: Museum curators are often frustrated when making the final
selection of items for an exhibition. Driving their irritation is
the fact that integral objects can end up remaining out of view
and in storage solely due to space constraints of the gallery.
The crux of the matter - and a truism that has been accepted for
centuries - is that only a fraction of any major institution's
collections is on view at any one time. That is, until now.
The frustration factor has been lessened somewhat with an
innovative exhibition that recently opened at the Brooklyn
Museum. The concept is fairly straightforward and the name quite
apropos; place the items in storage in tasteful, yet compact,
displays on clear shelves and behind clear walls, and voila!
instant exhibition, or, as the museum likes to call it, "Visible
Storage."
A large selection from the reserves of American art housed in the
Brooklyn Museum is now on permanent view at the Visible
Storage/Study Center. The new facility, which opened this month,
completes the installation of the museum's Luce Center for
American Art. The main galleries of the Luce Center opened in
2001, and are called "American Identities: A New Look." They
integrate decorative arts with painting and sculpture against a
colorful background of pinks and purples. The leisurely
arrangement comprises 350 objects dispersed through 12,000 square
feet.
