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No arrangement of art in a museum is done without a lot of thought and discussion. Deciding which works of art will be placed side by side is an important part of an exhibition. Curators at art museums, who determine exhibition concepts, sometimes arrange artworks in ways intended to encourage visitors to see historical contexts or relationships to an idea. Sometimes curators place works of art next to each other to point out similarities or contrasts in forms, or show different ways artists treat the same subject.
As you look at the exhibit, consider what connections could be made between works of art. Artworks from wildly different times, places, and materials are placed next to each other but always with the idea that there is some connection between them. A thousand-year-old American Indian ceramic bowl is placed next to a study for a mural from 1938. A late-nineteenth-century wooden storage chest from Korea is placed next to a giant American painting from 1950. The connection might be in feeling, mood, forms, colors, subjects, time, or artistic intent. Look carefully and see if you can tell why artworks have been placed together. Maybe you'll think of connections we didn't. Consider what you would have done if you were the curator.
Some of the first art to enter the Museum's collection are on display now, such as paintings by American artists Georgia O'Keeffe, B. J. O. Nordfeldt, and Arthur Dove. By 1936, two years after the museum was founded, there were 106 pieces in the collection. Now there are about 20,000. Most of the art came to the museum as a gift or bequest.
We have arranged the exhibit so our skylights can be open all day. Daylight is particularly harmful to photographs and works of art on paper, so we have made sure that all of those kinds of artworks are placed in the part of the museum that isn't directly reached by sunlight.
General operating support for the Weisman Art Museum is provided by the Boss Foundation; the Dorsey and Whitney Foundation; the General Mills Foundation; HGA, Inc.; the Art and Martha Kaemmer Fund of HRK Foundation; the R. C. Lilly Foundation; Lowry Hill Private Wealth Management; Target, Marshall Field's, and Mervyn's with support from the Target Foundation; Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota; Xcel Energy Foundation; the Minnesota State Arts Board; the Colleagues of the Weisman Art Museum; and the University of Minnesota.
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