When I asked around Thursday night to find friends to come to an art museum with me, I got some laughs. Apparently, I can be really hilarious when I want to be.
"Do I want to go where?!" the multitudes asked, incredulous. "Honey, we're going to Shooter's to drink and dance."
And when I told my best friend my plans over the phone, she also laughed. "Classy," she said in Fran Drescher's straight-from-Flushing voice.
I could easily fault them all for being uncultured swine, given their lukewarm reaction to my evening plans. But the truth is, they aren't. I've watched them go to concerts or attend lectures in Page Auditorium. I've seen them make time for French cinema in Reynolds. They've been to Awaaz, to the Vagina Monologues, to the step shows and to Hoof 'n' Horn productions.
But the visual arts? Forget about it. We might have our token galleries-the Brown gallery in the Bryan Center or a few showing spaces in Perkins Library. Still, there is nothing cool or popular about going to an art gallery on this campus-and honestly, if the options are limited to stills and prints in the BC-turned-ghost-town, there's no reason viewing visual arts should be popular. I've never had friends tell me they spent their Thursday, Friday or Saturday night in the Perkins lobby, looking at the mini-collection of 1930s comic books that were displayed there.
Nah. I'd take the mechanical bull over that any day.
Brace yourself for change, because when the Nasher Museum of Art opened to the public Sunday, visual arts on this campus suddenly got a whole lot cooler, chicer and younger. The student gala last week boasted free jazz, free hor d'oerves and, well, freedom to enjoy artistic masterpieces at your leisure. And even though I couldn't coerce the good-time-gals into coming along, Nasher's main piazza was packed that night.
Museum leadership saw the high attendance as a giant stride for visual arts culture. Senior Curator Sarah Schroth sees the jump from the perhaps pathetic Duke University Museum of Art to the Nasher Museum as "tremendous"-and the opportunities the new space affords doubly so.
But bringing culture to this campus is not a problem solved by simply building a $24-million facility. The real issue comes in making this sleek, posh new museum-in which the likes of Andy Warhol, Auguste Rodin and Henri Matisse are currently stashed-translate into a sleek, posh new arts scene. Not only must it seek to be popular with students in a social sense, but it must also fulfill its function as an educational tool-all while upholding a strong regional, national and international reputation. Other university museums, like Harvard's Fogg Museum of Art, will soon become our peers.
No sweat, right?
Indeed. Schroth will point out steps that the museum is taking to do all of these things-from roundtabling with a student advisory board to allowing kids, professors and eager learners at large to study the entire collection in storage. Classes will be held in the lecture hall; we can study on the patios or in the cafe. If all goes well, students will be able to see increasingly sought-after and important exhibitions in one or all of Nasher's three galleries-a huge accomplishment in only two years.
And though Nasher's primary function is as a University museum, Schroth's hopes extend beyond the Gothic confines. The museum will play host to a "very important" exhibition of contemporary Chinese photography in the near future, as well as a critically acclaimed set of experimental videos by Eve Sussman. "They're very cutting-edge, very New York, and they're coming here first," Schroth said, "Because how you earn that great reputation in the art world is by organizing your own exhibitions first."
Well, la-di-da.
In the same way that the beloved saloon-style haven (or Charlie's or George's or Insert-Off-East-Address-Here, for that matter) earned its reputation as a go-to-namely, by being a place to cut loose and have fun-Nasher will seek word-of-mouth publicity by holding events for students. The aesthetics and the roominess of the great hall, Schroth says, are what make it appealing for nightlife. Book signings or guest speakers? Exhibition opening parties? Lectures on the brooding nature of Rothko's abstract expressionism? Think it up, pitch the idea, and they just might listen.
Will everyone trade yee-haw drunken revelry at Shooter's for goat-cheese crostini, chardonnay and an artfully displayed set of Guatemalan textiles? No, not everyone. But the beauty of Nasher is that it's an option-one that stands poised to flesh out an increasingly one-dimensional social scene.
Pretty darn classy, if you ask me.
Sarah Ball is a Trinity sophomore and editoiral page managing editor for The Chronicle. Her column runs every Thursday.
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