Museum Monday - Blanton Museum of Art

How fortuitous that J’s recent business trip to Austin, TX allowed me to tag along and visit the Blanton Art Museum which was of interest to me for both the architecture and art!

Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin”, 2018

I was thrilled to visit this work of art and architecture designed by Ellsworth Kelly, only a mile from our hotel. Along the way, I passed by the State Capitol, a historic landmark clad with local red granite.

I found the design of Kelly’s “Austin” quite calming and spiritual.

Description from the museum:

In 2015, the renowned American artist Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) gifted the Blanton the design concept for Austin, a 2,715-square-foot stone structure with stained-glass windows, marble panels, and a totemic sculpture.

First conceived in 1987 for a private vineyard in California, Kelly adapted his extensive drawings and plans for the Blanton many decades later. Honoring his tradition of naming artworks for places to which they are connected, Kelly titled his last and most monumental artwork for the city where it resides.

Opened in 2018, Austin is now an iconic cornerstone of the Blanton's collection.

Austin is the culmination of Kelly's exploration of color and form over the course of his seven-decade career. It is also the result of a lifelong passion for art history, particularly Romanesque architecture and art, formed during his transformative years living in Paris as a young artist. While the building's structure and the interior artworks are inspired by the many churches Kelly visited in France and draw from religious themes in art history, Austin serves no religious function. Kelly did believe in the spiritual power of art and envisioned it as a site of joy and contemplation.

Although Kelly never had the opportunity to walk through his masterpiece, all elements of Austin were designed by him and realized true to this vision. The Blanton Museum worked closely with the artist and specialized fabricators to develop every aspect of the building and the art it contains. All of the elements, materials, and artworks were designed specifically for this building and for the site on which it sits on the Blanton's grounds.

Interior

Exterior

Museum Grounds Redesign

I was excited to see and walk through this imaginative and engaging redesign by Snøhetta. I wonder if anyone caught me looking out at the petal-covered plaza? (gallery below)

Snøhetta created a comprehensive grounds redesign for the museum that unites the civic core of the city represented by the State Capital to the south and the progressive character of the University to the north. From Congress Avenue, visitors now approach the courtyard under a canopy of dramatic petal sculptures which offer a threshold from the busy streetscape while framing Kelly’s “Austin” beyond.

Shown in the images below, the petal framing of the State Capitol and Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin”.

Mural by Carmen Herrera

Description from the museum:

As you walk toward the entrance of the Michener Gallery Building, you’re greeted by a green-and-white mural by renowned Cuban-American abstract painter Carmen Herrera. The title, Verde que te quiero verde, translates to Green How I Want You Green, and comes from the poem Romance sonámbulo by Federico García Lorca. The visual forms in the Blanton’s site-specific mural –– and Herrera’s first public mural commission –– reference her 1956 painting titled Green and White.

Born in Havana in 1915, Herrera sold her first painting in 2004, when she was 89 years old. “There’s a saying that you wait for the bus and it will come,” she said recently. “I waited almost a hundred years!” This first sale began a shift in her career. She was soon recognized as one of the greatest undiscovered secrets in the history of Cuban art, and increasingly gained the spotlight after her retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2016-17.

IN CREATIVE HARMONY:Three Artistic Partnerships

I spent most of my musuem time at the exhibit IN CREATIVE HARMONY:Three Artistic Partnerships which runs through July 20. One part of the exhibit focused on the friendship and artwork of Arshile Gorky and Isamu Noguchi, both artists Whose work I appreciate. I was unfamiliar with the artists’ close friendship so that was an aspect I enjoyed learning more about.