Recent Acquisitions - The Best New Museums

Technically, you can stage a ribbon cutting for pretty much anything. Oh, there’s a new steakhouse in town? Wonderful, but you probably won’t see the mayor at the opening. The arrival of something that can improve a city and promises lifetimes of knowledge and cultural enrichment, however — that’s another thing entirely. So it’s heartwarming to see that, even in the midst of a lingering recession, a slew of devoted organizations cut the ribbons on some very impressive projects, while established greats soldiered on with ambitious expansions. Everybody on the bus — it’s time for a field trip.

PHOENIX
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MUSEUM

Opened April 24, 2010

BY DAN GIBSON

Ever wonder what an ondioline sounds like? Better yet, ever wonder what an ondioline is? This small electronic keyboard invented by a Frenchman in the 1940s is just one of the many instruments and associated objects on view in the two-story MIM. President and Director Bill DeWalt almost sells it short by calling it “a guestfriendly place in which people are able to simply enjoy music and musical instruments.” Rather, it’s a place where people can not only see instruments from every country in the world, but also hear them (via provided wireless headphones) and observe them being played in original settings (via high-res video screens). The first floor introduces visitors to the artistry and diversity of instruments, while the second is arranged by geography. After a whirlwind tour of musically inspired scenes — from a re-created gong workshop in Asia to a contemporary Ukrainian wedding procession — get your hands on the intriguing instruments in Experience Gallery. But remember, one person’s “experimental soundscape” is another’s headache. themim.org

HIGHLIGHT: Your heart may skip a beat upon seeing the Steinway piano on which John Lennon composed “Imagine.”

YOU’LL BE AMAZED TO LEARN: The octobass (shown above), a three-stringed and much larger version of the double bass, is 12 feet tall, requires standing on a platform to play, and hits a note so low (15Hz) the human ear can barely hear it. Of the three made, only one made it to North America.

BY THE NUMBERS
299 = seats in the MIM’s acoustically tuned theater
192,000 = square footage of the MIM, making it one of the world’s largest musical instrument museums
12,000 = objects in the collection, some of which were obtained in adventures befitting an Indiana Jones film

RALEIGH, NC
NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF ART’S WEST BUILDING

Opened April 24, 2010

So technically this isn’t a new museum, but the large freestanding addition overwhelmingly transforms the institution. The first thing you notice when you set foot inside the West Building is the light. With scores of skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows, it gives you the impression that you’re still outdoors, viewing an impressive collection of art that spans 5,000-plus years while walking among the rolling tree-topped hills and lush gardens of the museum’s expansive art park. As the museum’s director Larry Wheeler puts it, “Light is not the enemy of color and material, but a great friend of the viewing experience.” Allowing the infiltration of natural light is not the only museum rule the 127,000-square-foot West Building breaks. It also eschews the standard multi-level construction, opting instead for a single floor, making it a breeze to float through the galleries (not to mention easier on those stair-hating legs). “The old idea of gallery labyrinths can be quite confusing,” Wheeler says. “We tried to open the galleries as much as possible, so not only can art across centuries have conversations with one another, but people, too, can make visual connections among many parts of the collection.” Standing in the Italian Renaissance gallery, facing Devorah Sperber’s After The Mona Lisa 2 — an oversized, upside-down version of da Vinci’s masterpiece made of spools of colored thread — Wheeler’s words couldn’t ring truer. And it’s this, the unexpected — mixing the contemporary with the classic, inviting visitors to walk among the sunshine and nature, not a stair in sight — that makes the West Building itself a masterpiece. www.ncartmuseum.org

HIGHLIGHT: The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Court and Garden, home to 31 of Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculptures, including The Kiss and The Thinker. The museum is the Southeast’s largest repository of the famed French artist’s work.

YOU’LL BE AMAZED TO LEARN: El Anatsui’s large-scale tapestry-like sculpture Lines That Link Humanity is made from flattened bottle caps and remnants of liquor packaging.

BY THE NUMBERS
362 = skylights inside the museum
164 = acreage of the art museum park, the largest in the country
~50 = percentage of exterior that is glass

PHILADELPHIA
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

Opened Nov. 26, 2010

BY SHAUN BRADY

Located a stone’s throw from the site where it opened in 1976, The National Museum of American Jewish History recently debuted its new, far more spacious digs on historic Independence Mall. From its west-facing windows, visitors can look out at Philadelphia’s iconic Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

The site is ideal, says museum president and CEO Michael Rosenzweig, because “the story we tell is organized around the theme of freedom — so it’s very appropriate that the museum [is located] where freedom was born in this country.” 

The museum traces the 350-year story of American Jews from the Colonial era to the present, touching on every major event. “It’s a story that is interesting not only to Jews but to non-Jews,” Rosenzweig says. “Virtually all Americans, if you go back far enough in their history, came as immigrants, and we tell the universal story of what can be achieved when immigrants encounter the freedoms that we enjoy.” nmajh.org

HIGHLIGHT: Visitors can experience immigrating to turn-of-the-century America using a touch-screen video that recreates the rigorous testing foreigners faced at Ellis Island.

YOU’LL BE AMAZED TO LEARN: Senda Berenson (1868-1954) was the first woman inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. She became the director of Smith College’s physical education department and wrote the official rulebook for women’s college basketball.

BY THE NUMBERS
85,000 = square-foot difference between the new museum and the original 15,000-squarefoot building
2,688 = LED nodes in artist Ben Rubin’s light sculpture Beacon, made of shifting forms that are drawn from the pages of the Talmud
18 = Jewish Americans featured in the first class of the “Only in America” Hall of Fame, which includes Albert Einstein, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg and Estée Lauder.

CANCUN
MUSEO SUBACUÁTICO DE ARTE

Opened Nov. 26, 2010

BY ANDREW O’REILLY

Who says museums need walls — or even air, for that matter? Snorkeling and scuba-diving visitors to Cancun can now take part in one of the world’s most unusual art-viewing experiences beneath more than 32 feet of water off the shores of the nearby island of Isla Mujeres. But the impetus for this fascinating installation of more than 400 life-size sculptures by artist Jason deCaires Taylor wasn’t merely entertainment. According to Roberto Díaz, the museum’s president, it has been tremendously successful in helping to reduce the number of visitors to the fragile natural reefs. “Out of the 2,000 daily visitors to the National Marine Park, 300 are being diverted to the museum,” Díaz says. “This is what we call ‘the art of conservation.’” www.musacancun.com

HIGHLIGHT: The museum has attracted the Gray Angelfish to the reefs; they were rarely seen in the area before.

YOU’LL BE AMAZED TO LEARN: The installation looks like a human eye when viewed from above.

BY THE NUMBERS
18 = months it took to build and sink the sculptures
75 = holes drilled in Man on Fire, planted with live cuttings of fire coral
120 = tons of cement used to make sculptures

CHARLOTTE
NASCAR HALL OF FAME

Opened May 11, 2010

BY BROOKE PORTER

This 150,000-square-foot temple to all things NASCAR is like a race itself, inviting visiting speed freaks to compete against each other in everything from trivia to changing tires. Pick up a “Hard Card” — a memory card that tracks points earned on the interactive displays — and start your engine in the racecar-filled atrium, where you’ll test your NASCAR knowledge at a touch-screen kiosk. Who coined the term NASCAR?* Go! Then it’s up to the next floor, where the adrenaline really starts pumping as you prep the car (set up the tire pressure, shocks and springs); enter the Pit Crew Challenge (jack up a car, change tires and fill the gas); and try to control your machine as you attempt a qualifying lap (it’s harder than it looks). The energy level revs down on the top level, where exhibits explore NASCAR’s 60-plus-year history through videos, artifacts and timelines. On your way out, make sure to tally those Hard Card points — and if you don’t come out ahead, well, remember that even Jimmie Johnson wasn’t an overnight success. nascarhall.com

HIGHLIGHT: Dale Earnhardt’s Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which he drove to his 76th (and final) NASCAR victory in 2000 at Talladega Superspeedway

YOU’LL BE AMAZED TO LEARN: Famed NASCAR legend — and moonshiner — Junior Johnson hand-built the full-size moonshine still in the Heritage Speedway exhibit specifically for the HOF. He even delivered and assembled it himself.

BY THE NUMBERS
46 = current and historic racetracks highlighted in Glory Road exhibit
1,800 = length (in feet) of the exterior ribbon, which circles the building and lights up at night
$1,250 = prize money awarded to Red Byron, the first NASCAR champion, in 1948