Brooklyn has never been short on personality,
and the latest exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art exposes
the diverse personalities among Brooklyn art collectors.
The show, "A Family Album: Brooklyn
Collects" opens on Friday, March 2. It showcases the artwork,
or collections, of 80 Brooklynites and those who, even if they
don’t live here anymore, still consider Brooklyn home.
Though the idea of mounting a show of art
owned by Brooklyn collectors – as opposed to one focusing on
contemporary Brooklyn artists – may seem an arbitrary reason
to have an art exhibit at a major museum, the genesis of the
exhibit came from an emotional outpouring of hundreds of letters
from Brooklynites and former Brooklynites, according to Brooklyn
Museum Director Arnold Lehman, a Marine Park native.
Lehman said it all sprang from a New York
Times article in 1997 that spread the news that he – a Brooklyn
boy! – had been appointed to the museum’s top post.
"Some of my fondest memories of growing
up were of coming to the museum and seeing the wonderful objects
here," Lehman told GO Brooklyn. "I received hundreds
of letters from current or former Brooklyn residents expressing
the same memories and saying that the museum sparked their interest
in art and collecting. That’s what gave us the impetus for this
exhibition."
Though those letters won’t be on display,
statements written by the collectors will be featured. These
statements are peppered with colorful, fond memories of both
Brooklyn and the museum.
Martin Segal, chairman emeritus of Lincoln
Center, has loaned three paintings to "Brooklyn Collects."
including Milton Avery’s "Bicyclist" and a watercolor
by Edward Moran titled "Landscape."
Segal, who is also the founding president
of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, was born in Russia, and
came to Brooklyn in 1921.
"I lived in Brooklyn Heights for over
55 years, a lovely house on Columbia Heights," recalled
Segal. "The building was older than I was – built in 1838."
It was only because his wife had trouble managing the stairs
that the couple moved from Brooklyn in 1996.
"My first visit to the Brooklyn Museum
was when I was 11 years old, writing an article for my school
magazine, PS 179’s The Kensington," Segal reminisced.
"It was about why people should visit
the Brooklyn Museum. I later became one of the editors of the
magazine," he said, laughing while adding that he wasn’t
sure whether it was the success of his Brooklyn Museum story
that propelled him to the magazine’s masthead. He was more sure
of the merits of the museum’s collection.
"I do think all of the Brooklyn Museum
collections are strong, but their collection of American painters
is surely among the best in the world, if not the best,"
Segal said.
When Lehman came to the Brooklyn Museum,
it was his goal to increase attendance and attract a diverse
audience to the museum. Now he’s putting the Brooklynites on
display through their collections.
"We wanted to broaden Brooklyn’s definition
from a geographic place to a state of mind, a connective tissue
that runs throughout the country," said Lehman.
"We have a new mission statement,
that was drafted a year and a half ago," he said. "It
focuses on personalizing the experience of visitors to the museum.
Making it something that means as much as we possibly can put
into it for someone coming here."
Lehman said every department of the museum
has been involved in locating collectors and securing loans,
and that the objects on display and the collector statements
are "full of surprises." Elizabeth "Buffy"
Easton, chair of the museum’s European Painting and Sculpture
department, is the coordinator of the museum-wide effort.
Celebrities
The resulting array of ancient Egyptian
art, photography, textiles, furniture, prints, drawings and contemporary
art represents hundreds of years, and, of course, the diversity
of taste of Brooklyn’s wealthy sons and daughters.
"If you know the person – some are
celebrities and some are not known to the general public – you
might very well be surprised by the kinds of things they collect
and adore," said Lehman. "And others, once you see
the object and the name, there’s a more natural connection."
"Brooklyn Collects" features
works on loan from everyone from philanthropists to celebrities
to the civic-minded. Among the collectors are playwright and
actor Harvey Fierstein ("Torch Song Trilogy"), actor
John Turturro ("O Brother Where Art Thou"), columnist
Pete Hamill, artist Louise Bourgeois, actor Elliott Gould and
the Brooklyn Public Library’s deputy director of external affairs,
Evan Kingsley.
The objects are grouped by collector and
are accompanied by the lender’s photo and statement when available.
"We’re pretty committed to contemporary
art and Brooklyn as well," Kingsley said of the pastime
he shares with his wife Dara. "We spend weekends looking
at art, often in Brooklyn." He said Brooklyn has the space
and affordable rents that artists need to live and work – making
the borough ground zero for collectors who want to discover new
talent.
"The reality of it is studio space
is more affordable here. It gives the artists a community to
show work and talk about work. That’s what happened in Williamsburg
and recently in Bushwick, which has similar industrial-type spaces.
There are a lot of hot new galleries and places to congregate."
Lehman agreed, saying, "Brooklyn has
become – again – a real destination."
Kingsley said he and his wife have been
buying art for at least 10 years with a modest budget, caring
more about what the pieces meant to them than the possibility
of their appreciation in value.
"It’s about collecting and making
collections," he said.
"The great joy of this show for us
is not the recognition the collectors get, but the artists get,"
said Kingsley, who is loaning three works to the Museum show
– a Charles Spurrier installation, a painting by Amy Cutler and
a painting by Deborah Kass, "2 Red Barbras (The Jewish Jackie
Series)."
"What I like about this work,"
said Kingsley, "is that Barbra Streisand is also from Brooklyn."
Discovering that a famous personality has
roots in our borough – and has fond memories of visiting the
Brooklyn Museum – can certainly make one feel more connected
or proud to be a part of it all. Playwright and collector Harvey
Fierstein ("La Cage Aux Folles") was not only born
in Brooklyn, but he was a founding member of Park Slope’s Gallery
Players, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary next year.
Fierstein, who is also an actor, agreed
to narrate the "Brooklyn Collects" audio tour. He is
loaning his Lavern Kelley figurines – stylized works dating from
1938 to 1940 – as well as a whimsical collection of Coney Island
game prizes, dating from 1926 to 1950.
In his statement, Fierstein writes, "A
lifetime of attending art schools could not disinfect my aesthetic
from a childhood infestation of Coney Island. My home was a seven-stop
elevated train ride from the flashing lights, wax museum forms,
sideshow colors and cacophonic promises of Steeplechase, Astroland,
the boardwalk and Bowery of Coney. I ate it all.
"What did that childhood teach me?"
Fierstein continues. "An object, collected, is a souvenir.
Attach emotion and it becomes memorabilia. History transforms
it into artifact, and appreciation deems it art. A natural progression
to rationalize a child’s fancy into an adult’s obsession. (These
equations work in either direction.) That’s what I learned in
Coney Island."
"I can’t tell you how extraordinary
he has been," Lehman said of Fierstein’s support of the
exhibition. "He has just put his entire heart into it. He
has an incredible collection and he is an incredible human being
too. He sensed the nature of the concept behind the exhibition,
and he volunteered to do the audio-guide. Like all of these people,
it takes a lot of time to be a volunteer, and just every step
of the way he’s been supportive."
Another celeb supporting the show with
a loan is author and newspaperman Pete Hamill, whose book "Diego
Rivera," about Mexico’s best-known muralist, was published
by Harry Abrams in 1999.
Hamill has chosen to loan a work by Lucero
Isaac. Describing her oeuvre, the Park Slope native writes, "They
were like boxes of time: her time, Mexico’s time, and my own
time.
"They indirectly provoked images from
my own life," writes Hamill, who now divides his time between
New York City and Cuernavaca, Mexico.
"[Isaac’s] work seemed driven by the
same urges that create novels: the need to impose order on the
chaos of time. They’re like novels made of objects instead of
words. When I saw this piece ["Portrait of Proust"]
in her workshop in Cuernavaca, it seemed to offer me a Proustian
madeleine; I had to have it."
New Yorker illustrator Roz Chast has loaned
several pen and ink drawings; choreographer Eliot Feld is loaning
several works by Mexican artists; Susan and George Soros are
loaning John Singer Sargent’s "Autumn on the River"
(1889); Park Sloper Turturro is loaning two works by his uncle
Dominic Turturro; and interior designer Elissa Cullman, whose
family has owned the Peter Luger Steakhouse in Williamsburg since
1950, is loaning several American works including a charcoal-on-paper
by Edward Hopper.
"The diversity of the lenders and
of the objects of the borough – it’s all about the many, many,
many people who are needed to make up the past and the present
and the future of this institution," said Lehman. "It’s
that idea of inclusiveness that is very important here. And always
has been."
"A Family Album: Brooklyn Collects"
will be on display from March 2 through July 1, 2001 at the Brooklyn
Museum of Art [200 Eastern Parkway, (718) 638-5000]. Admission
is $4, $2 students and seniors, free to children under 12. The
museum is open Wednesday through Sunday.
