- 6 Oct 09
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Venturi Thinking about the Barnes Move
Going to the Barnes is kind of an adventure: timed entry, limited parking and pretty strict guards, and once inside more impressionist painting that you can shake a stick at (which they won’t let you do). As things are taking shape, there is a lot of discussion on where the Barnes collection will/should reside. Click here for Robert Venturi’s letter in opposition to moving the Barnes Collection from its specifically designed home. I don’t disagree with Christopher Knight, link below, but I read Venturi’s letter to be about the allocation of funds—a lot of funds and it lack of neccessity.
As I don’t have any skin in the game, my opinion is limited to the protection and presentation of the art more than the building. It is true the building was designed to house the collection, but this really only seemed to apply to the Matisse mural. My recollection of the building was it was poorly lit (original lights), climate control is apparently an issues (summer humidity) at least in parts of the building. Certainly improving the facilities would be the less expensive solution—albeit a non-spectacle expenditure. A more difficult issue, for me, is exhibiting the entire collection, which they currently do, in some fashion where one could easily see all the work, but I wouldn’t know how that could be achieved as the building stands. The salon hanging, including small paintings hung over doorways, makes it difficult to really see a fair portion of the paintings. Regardless of moving the collection to a more visitor friendly location—which it is currently not—something needs to be done to improve and protect the collection. Ultimately, I think the Barnes Collection’s strength might be the perceived difficulty of going there, the quirkiness of its installation and some really really nice paintings—well putting up the the two prior because of the latter.
Fix the building.
