in the
museum. There are tons of things like that in this one very large gallery. It's proving to be extremely successful. Emissaries from museums in New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and others are coming here to study what we're doing with this cutting edge art interaction technology.  

The original 1916 building.

     Also, I knew the museum was wealthy but I didn't know it was quite as wealthy as it is. Though I don't know exact numbers, our museum has the third largest endowment of any art museum in America. I really think that they could give me a million dollars just to be nice and they'd still never miss it.

The new atrium; the size of a football field. The middle of the museum.

     Next spring will be a good time to visit if you like Van Gogh. There's going to be a special exhibition showcasing 30 of his paintings. (They couldn't get 40? How cheap!) That's one of the most extensive collections of his work ever. The angle of the exhibition is that it's going to compare and contrast how he painted the same thing at different times. So there may be two different versions of the same tree right next to each other. And we'll be able to see how his mood changed thereby changing the colors in the tree, for example.
      Next year is also a good time to visit if you like Japanese art. Japan is lending us some of their primary national art treasures. Apparently, it will be the equivalent of the Louvre lending out the Mona Lisa.
     Also, the search for a new executive director continues. Last summer our executive director resigned after it came out that he was having an affair with another museum employee. She commit suicide and the whole thing was one big soap opera. Can you believe that things like this actually happen in real life, not just Wagnerian operas? Oh, for heaven's sake's!
     But at least whomever is our next executive director won't have to deal with any construction. After 10 looooooonnnnnnng years, the construction will officially end in one week when the final galleries open. Those galleries: Chinese art; Japanese art and Southeastern Asian art are among the museum's most famous. Then the museum can get back to the business at hand: renting out the atrium for weddings ($20,000). After all, admission to the museum is always free. So somebody's got to pay for that new atrium. 

Proof That I'm Getting Older

     Page Fifty.
     A couple of days ago, I was in the Cleveland Museum of Art, drinking some coffee and enjoying the new additions. Our museum is almost finished with their $350,000,000 addition, after ten long years, and it's beautiful. (That's right... $350,000,000, literally, just for an addition. Kind of amazing, huh?) The Cleveland art museum has had a great reputation for decades. Well now it's even better. The new inner courtyard is one of the largest public spaces in the state of Ohio. And now there's room in the galleries for all the Van Goghs.
     (Can you imagine not having enough wall space for all your Van Gogh paintings? While I was working toward my degree in Art History, fifteen years ago, I ended up in the basement of the museum because I was studying some items not out on display. I noticed two Van Goghs hanging on pegboards in a dimly lit room. My jaw dropped when they explained, "we don't have wall space for everything".) 
     So anyhow, I'm sitting there and who walks over but my former next door neighbor when I lived with the Van Myms. I lived with them from spring '82, until summer '83 and nannied their two little girls. She informed me that the older one, who was six when I moved in, is now married and living on the East coast. The younger girl, who was three upon my entrance, is living with her boyfriend in Chicago. How old do I now feel?
     It just isn't fair! Though I would never want to be twenty again, it seems unethical of God that I would ever have nannied someone who'd now be married. Of course, this feeling is nothing new. Of the three Shapiro boys, two are married. I lived with them from summer '83 'till summer '84, and then, again, from summer '86 'till summer '93. When I moved in with them in '83 the older one was eleven and the twins were eight. Both twins are now married with children of their own. The births of their kids over the last four years have REALLY done a job on my self-esteem. I simply can't be that old. Can I? Thankfully, those boys all turned out well and both Shapiro parents have pulled me aside at different times and given me much credit for how their kids developed. That helps ease the aging process.
     But, back to the museum... The covered inner courtyard is one acre in size. It's essentially the size of a football field. Then, there are two floors of galleries that surround the courtyard on all four sides. So basically, it's a museum the size of a sports stadium with art where the seats should be. It's that big, but with architecture more beautiful than any stadium. And most stadiums aren't filled with art by: Turner, Caravaggio, Warhol, Monet, Picasso, Rodin, O'Keefe, Faberge, Renoir, Durer, Rembrandt and yes, Van Gogh. If you ever find yourself in Cleveland, Ohio stop by the art museum. Closed on Mondays, always free entrance.