It's not the new frame that's coming to house it but the subtle play of works within that will reveal the future of the Tampa Museum of Art. The anniversary show suggests a marriage of the classical and the modern.
By LENNIE BENNETT
Published October 24, 2004
[Images from the Tampa Museum of Art]
Willie Cole, Sunflower, 1994, scorched canvas and lacquer on padded wood.
Ralph Goings, Collins Diner, 1985-86, oil on canvas.
C. Paul Jennewein, Over the Waves, 1927, bronze.
James Rosenquist, Welcome to the Water Planet, 1987, lithograph.
TAMPA - One of the recurring gripes about the Tampa Museum of Art is that it soon will begin construction on a fancy $62-million edifice to house . . . hardly anything. (By the way, another gripe is the design, a streamlined, contemporary one by famous architect Rafael Vinoly that I like very much.) Anyway, some critics say the museum should be building a collection rather than a facility.
The reality is that having one without the other is difficult. Would Andrew Mellon, who founded the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., have donated his collection without first constructing something to put it in? Probably not. Would John Ringling or Margaret Acheson Stuart (who founded the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg) or Isabella Stewart Gardner (of the eponymous Boston museum)? Very probably not. Would Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, founders of the Salvador Dali Museum? Certainly not.
Collectors want the assurance that their prized works will be on display, not moldering in storage. So, for that and other reasons, most museums devote a good bit of floor space to their permanent collections. But over the past century, museums, even those with superb permanent collections, have felt the need to mount special exhibitions using art borrowed from other institutions to lure more visitors through their doors. Borrowed shows bring prestige and publicity. They are the main reason the Dali, Ringling and Museum of Fine Arts want to expand.
The Tampa Museum, not having room to display its collection and host touring shows, decided some time back to use most of its gallery space for the temps. And it is not a great space even for those; it's too small for the more ambitious traveling shows. In any case, the lack of space was probably a big factor in the museum's inability to attract many significant gifts or money for acquisitions.
But it does have a permanent collection, numbering more than 7,000 items, "TMA@25" the museum's celebration of its 25th anniversary, is an invitation to acquaint ourselves with it. Curators have selected about 100 works, and museum director Emily Kass, who oversaw the choices, makes much of what she has.
The center gallery beyond the entrance is a nutshell introduction, a lagniappe preceding the rest of the exhibition. Works by Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist and Robert Motherwell anchor the walls with their big names, supported by bold paintings by Alma Thomas and Syd Solomon and a photograph by Sandy Skoglund. Yes, they announce, we have a collection. And respectable it is, though certainly not a great one, not the stuff of an institution aspiring to become a major player in the regional museum lineup. But you have to start somewhere, it nudges us to admit. As a starting point for something larger, this show has promise.
The main gallery holds paintings and prints (including photography) and some sculpture, most 20th century. The installation strives mightily for coherence with "thematic groupings": Aspects of realism, surrealism and its influence, and color.
You would be joining me if you thought, Huh?
Actually, the arrangement works, especially since the viewer is not hammered over the head with ponderous wall text trying to justify the randomness of the categories. Instead, just go with the flow. The conversation-stopping self-portrait by Chuck Close done in photographic panels that take up an entire wall and the huge blue abstract woodcut by Mel Kendrick ballast the entrance and rear. Lined along one wall are Fraser Smith's trompe l'oeil cap of carved wood, Ralph Goings' photo-realist painting of a diner and Alberto Ray's mixed media evocation of his Cuban childhood. They are linked as realist works, of course, but more interestingly by what Kass calls their "funny little connections." A man wears a cap similar to the carved one next to the painting of the diner. On a shelf sits a landscape Goings has painted to look like an old photograph. Ray has a tiny landscape in his work, too. They are visual echoes that ricochet back and forth.
The exhibit is full of subtle and thoughtful connections that ask us to look beyond the obvious. Figurative prints by Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso are kept at arm's length by Abraham Walkowitz's painting of bathers sunning themselves on a rocky outcropping. It's a visual vindication for Walkowitz, an early modernist who never rose to the greatness of Picasso and Calder and comes between these two egoistic artists like a calming voice. The placement brought a smile to my face.
Sub-categories pop up, such as the utilitarian objects used without any attempt to camouflage their purpose or their characteristics yet transformed into art that works independently of their functional qualities. I'm thinking of Willie Cole's iron that scorches linen into a beautiful pattern and Rauschenberg's fascination with corrugated cardboard.
The small adjacent gallery contains objects from the massive C. Paul Jennewein bequest to the museum in 1978. (Of the museum's 7,000 holdings, 2,000 are from this group and include a lot of memorabilia.) Any visitor will recognize Jennewein's classic sculptures, which are always on display. Added to them are large blowups of his studio and cases containing sketches and models for some of his best-known work, such as the Greek figures he modeled for the Philadelphia Museum of Art's exterior pediment. It's a charming showcase.
The long Terrace Gallery is studded with sculpture and studio glass, and the Bank of America Gallery showcases the Basch collection of studio glass that has been promised to the museum.
The classical gallery is pretty much as it always is, a consistently fine display of antiquities.
We have seen many of these works before but never in such an integrated way. This exhibition shows us what the museum aspires to be and the direction it should take. Besides the value and prestige of its antiquities, the most interesting part of the collection is contemporary. I hope museum leaders decide to pursue more art from the latter part of the 20th century and the 21st century.
At the Tampa Museum of Art, 600 N Ashley Drive, through Jan. 2. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Adults $7, seniors $6, students $3, free for children 6 and younger. By donation on Saturday 10 a.m. to noon. 813 274-8130 or www.TampaMuseum.com
