Museum's Centuries of Art Acquired in a Decade

Author: Kate Prouty

Welcome to Middlebury College. Open your door, open your mind, head down the hill and find yourself at the College's own Museum of Art.
Tucked in a far corner of the Center for the Arts (CFA), the Museum may be one of the College's most impressive but untapped resources. The Museum provides students with a wealth of free artistic offerings right in their backyard.
Although it is used as an interactive classroom for art courses, it is also, like any museum, a public forum for art appreciation. In addition to the entire student body, the Museum is also available to the surrounding communities in Vermont and New York.
Ranging from antiquities to contemporary art, the Museum's collection focuses on photography, 19th century European and American sculpture and contemporary prints. In addition to their permanent collection, the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Gallery, located in the Museum, changes temporary exhibitions throughout the year. These exhibitions make an effort to portray the artistic impact of cultures and artists that are not otherwise represented by the permanent collection.
Now, more so than ever, is an especially exciting time to explore the collection. In honor of the CFA and the Museum's 10th anniversary, the Museum has chosen to highlight a selection of its most interesting acquisitions from the past decade.
Like all objects in the permanent collection, the more than 20 items culled to be a part of the exhibit "Ten Years After — A Decade of Collecting," are extremely varied in medium, subject and style. They range from a fifth century Greek vase by the Berlin painter (an artist of the Attic period) to the 1984 Andy Warhol print "Rorschach." Walking through the rooms of the first floor of the exhibit, one might wonder what ties all of these seemingly unrelated things together.
All gifts and purchases for the Museum, these items represent the success the Museum has seen in recent years as well as project hope for the future. The eclectic nature of objects found in the permanent collection is testimony to the Museum's ability for acquisition range.
Perhaps it is this open mindedness that has lent the Museum such a strong reputation. As noted in the Arts section from March 6, 2002, the caliber of art the Museuem is able to acquire for temporary exhibitions is astonishing. Last year the Museum found itself in temporar y and proud possession of some of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection. The Middlebury College Museum of Art was the only site in New England chosen to display the artifacts while the Smithsonian renovated much of its building. This achievement speaks to the standard of excellence the Museum maintains in all of its operations, easily placing them on par with small museums throughout the country.
One of the more surprising items on display as part of "Ten Years After" that might be of particular interest to students is the remains of "Way Station," a sculpture that Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Visiting Professor of Studio Art Vito Acconci built in 1983. The outdoor sculpture, utilitarian in design and bold in stature, provoked both controversy and criticism from members of the College community. Modeled to represent a house of cards and function as a small shed-size enclosure of refuge with an in-ground cement foundation, "Way Station" was erected between where Freeman International Center and Pearsons are located.
Objectors to the sculpture took destructive action against the artwork by dousing it in gasoline and lighting it on fire. The salvageable remains, no more than the metal panels forming one wall of the structure each in the shape of an oversize playing card, are now on display in the Museum. Their paint has bubbled and run down the cards in tiny rivulets, leaving them with an aged look for which Vermont garage sales are famous.
There are plans for reconstruction of Vito's sculpture as are there plans for the Museum to continue expanding the breadth of its collection.
Because the Museum has such an expansive collection, it should prove relevant material to many students' coursework as well as personal interests. In addition to "Ten Years After" the Museum is launching two exhibits to be held through Dec. 1. The first "Looking Back at Vermont" displays photography from 1936-1942 documenting the Depression on rural and small-town life. The second showcases two women artists who share the technique of miniature scale traditional Indian court-style painting and is entitled "Coversations With Traditions."
For current information on the Museum, visit their Web site: http://www.middlebury.edu/~museum.