Finding (& Making) Art at the Taubman: Day Twenty-Two

(Sometimes it’s tough to feel at home in your own city.  Which is why I’ve given myself a challenge:  each day, for forty days, I’m going to find *one* thing I love about this place.  And then I’m going to tell you about it.  If you want to follow my journey, start here.  Today is Day Twenty-Two.)

I spent my day off today wandering around the Taubman Museum of Art.

I tried out my telephoto lens for the first time.  Made friends with the security guard as I wandered in and out and in again, photographing inside, outside, inside.

I lay down on my back on the sidewalk and shot straight up into the sky.

I climbed halfway across the bridge over the railroad tracks.  Shot back at the museum, with cars and trucks shaking the pavement beneath my feet.

I pushed the lens of my camera up against the mirrored windows.

And I have to tell you:

I love this place.

It’s just a baby art museum, as far as art museums go — barely six years old.  But it’s ours, and it’s free, and I can come and go whenever I like.

I feel at home here.

*

When the museum began to go up in the middle of downtown Roanoke several years ago, I was still living an hour away in the New River Valley, but I heard the uproar all the way over the there.  The building – designed by Randall Stout – rose in wild peaks and angles, sandwiched between old factory buildings and the giant Tudor expanse of the Hotel Roanoke.  The art museum, structurally speaking, was edgy.  Strange.  Almost frenzied.  A lot of people hated it.

Which, for the record, is exactly how it should be.

I mean, if you decide to build an art museum and, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the general populace stands up and says, “My, what a lovely and tasteful building.  How perfectly congruent with the rest of the architecture in town,” then you’ve probably gotten something wrong.

But that’s a different story, for another day.

I will say this, though:  I can see why some people have a hard time accepting this building.  Because it’s kind-of all-over-the-place.  (A lot like a certain someone who writes this blog).  And if you’re a contemplative person with an eye for simple things (ironically, I am), the architecture can be … overwhelming.

So today, I decided to use my first session with the telephoto lens to take the building apart a little bit.

To go slow.  Let my eye travel and rest.  Experience it in small, carefully composed angles.

Here’s a sampling of some of my favorite photos (all unedited).  This is the Taubman, deconstructed:

But of course, an art museum is more than the building that houses it.  It’s about what’s inside, too — the art, and the people who come to experience it.

And I took some photographs of that, but I don’t want to give too much away.  If you’re local, I really, *really* hope you go for yourself.

So here’s just a tease, to get you started.

Here’s a shot of the atrium, with the briefest edge of the giant, fluffy white sculpture installed there — Fuzzy Kudzu by Ralph Eaton, two parts whimsical and one part disturbing (which I think is a good thing):

Here’s the thoughtful face of Thomas Houseago’s Standing Boy, who stands with his back to the window in the upstairs hall:

Here’s a little sneak-peek at one of the works in the ticketed Beg, Borrow and Steal exhibition (from the Rubell family collection out of Miami):

Here’s a brief window (literally) into the Canstruction project on display downstairs — a really special event in which local teams build sculptures out of donated canned goods.  In a few weeks, the sculptures will be dismantled and those canned goods will go to area food banks with Feeding America Southwest Virginia:

 

And here’s one of my favorite shots from all day, even though it could use some editing.  I think it highlights a little moment of genius in the installation of these two works, John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Norah Gribble and Betty Branch’s Dancer.

I really love it when disparate pieces of art are installed in such a way that they can encounter one another, converse, and sometimes comment on each other.  I think this is one of those moments.  To place Ms. Gribble — clearly the subject of the male gaze, even if that male *is* internationally renowned master Sargent (who I’ve had a creative crush on for years) — opposite the dancer that Roanoker Betty Branch is seeing — a fierce, fluid, but faceless woman caught in the act of motion and movement — is to invite a whole lot of reflection.

I really hope you’ll come meet these two ladies yourself, and reflect:

Feeling very grateful for the Taubman today.