How to Make the Art Institute's New Modern Wing Even Better

The highly acclaimed Modern Wing, designed by Renzo Piano, faces the wildly successful Millennium Park. Here's a no-brainer: close Monroe Street that runs between the two!

Truly connect Millennium Park with its sculpture and art to the Art Institute.

This would also be the easiest way to make it easy for great numbers of people to enter the art museum. Here's the scene as the Modern Wing opened last month:

Just imagine the above scene with this space landscaped and with sculpture! It'd be a fine new public space for the citizens and the many tourists.

The automobile drivers survived Monroe street being close on the day above, didn't they? They easily found alternate routes.

Chicago, especially at its hugely successful Millennium Park, needs to prioritize the people, the walkers, those strolling, enjoying city life. A great thing about Millennium Park is that because it is built over a parking garage it is raised up above the street. It is one of the few public places in the city where you don't see and hear and smell cars whizzing by, as you do in, for example, Daley Plaza. Extend this peaceful, urban, exalting feeling right to the door of the fabulous new Modern Wing of the Art Institute.

Note to Mayor Daley: for a long time your name came up first when people talked of great American mayors, "green" mayors, visionary mayors. Now I hear more talk of Mayor Bloomberg in New York, as, for example, he closes parts of Broadway to car traffic to make it more friendly to pedestrians. We'll see Manhattan derive great benefits and better quality of life from its progressive move. If New York can close a part of Broadway, why can't Chicago close a part of Monroe?

photo via

Edward Lifson blogs regularly at Hello Beautiful!

Comments

[gouge]

Well, the sky bridge is a disaster: ever tried to use it from the first floor of the new wing? Speaking of which, the building is not all that- the 100,000 sq ft artless 'atrium/suburban mall wedding/bar mitzvah hedge-funded party room/event center' is a paen to the kind of art world bling that ceased to exist over the last season-

The contemporary collection is abysmal, trendy, as shallow and specious as it gets. Even what is shown of Chicago artists is tired, predictable, and by the numbers-

The lighting sucks -actually they need to turn some lights on- the treatment of de Kooning is appalling -there is Excavation in eminent danger of having a latte splashed on-given its proximity to the cafe -scrunched on one little wall with no viewing distance -where Gerhard Richter is allocated an entire room -including an entire wall for four! of those schmaltzy abex squeegee postcards he churns out.....is there anyone in their right mind who thinks this guy is so important that he deserves as much room as the entire mid century American painting scene? Really.

Lets end the gushing about the new wing. Its problematic to say the least.

-more to follow on sharkforum.org

[Paul Klein - Huffpost Blogger]

Edward, You are completely correct. Closing Monroe for one block would be fabulous for people and art alike. The Art Institute could engage the community and convey accessibility in a whole new way.

But let's not stop there. Now that the Modern Wing is open and people have raved about it, it needs to be tweaked. Some things can’t be overcome, but let’s address those that can:

1. Though it’s great that Chicago artists are included (Kerry James Marshall, Jim Nut, Martin Puryear) most of the collection exhibited looks cookiecutterish. W hat distinguishes the Art Institute from other great museums? Does it not have its own point of view?
2. The much lauded lighting is nice conceptually, but it doesn’t work. Even adjacent galleries have uneven lighting. And what they’ve done to the Cornell boxes is a shame. Why take a kid’s favorite piece and make it so the kids can’t see it? They should hand out flashlights. Or, turn the dang lights on.
3. What’s with all the doors? Can they just be left open? Is this a fire code thing or an admission that they couldn’t get climate control right? There are no doors in the old buildings. What’s the deal?
4. Way too much large art is exhibited in spaces too small to accommodate them. When a person cannot take in an entire painting in one view the room is too small. A lot of the walls look (re)movable.

[Paul Klein - Huffpost Blogger]

5. Women. Where is the art by women?
6. How come the Brancusi’s are up against a wall? Makes it look like they are 2nd class art placed there solely because they can handle the sunlight. Shees. Sculptures are 3 dimensional objects that are meant to be experienced in the round.
7. And lastly, the guards. I like to look at great art from a distance and then from close up. Like 6 to 12 inches. I want to see the brush strokes and what color went over which. At least 5 times the guards instructed me to back up 3 feet. Offensive. When was the last time someone spewed on a painting there?

I’ve only mentioned things here that will cost next to nothing to rectify. I’m going to try to accept the expensive errors, like ceilings that are too short, a grand and expensive entry that has but one humbled work of art in it, a bridge that goes up to the third floor just so you can awkwardly take an escalator down, and most significantly no room capable of mounting a substantial, large, meaningful exhibition – no, the room(s) the Twombly’s are in does not come close.

Yes, I like the Modern Wing. Edward's idea is a great first step, but there's a whole lot more that needs to be done.