Milwaukee Museum Puts the Works First--for Now

MILWAUKEE — In the expanded and renovated Milwaukee Art Museum, which opened Friday, it is clear that however much theater is involved on the outside of the still-incomplete addition, the inside gets right to the heart of an art museum. Now there are vastly improved spaces that allow flexibility and clarity both to traveling exhibitions and the permanent collection.

After all, the soaring reception hall and elaborate louvered sunscreen--which finally will give the 113-year-old institution a profile that needfully departs from the War Memorial Center with which the museum long has shared space--will be stunning attractions but are not an ultimate justification for the $100-million project. So by staging an opening before the entire spectacle--pedestrian bridge, sunscreen, reception hall, restaurant, underground parking lot--is ready Sept. 14, the museum now focuses on the part of its mission that sometimes gets downplayed in the process of “branding” by international architects. This opening is to see what’s happened with the art.

The new galleries, designed by Spanish-born architect Santiago Calatrava, and the renovation of the old galleries will make viewers aware of the depth and quality of the collections as never before. The Milwaukee is, of course, a general museum with special strengths (20th century design, folk art) and weaknesses (Asian and African art); but the many collections in between these areas give the impetus for most visitors to attend, and for many reasons they were not always well-served.

Part of the difficulty was that the museum was spread over two buildings, the first designed in 1957 by Eero Saarinen, the second in 1975 by David Kahler. Stylistically, they matched well enough, but being of different eras they addressed themselves to different needs that were not equally friendly to art in all of the museum’s collections. The Kahler building, for example, had a huge reception room that occasionally served as an auditorium for lectures. But it also was one of the few spaces that could easily accommodate large contemporary works, which thus were not only put at risk of damage from crowds but also were separated from the rest of the contemporary collection.

Now Calatrava’s reception hall plus 300-seat auditorium have entirely freed the area in the Kahler building for contemporary art, and the results may be a surprise even to longtime visitors. For by bringing together contemporary paintings and sculpture in contiguous spaces, one is made aware of a collection that would be enviable at a contemporary museum, which might even have fewer distinguished works on view than these. The museum’s large 20th century Bradley Collection still is housed apart from the spaces, owing to a restriction imposed at the time of the gift. But should that ever be relaxed, the museum could have one of the most cogent displays of modern and contemporary art in the Midwest. In terms of art of the present--difficult-to-show installation works included--it’s well on the way.

Rethinking and

Reconfiguring Spaces

Every space except those housing the Bradley Collection has been rethought, reconfigured and reinstalled to achieve greater clarity of presentation. Some of the results are simple, as when folk art and self-taught work naturally leads to Haitian art. Other initiatives are more complex, as the fairly straight, chronological display of 20th century design complemented (on another floor) by a daring, even healthily jarring, thematic exploration that cuts across styles, countries and time periods. In nearly all instances, spaces in the Saarinen and Kahler buildings appear airier and lighter, leaving behind the old sense that because the museum was underneath the War Memorial Center all the galleries were somehow darkened, as if literally in its shadow.

This new brightness is particularly appropriate, as it characterizes all the Calatrava-designed spaces that will open Friday. You perceive it most intensely in two long white galleries facing, respectively, the city and lake. Both are for three-dimensional works: the first having commissioned yearlong installations, the second more orthodox sculpture from the permanent collection. The Richard Long installation was not yet in place. The sculpture vied for attention with a curtained booth used during previews. However, Calatrava’s vast expanses of marble and poured concrete do not--as might have been feared--suggest corridors simply to be moved through. A number of details catch the eye and, again, several have to do with light.

The primary motifs throughout the building are like the spine and ribs of a whale viewed from inside. Bits of them are visible everywhere, including the temporary exhibition space, where the overhead “spine” runs between narrow sets of skylights. Do such design elements compete with the art? Not in the opening exhibition of works by Wisconsin-born Georgia O’Keeffe, who retained for herself works spanning her entire career. Most of them are small and, one might think, easily overpowered by Calatrava, who has not provided merely a clean white cube to house them.

But this brilliant show--displaying for the first time a selection of O’Keeffe drawings, the existence of which she denied--looks both comfortable and clear in the flexibly designed space, and that’s as good a start as any.

The museum shop is off one of the long white galleries and surpasses in elegance any such enterprise in my experience. This is largely because of the central, sweeping Calatrava-designed cases, which echo in different ways and materials the curves found in the structure of the building. Similarly, the auditorium seats are by Calatrava, and there, too, the complementary details enrich a visitor’s experience, even in a space that most of the time will be perceived in dim light or darkness.

Some may expect from the look of the shop examples of high fashion rather than educational materials. And when the reception hall opens in September, there may be a feeling of too much gloss for what a museum is supposed to be about. Already a joke has arisen that the pristine, underground 100-car parking lot is really an automobile gallery. But who should care if these spaces turn out to be a bit too grand? The more apt question is: Does their loftiness prepare viewers for the museum’s artistic experience? And to anyone who knew the old place, which had 30% less gallery space than it does now, the answer would have to be affirmative.

Everyone wanted a “signature” building, and that’s what they’re getting, along with elaborate re-landscaping by Dan Kiley. This includes an arrival garden, lawns, paved plazas, monumental fountains and a water channel with jets that will create a 6-foot-high water curtain illuminated by fiber optics. The precise completion date is uncertain but is scheduled for October.

So there’s lots more to come, and most of it inevitably will divert attention away from art. For now, however, the art has seldom looked better, allowing the museum to command the lakefront not only with dazzle but a deeper visual intelligence.