Another Museum!

When I saw there was another museum coming to New York, I thought to myself, does New York City need another museum? So, I looked up online, how many museums were there already and found a heading, “The Best 37 Museums in New York City”. Then I thought how many can you see in a day? If it is only 3 be sure to book at your hotel for at least 2 weeks!

Of course, many of the favorites are not art museums, like the Museum of Natural History or the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum, and that set me to wondering what art attractions that are not museums would visitors want to see? As a matter of fact, I am curious about this one: like other institutions that wish to get away from that stodgy designation of Museum, it calls itself the “First Permanent Immersive Experience Venue”. It may be the cross between the museum where you go only to view and a modern-day amusement park such as Meow Wolf. It sounds to me like the pre-curser to the Metaverse where you experience the art not just look at it. Meow Wolf calls itself a “Multiverse”.

What intrigues me even more is the fact that the first of its exhibitions, which are scheduled to change every 10 to 12 months, will be devoted to Gustav Klimt (Austrian Symbolist, 1862-1918). As Klimt is one of my favorite artists, I have mentioned him in a number of Missives.

This “immersive” show represents an undertaking of the French production company, “Culturespaces”, which claims responsibility for originating the current wave of immersive digital art experiences. Their hugely popular home institution, the “Atelier des Lumières”, is even featured in “Emily in Paris”. They are also the owners of the well-known Frieze Art Fairs which take place in London, New York and Los Angeles and are in the vanguard of the contemporary art market. Bruno Monnier, who earlier in his career was in charge of special projects within France’s Ministry of Culture, founded “Culturespaces” in 1990 and it manages cultural sites such as the Musée Jaquemart-André.

To create a permanent New York venue, called the “Hall des Lumieres”, they are renovating the landmarked 1912 Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank building in Tribeca, opposite City Hall. Here is a preview of “Gustav Klimt: Gold in Motion” their innagural iinstallation which is scheduled to open this summer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlUFgonC-IA

“Immersive” exhibitions seem to be one of the most popular novelties in an ever-changing art world. For some of us old fogies it seems very strange that we must immerse ourselves in anything other than the original work of art, but think of it as an expansion of the experience and an introduction that might take a new audience from the Klimt “immersion” uptown to the Neue Galerie to see its collection of Vienna Succession originals that include one of the greatest Klimts anywhere.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1907

Personally, I love the idea of the new and innovative as long as we do not destroy what came before, because, in my opinion, you can’t have the one without the other.