Fine Arts Center to revamp permanent galleries | Arts & Entertainment
3 min read
Sometimes it’s good to rearrange the furniture.
Or the art collection, in the case of Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College.
“We want to elevate the profile of the collection,” said FAC’s Director of Visual Arts and Museum Michael Christiano. “We don’t want the galleries to be perceived as static. We want to bring new works out of the collection and new perspectives and unexpected stories. It felt like time.”
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With almost 18,000 pieces in the museum’s permanent collection, it’s bound to take a while. Over the next 10 months, museum staff and guest curators will select pieces from the collection to pull out and place next to each other in the galleries. Labels next to each piece will provide information about the work and artist.
Visitors will be provided with materials to comment on which label best helps them understand the piece and what other information would be helpful in the future. The feedback will help the museum decipher what is useful for visitors when the permanent collection is reinstalled in the fall of 2025.
“Work in Progress: Re-envisioning the Collection” opens Friday during First Friday Downtown and runs through May 17.
The first two pieces on display from the collection are John Singer Sargent’s “Portrait of Miss Elsie Palmer,” or “A Lady in White,” and Cindy Sherman’s “Madame de Pompadour (née Poisson) Tea Service.”
Patrons watch as John Singer Sargent’s “Portrait of Miss Elsie Palmer,” or “A Lady in White,” is prepared for display at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College.
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“The Elsie portrait is beloved in the community. We’re building from that,” Christiano said. “How have artists over time used portraiture to either represent identity or critique how identity is being represented? In this case, we have two different works of art representing female identity and there is so much bound up in the identity of the two subjects. It felt like a juicy conversation across these two objects.”
The temporary exhibits, which will change every two months, will be curated by staff and guest curators who have expertise and experiences specific to works in the collection, including artist and art historian Pat Musick, whose father, Archie Musick, taught at the Broadmoor Art Academy before it became the FAC; Cassandra Atencio, artist, elder and member of the Southern Ute Tribe; and James Córdova, a santero (a person who makes religious images) and professor of art history and Latin American art at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
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Next fall, everything will be removed from the collection galleries and fully reinstalled. Each guest curator will have their own gallery and small exhibit culled from the collection. The reinstallation likely will feature pieces the public has never seen.
“It’s a process of discovery,” Christiano said. “Reacquainting ourselves with the collection and really looking to understand what stories the collection tells, who are telling the stories and what they help us understand about our place. The collection is ground in the region and southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. It’s fun to experiment in public with how we present the collection.”
Contact the writer: 636-0270
Contact the writer: 636-0270
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