Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/98152
THE MENIL COLLECTION TWENTY-FIVE Peter Rice, Renzo Piano, Dominique de Menil and Nina Cullinan, viewing the museum model, 1982 at PHOTO HICKEY-ROBERTSON Dominique de Menil, Jane Forth and Andy Warhol during the opening of the Rice Museum exhibition ���Raid the Icebox 1: An Exhibition Selected from the Storage Vaults of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design,��� October 1969 THE MASTERFUL MENIL COLLECTION TOASTS A QUARTER CENTURY OF memorable exhibition milestones in the history of the institution forged by the late Dominique and John de Menil ��� and examines why The Menil Collection still remains the gold standard, a place for serious art pilgrims and a Mecca among the world���s THE MENIL COLLECTION Catherine D. Anspon looks back at the most THE MENIL COLLECTION; PHOTO D. JAMES DEE BRILLIANCE AND INFLUENCE museums. Plus, the latest on the Drawing Center, coming circa 2017. DECODING MECCA ���Silence��� (July 27 ��� October 21, 2012). Curator Toby Kamps��� most extensive exhibition to date interwove spiritual to political aspects on the absence of noise and included mid-century masterworks by Rauschenberg, John Cage and Robert Morris. ���Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective��� (March 2 ��� June 10, 2012). The heroic, almost apocalyptic drawings of Serra, room-sized installations of dense blackness, suggested the ���Maurizio Cattelan��� (February 12 ��� August 15, 2010). Before Cattelan had his Guggenheim moment, former chief curator Franklin Sirmans brought him to the Menil. The results were at turns sacred and almost profane, as well as tinged with Surrealism and Dada. ���Vivid Vernacular: William Christenberry, William Eggleston, and Walker Evans��� (January 11 ��� April 20, 2008.��� This intimately scaled show, which coincided with FotoFest, highlighted the strange beauty of the American South through the eye of its three lensman who captured it best. ���NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith��� (June 27 ��� September 21, 2008). Another Sirmans coup, ���NeoHooDoo��� probed questions of faith, religion and spirituality. And who can forget Felix Gonzalez-Torres��� platform for a silver-lam��-clad go-go dancer or the fragrant altar of Amalia Mesa-Bains. ���Robert Rauschenberg: Cardboards and Related Pieces��� (February 23 ��� May 13, 2007). Organized by director Joseph Helfenstein, this look at the inventive master���s work with cardboard and ceramics that mimicked cardboard was packed with revelations, including some about our country and the era that produced all the packaging. ���Lessons from Below: Otabenga Jones & Associates��� (September 14 ��� December 9, 2007). Continuing a tradition begun with Warhol of having artists ���raid��� the collection, the Houston-based, Whitney-exhibited collaborative James Rosenquist���s Promenade of Merce Cunningham, 1963 Cy Twombly and his sculpture Thermopylae, 1991 THE MENIL COLLECTION A GLANCE BACK AT 25 (OR SO) THAT DEFINED THE DECADES ���Upside Down: Arctic Realities��� (April 15 ��� July 17, 2011). Showcasing the ancient art of the Arctic people from the storied collection of Adelaide de Menil���s anthropologist husband Edmund Carpenter, this white-light exhibition futuristically installed by L.A. artist Doug Wheeler was one of the most sublime moments in the museum���s history. THE MENIL COLLECTION, PHOTO HICKEY-ROBERTSON What is it about The Menil Collection? Is it the Renzo Piano-designed building, which has been hailed as one of the top two most signi���cant works of international architecture in the last 30 years? The collection of 17,000 masterpieces including 70 Rauschenbergs, 51 Twomblys, 135 Ernsts and a huge Flavin that gets its own grocery-store building? Or the campus ��� a leafy, bungalow-lined inner-city neighborhood that also boasts the Rothko Chapel, the Cy Twombly Gallery. Richmond Hall (the home of the aforementioned luminous riches of light pioneer Dan Flavin) and the waiting-for-its-nextincarnation Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum? To truly understand the vapor surrounding the Menil, the clue lies in the exhibitions that for 25 years have served up a perfect mirror of the extraordinary collection. Never grandiose, the antitheses of blockbusters ��� even though their signi���cance is potent ��� the Menil���s shows have paralleled and illuminated the four collecting areas of the museum: antiquities, Byzantine and medieval, tribal (including the famed African galleries), and the 20th and 21st centuries (shaped always by a trove of hypnotic Surrealism holdings). Here is a recounting of 25 touchstone exhibitions mounted at the Menil ��� and why they mattered. heart of outer space. Curator Michelle White worked with the artist on this retrospective, which forever changed our concept of drawing. Votive Statue of Eannatum, Prince of Lagash, 2600-2340 BC ���Upside Down: Arctic Realities,��� 2011 ���VISITORS SEE THAT THE MENIL IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER MUSEUMS. IT HAS THIS PURITY ��� AND, OF COURSE, THE BEAUTY OF THE PLACE, THE ARCHITECTURE, THE COLLECTION ��� PEACEFUL, A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN CENTER YOURSELF. IT HAS SOMETHING THAT FEW MUSEUMS OFFER TODAY. IT���S PRECIOUS, REALLY ��� AND IMPORTANT.��� ��� JOSEF HELFENSTEIN