Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/889107
TOP IMAGE: COURTESY THE MENIL COLLECTION. PHOTO © FREDRIK NILSEN. LOWER IMAGE: COURTESY MENIL ARCHIVES, THE MENIL COLLECTION. PHOTO LARRY GILBERT. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MENIL ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST UNDERSTATED YET SIGNIFICANT ART INSTITUTIONS MARKS ITS SEMINAL FIRST THREE DECADES. CATHERINE D. ANSPON LOOKS AT CELEBRATING MENIL STYLE, PREVIEWING TWO MASKED BALS EDGED WITH SURREALISM, AND THE MUSEUM'S PAIR OF EXHIBITIONS TIMED FOR ITS 30TH ANNIVERSARY THAT WHISPER WITH IMPORTANCE. T his fall sees The Menil Collection's 30th anniversary, and the museum marks the occasion in a way that mirrors its past and foretells its future: with a pair of bals and a pair of exhibitions. The crescendo of the anniversary will be two fabled parties in the grand tradition of Surrealist fêtes. Event designer Todd Fiscus and caterer Jackson and Company have been tapped by gala chairs Adelaide de Menil Carpenter, Allison Sarofim and Stuart Parr, Leigh and Reggie Smith, and Phoebe and Bobby Tudor to craft the ultimate Surreal evening on Saturday, December 2, aligned with the night before the long moon, and inspired by a tiny but revealing treasure from the collection — Max Ernst's Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, a holiday gift from the artist to the de Menils, bestowed Christmas 1955. The bal is titled Luminous, and we know the night will be just that. Republic of Benin, Africa-born vocalist Angélique Kidjo performs; she took home the 2016 Grammy in Best World Music for her album Sings, a melding of traditional African song with classical orchestration. A week later, Friday, December 8, the Menil Contemporaries devises their own Surreal black-tie affair, chaired by Olivia and Edward Persia, and Saba Jawda and Sarah Jawda. Prepare your masks and elegant evening finery. A pair of exhibitions highlight what makes the museum most extraordinary: its exquisitely assembled collection begun by the late Dominique and John de Menil and, above all, its relationship with living artists, a sacrosanct communion the couple valued more than the transactional nature of the art market. With the former, the museum could have gone for the obvious by rolling out its greatest hits encompassing its four iconic collecting fields — the ancient world; Byzantine and medieval; African, Pacific Islands, and Pacific Northwest Coast; modern and contemporary, including an in-depth dip into Surrealism. Instead, its jewel of a building that was Renzo Piano's first commission in America becomes a venue, along with its Cy Twombly Gallery and Richmond Hall, for a grand game of art- history hide-and-seek. Visitors receive a commemorative guide to 30 treasures that directs one to discover and consider the works of art, from deep within the darkened halls of the Surrealism galleries to the optimistic Flavin light beacons beaming from Richmond Hall. Clare Elliott and Toby Kamps (now Blaffer Art Museum director) curate this imaginative peek into the collection (through January 28). Senior curator Michelle White presents an exhibition that serves as the first American survey for international artist Mona Hatoum. The installation is deployed within the Surrealism galleries (we don't want to be a spoiler, but watch for a clump of pubic hair), as well as its central iteration in the grand main gallery, where John Chamberlain originally opened the museum in 1987. Hatoum takes the visitor on a challenging journey, intimate as well as monumental, disturbing and poetic. (Watch for our detailed review at papercitymag.com.) The exhibition is loosely themed around home — how and what it means, extraordinarily relevant in our age rife with environmental and political refugees. The answer will be for each viewer to decipher (through February 25). Dominique de Menil and Max Ernst in the atrium garden of the de Menils' home, Houston, 1952 Installation view of"Mona Hatoum: Terra Infirma"at The Menil Collection