I'm J. Rachel Gustafson and I'm assistant curator at the Norton Museum of Art.
The architects who actually were in charge of overseeing the new Norton project, Lord
Norman Foster of Foster and Partners, was really interested in bringing the old 1941
original gallery that was built with Ralph Norton, our founder, and his original architect,
Marion Wyeth Sims, back into conversation with each other.
So this is the Baum Gallery.
This was part of his original collection that was later bequeathed to the museum.
This is our collection of modern European art, which really makes up kind of a treasure
trove of some of our most important European paintings and sculpture.
Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Claude Monet, these are really hallmarks of the canon
of European art.
In this room, even if you look at the Claude Monet, which is right over here, it's probably
not something you would necessarily associate with Monet as one of the forefathers of impressionism.
Here, you clearly see, this is a space in a landscape, but it's still a really interesting
example of Monet working through his process to get to what we know as impressionism later
on.
Before, the museum acted on a northsouth corridor.
Now we have an east and a west, which is really interesting to be able to see the water on
one side of the museum, and then the grand entrance on Dixie Highway on the other with
the big banyan tree that marks the front.
We're standing in the Shapiro Great Hall, which has a wonderful oculus in the ceiling
to let in all the natural sunlight as well as about a 30foottall window to our left where
you can see the 80yearold banyan tree that's right outside, which served as the point of
inspiration for a lot of the sitespecific artworks on view.
We have three different instances of a very immersive, sitespecific installation for all
three artists.
It's one of our three sitespecific works, which is behind us here, which is 40footlong
and 15foothigh tapestry, by the artist Pei White, who's based out of California.
This work is called Icon, so the artist created a tapestry that was in conversation with that
banyan tree and in conversation with the space.
In fact, with the Paul Morrison piece, which is made of gold leaf, it also is pulling inspiration
from the banyan tree and Florida's native flora and fauna, and then you also have Rob
Wynn's piece, which we'll see in the staircase, and it makes references to the tropical nature
of Florida, the idea of constantly being surrounded by water, and memories associated with summers
here.
What you can see behind me are many many pieces, actually nearly 5000 pieces of mirrored, handpoured
glass.
The artist was on site to help install the work, and he actually built a toscale template
of the placement of the bubbles, so while they might look sporadic to us, these are
deliberate choices, and deliberate positionings of these mirrored pieces to mimic that idea
of the fish aquarium, the Florida water lifestyle that we're all very used to.
With the expansion, we actually gained 35% more gallery space, which is amazing, and
it also means that for the first time in the museum's history, all five collecting departments
are now represented on the first floor.
Chinese art, American art, photography, contemporary art, and European.
So this is the beginning of what we call one of our special exhibitions, which is Going
Public, South Florida collectors celebrate the Norton, and it was a special exhibition
that looked specifically within our own community for special collectors that have worked with
the Norton and continue again and again to lend their works of art.
This is the Minimal Room, so this is talking about minimalism.
It's squarely within our Contemporary Art Department, but when you think of minimalism,
sometimes you are just thinking black and white, monochrome, and here you have just
this piece that turns that on its head.
Works on view here by minimalist artists that we might not be as associated with, within
the canon, but they're certainly getting their due as we move into an era where women artists
are more recognized for their talents, such as the Californiabased artist, Mary Corse.
But as far as showing these female artists working in the field, you don't see that as
often.
Now you have this beautiful new building marked by something that is quirky, whimsical, and
for most people, a curiosity.
It's a really interesting object.
It is actually a typewriter eraser.
You would use a special eraser to erase typewritten text on a typewriter, and the artist, Claes
Oldenburg, explored the idea of the mundane or the everyday object, whether it be scissors
or a screw.
He looked at that object throughout his career, beginning as early as 1968, and over the next
30 years, envisioned it in all these different works on paper that you see, drawings, maquette
sculptures that are smaller realizations of the more than 20foot sculpture that stands
outside, that is balanced in this very shallow field of water, and it looks like it's dancing,
and actually, if you were to look at one of these earlier drawings, you can see he actually
realized it in water, which is a wonderful juxtaposition, to see as late as 1970s, Claes
Oldenburg was actually thinking of a monumental version of a typewriter eraser.
The last time you visited us here at the Norton, we were in a reduced space that basically
encompassed the original 1941 gallery, but now we're able to expand and really show the
breadth of our collection and the whole history of art.