Museum of Fine Arts Developments | Fenway

By the way my, comment was referencing a pulled editorial comic that was critical of the MFA during the opening of the AotA wing.

It was dumb comic, but the Globe did a great disservice to it readers by censoring themselves to appease a 'media partner'.

I'm just glad they are not doing that anymore.
 
Re: Pulitzer Prize for criticism

Woody Allen, Annie Hall: "They give awards for that kind of music? I thought just earplugs...They do nothing but give out awards. I can't believe it. Greatest Fascist Dictator - Adolf Hitler!"
 
Time to rev-up this thread

While there is currently nothing architectural going on outside --there are a lot of new galleries going up or being totally renovated inside -- there is a pdf one can download from the MFA.org that provides the most recent listing: http://www.mfa.org/sites/default/files/MFA_ExhibitionSchedule_UPCOMING_2013-2014.pdf

And if you have not yet seen the re-installations of two of the most impressive period rooms in the US -- you should go:

Hamilton Palace Dining Room
Gallery 241A, Alan and Simone Hartman Galleries
the dining room (about 1700) in Hamilton Palace, the vast residence of the dukes of Hamilton just outside of Glasgow, Scotland. The room was first installed at the MFA in1928, then dismantled, during the construction of the adjacent Art of the Americas Wing. The room has been reassembled and features English silver made between 1670 and 1760 from the Hartman Collection

Newland House Drawing Room
Gallery 241B, Alan and Simon Hartman Galleries
This grand drawing room, whose cast-iron fireback is dated 1748, comes from Newland House, a 17th-century manor house in Gloucestershire, England. The MFA installed it as a period room in 1931, and it closed to visitors in the 1970s. Now reassembled with a new ceiling, it is furnished with period furniture, decorative arts, and paintings.

These take you back to the time [circa 1750} when rooms had tall ceilings, lots of carved panels and money was virtually no object
 
Cool. Thanks for the info and the link to the listing of renovation projects at the MFA, Westie!

Particularly happy to see that the Greek and Roman art galleries are finally starting to get renovated. The pathetic state of the facilities hosting the MFA's Classical art collection - juxtaposed against the fantastic collection the MFA has - has bothered me for a looong time.

After the Classical art (and post-Antiquity European art) galleries are refurbished, I would really like to see the MFA expand and improve the presentation of its Asian art collection.

Sebastian Smee at the Globe has written a few interesting articles on this:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/the...m-fine-arts/jBbX2pfzrOS26dz6yUe3vL/story.html

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/the...-not-boston/BFs9M88DD3Oho8px5tzFiN/story.html
 
Note also that the two small African galleries--not an MFA strength--have also just been renovated--one extensively. The Benin Bronze exhibition (I hope it is permanent) is excellent.

I also really like the period rooms mentioned above--I fantasize about them being part of my manorhouse. (right after I fantasize about having a manorhouse) :)
 
itchy said:
Cool. Thanks for the info and the link to the listing of renovation projects at the MFA, Westie!

Particularly happy to see that the Greek and Roman art galleries are finally starting to get renovated. The pathetic state of the facilities hosting the MFA's Classical art collection - juxtaposed against the fantastic collection the MFA has - has bothered me for a looong time.
Click to expand...


Itch --- the real pièce de résistance of the Classical Antiquities is still to be finalized (aka looking for a fatcat with the $ and the desire for immortality).

But anyways its a gallery of Gods, Goddesses and Heroes founded on the colossal statue of Juno..... Juno in her clearly Roman portrayal (not even close to Praxiteles}. But a really Big Woman ... the largest classical statue in North America @ 13 feet tall and 13,000 pounds
 
Westie - welcome back!
morgan1.jpg
 
Shep

Thanks -- looks like one of my "relatives"

When I started seeing the rush to build engendered by the end of the Menino Era -- well I couldn't deny my urge and I started lurking --- but I held back on commenting for a couple of days

and then well -- F-Line used a picture of a key main-line substation in Cambridge as if it represented some "typical residential substation" -- so I had to comment

So I'm back -- although I won't be around nearly as often as in the past -- unfortunately I spend quite a bit of time looking at traffic and the insde of vey BIG warehouses in Central New Joisey so I don't get to downtown Boston much these days
 
whighlander said:
its a gallery of Gods, Goddesses and Heroes founded on the colossal statue of Juno
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, Westie - the piece de resistance of which you speak is the Gods, Goddesses and Heroes gallery, yes?

If so, that's interesting. I noticed in the link you shared before that the upcoming Greek galleries are all subdivided by theme (Homer, Greek Theater, Dionysos + the Symposium).

Even as someone who's into the Classics (was a Classics Minor in college), I'm not sure if I liked that approach - seems a bit hokey. But the Gods, Goddesses & Heroes gallery centered around the massive Juno does sound cool. (I was actually on MFA.org wondering why I couldn't find much recent info on Juno.) Though I have to wonder how they plan to avoid having huge amounts of overlap between the Homer gallery and a Gods/Heroes gallery.
 
itchy said:
Just to clarify, Westie - the piece de resistance of which you speak is the Gods, Goddesses and Heroes gallery, yes?

If so, that's interesting. I noticed in the link you shared before that the upcoming Greek galleries are all subdivided by theme (Homer, Greek Theater, Dionysos + the Symposium).

Even as someone who's into the Classics (was a Classics Minor in college), I'm not sure if I liked that approach - seems a bit hokey. But the Gods, Goddesses & Heroes gallery centered around the massive Juno does sound cool. (I was actually on MFA.org wondering why I couldn't find much recent info on Juno.) Though I have to wonder how they plan to avoid having huge amounts of overlap between the Homer gallery and a Gods/Heroes gallery.
Click to expand...

Itch -- Yes the Gods, Goddesses & Heroes Gallery ["GG&HG"?] is centered on Juno ... How else would it be possible ... My guess is that the MFA will follow the new theme as exemplified by the res-installed period rooms in Arts of Europe and a couple of others where the media are mixed and a "natural vignette" is created. I would expect that GG&HG will include some additional statuary, some pottery, perhaps a few coins even possible that some Renaissance and later works with the theme of the classical mythological might be included.

Overall the scale and what is included will depend on whose name replaces GG&HG and how much is involved. The one thing we know is that Juno is not going to move. If she shifts even a few of her base dimensions I'd be very surprised
 
PaulC said:
The Benin gallery will be permanent:
http://www.mfa.org/sites/default/files/MFA_Benin press release.pdf

I wonder where the Polynesian gallery will resurface?
Click to expand...

Poly and Africa are both components of the much larger Arts of Asia, Oceania and Africa

The wing which we've tended to associate with Japan and China, today also hosts a gallery that includes works from India and Indonesia:

Sculptures and decorative arts reflect the sophisticated artistic traditions of India and the surrounding South Asian countries of Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, as well as Southeast Asia, which includes Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Click to expand...

The "Asian Wing" also has several closed galleries which formerly housed some Japanese and Chinese secondary exhibits [although the World Treasure of the Burning of the Sanjo Palace Scroll included in the Samurai show was displayed in one of them]. These galleries now being used for storage are awaiting $ to renovate them. I suspect that eventually some of this gallery space will be available for Poly and Nesia as well as the other African stuff. My personal favorite is Nailman -- a wooden male figure complete with many nails
 
Tomb .... I'm a bit surprised that the Museum of Science and Yannis Miaoulis wasn't part of the conversation -- Both for the MOS attendance factor and also the breath of both the permanent and traveling exhibits

For example the MOS not the MFA was selected by the organizers to host the Boston visit of the "Dead Sea Scrolls"

I'd even throw in the Children's Museum now Centennially Celebrational
 
I'm not so surprised. I actually think MOS and MFA are very, very different. The MFA blurs it with exhibitions like "Samurai" which (though packed whenever I passed by and undoubtedly popular with families) was not really about "art" per se (of course, we can speak of the aesthetics of anything--even Dead Sea Scrolls--but that doesn't make it about art). I got the impression from the article PaulC linked us to that the conversation was not about museums in general, but about support for "high art" (however you define that).
I'm more surprised (and disappointed) that Lentz and Monroe weren't part of a broader discussion.
 
Tombstoner said:
I'm not so surprised. I actually think MOS and MFA are very, very different. The MFA blurs it with exhibitions like "Samurai" which (though packed whenever I passed by and undoubtedly popular with families) was not really about "art" per se (of course, we can speak of the aesthetics of anything--even Dead Sea Scrolls--but that doesn't make it about art). I got the impression from the article PaulC linked us to that the conversation was not about museums in general, but about support for "high art" (however you define that).
I'm more surprised (and disappointed) that Lentz and Monroe weren't part of a broader discussion.
Click to expand...

Tomb at one level the [superficial one ] the two powerhouse eponymous museums MFA & MOS which along with the BSO define Boston's place in the cultural world are worlds apart

However, dig deeper and you see that they are really a continuum

Begin with the natural world the purview fairly exclusively of the MOS [few exceptions at the MFA in the form of scholars rocks and of course the Japanese Garden]

Move to the study of the past great civilizations and their creations -- this is centered in the MFA with a few MOS contributions such as the dioramas of the building of the pyramids and the occasional traveling exhibits devoted to such: [Pompeii, Ramses, Ancient Chinese, Egyptian Funerary Practice and the Book of the Dead, Dead Sea Scrolls & ""Leonardo da Vinci: Scientist, Inventor, Artist" during the summer of 1997. The Museum was the only scheduled site for this exhibition in the United States, between its 1996 stay in Vienna and its next stop in Singapore. "] to name a few in the past decade or so.

Finally consider the modern world {circa the beginning of the industrial revolution to the present] -- Here both museums have impressive bases upon which to tell the story

As an ADDENDUM the MOS also has some "traditional art" in the form of sculpture by Katherine Weems of dogs and other animals

http://www.mos.org/exhibits/weems-animal-sculptures

Katharine Lane Weems (1899 – 1989), a Boston-born artist, donated her collection to the Museum of Science to demonstrate the many connections between science and art. There are 30 bronze sculptures of animals displayed in this exhibit, and the Museum of Science has the largest Weems collection in the world.

During her 70-year career, Katharine Weems broke away from the twentieth century social standards for women to become one of the most recognized animal sculptors of her time. She carefully observed the anatomy and behavior of the animals she sculpted. Knowing the shapes and locations of each animal's muscles, bones, and tendons allowed her to sculpt more realistic animals.

Some of Katharine Weems' much larger sculptures can be viewed in other parts of the Boston area. Weems created the Lotta Crabtree Fountain on the Charles River Esplanade, the Dolphins of the Sea at the New England Aquarium, and the Rhinoceroses in front of the Harvard Biological Laboratories at Harvard University.
Click to expand...

PERMANENT EXHIBIT of some of the spectacular mountaineering and other photos taken by Bradford Washburn the late & great founding director of the modern version of the MOS

and there is typically a small TEMPORARY exhibit focused on art often photographic -- currently "Climate Change in Our World: Photographs by Gary Braasch" Photojournalist Gary Braasch illustrates how climate change is altering our planet and how humans are working to slow these changes.
 
Sorry. Not buying it. I see no continuum with MFA and MOS. One is a world-famous art museum with fabled holdings, the other is a very good museum that caters to kids (and pet lovers, apparently). Honestly, it never occured to me that one could mention MFA and BSO in the same breath as MOS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top