Thursday, May 24, 2012

Des Moines Art Center

Unfortunately I did not get an outside picture of this building. The art collection of this museum is housed in three major buildings.  Three architects collaborated on the design of the total building: Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Richard Meir. The building opened to the public in 1948. It had two more building phases after it opened, one in 1965 and the last one in 1985.  The total structure is a distinctly modern building with a horizontal profile and flat roof. Inside there are sweeping curved  stairways and large rambling spaces broken up into into either large galleries or into very small rooms designed to display only one work of art. The museum forms a quadrangle of galleries around a reflecting pool. The art displayed is mostly contemporary. Currently Jackson Pollock's Mural is on display as well as the work of Tony Feher. In the past I have not particularly cared for the work of modern artists, but I liked what I saw today at the art center. However, the goal of the museum is to represent artists also from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as the 21st century. Some of the artists represented are: Claude Monet,  August Rodin,  Francisco Goya,  Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keefe,  Andy Warhol- as well as many others. The art center also displays sculptures on its grounds as well as at the Pappajohn Sculpture Park located in downtown Des Moines. That was our last stop for the day. In the picture below (foreground) are Three Dancing Figures by Keith Haring, and in the background is a sculpture called Nomade by Jaume Plensa.

No comments:

Post a Comment