Art History Symposium

Professor O'Brien, Rachel Teagle, Lawrence Rinder, and a bunch of heads

     

     I attended two lectures on April 8th by Rachel Teagle and Lawrence Rinder.  Rachel Teagle's talk How Do You Make an Art Museum and Why? centered around the construction of the Manetti Shrem Museum in Davis, CA.  I learned that UC Davis has wanted to create an art museum for more than twenty years and there's been a plan since 1994 for one.  Teagle's mission in building the museum focused on answering "what does it mean to be a state of the art museum?"  She invited the public as an additive process to figure out what the museum should be like.  The Eli and Edyth Broad Art Museum, designed by architect Zaha Hadid, at Michigan State University was a reference.  In contrast to Hadid's architectural design style which could make a form work anywhere, Teagle and her team wanted to build something that was specific to Davis.  She listed "innovation, experimentation, and openness" as core values.  In consideration of UC Davis' interdisciplinary community, understanding how to build a space that could exhibit a wide variety of work was also important.  Teagle ended her talk by saying she wanted the Manetti Shrem to be a place where students could "find transformational experiences."

     Lawrence Rinder's talk The New Downtown Berkeley provided a history and mission statment for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).  As director for the museum, his mission statement is as follows: "inspires the imagination, ignites critical dialogue, and activates community engagement through art, film, and other forms of creative expression."  Certainly great goals to strive for when it comes to most museums.  During the talk, I learned that collector William Ernest had donated his big collection of Japanese prints to the museum in 1919.  At the time, it only featured about a dozen Western and American work.  Abstract expressionist painter Hans Hoffman then left forty-seven of his paintings for the museum.  Film is also an important aspect and the Pacific Film Archive was created as "part and parcel of the museum."  In 1940, the museum was moved to the UC Printing Plant of late deco design.  Also interesting to learn that ninety percent of the museum's visitors are not students.  I have recently had the pleasure of visiting the museum for the first time and I really enjoyed seeing the Collection Portal, which allows anyone to digitally see the museum's entire collection.

-My question would have been for Rachel Teagle in regards to the lab coat uniform for the staff at the Manetti Shrem.  She had said that she wanted to eschew a "research" feel from the experience but the lab coats seem to contradict that.