Official behind-the-scenes blog of the Dallas Museum of Art
This week we were pleased to host Gene Jones, Ruth Ryan, and Tiffany Cuban at the DMA for an interview with NBC 5’s Meredith Land. The discussion took place near Henry Moore’s Reclining Mother and Child, located next to the Arts of the Ancient Mediterranean galleries on Level 2. The piece will air this Sunday after the Super Bowl. Below are a few images we captured throughout the day.
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On Friday, January 27, more than one hundred guests will gather at the Dallas Museum of Art for the 20th Anniversary Silver Supper, an extraordinary affair celebrating the Museum’s collection of silver treasures. In anticipation of this special evening, sponsored this year by Highland Park Village and chaired by Peggy Sewell, here are a few “fun facts” about the history of Silver Supper:
1. The concept for Silver Supper evolved from legendary collectors and generous DMA donors Karl and Esther Hoblitzelle, who used their remarkable silver collection to entertain guests many decades ago.
2. In 1987 the Hoblitzelle Foundation donated much of this silver collection to the DMA. Since then, Silver Supper has raised more than $1 million to benefit the DMA’s Decorative Arts Acquisition Endowment Fund.
3. The first Silver Supper, held in 1988, welcomed just eighteen guests and raised $7,000.
4. Past Silver Supper themes have ranged from formal 18th-century-style English dining to life in the art deco world of the Roaring Twenties. The centerpiece (and dessert!) for the 1998 event, chaired by Jessie Price, was a larger-than-life cake shaped like the Palace of Versailles.
Silver Supper certainly has come a long way in the last twenty years! This year’s event, themed The Great Makers of American Silver, will showcase an extensive display of silver treasures at the DMA, from the opulence of the Gilded Age to the most progressive work of the last century. Below are a few photos from the January 10 pre-event cocktail reception at the Carolina Herrera store in Highland Park Village.
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Last week several of my colleagues and I began meeting about the logistics of deinstalling the exhibition The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk once it closes on February 12. Gaultier is the world-renowned French couturier, whose fashion has been worn by everyone from Madonna to Lady Gaga. We found it difficult to believe that we were already making plans to take down a show in which we had invested so much time and effort installing. I was enormously privileged to be given the opportunity to help coordinate this installation as its exhibition registrar and to witness firsthand how so many of my colleagues transformed themselves daily into magicians in order to see this complicated project come to fruition in a tight timeframe. Permit me this walk down memory lane as I highlight stops, junctions, and detours on our way to what was the first of many openings, the VIP Host Committee Luncheon at 11:00 a.m. on November 9, 2011.
This exhibition was the first fashion installation most of us had ever worked on, and its many technical requirements added extra complexities. A trip to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ installation was vital for me and several of my colleagues. We take hundreds of pictures, ask pages of questions, and document mannequin mounting, lighting, and mechanical specifications.
Two 18-wheelers deliver the majority of the exhibition, with mannequins, mounts, and furniture in a regular truck, and costumes and works on paper in a climate-controlled one.
As soon as possible, we locate and unpack the Galleon headband so its dimensions can be verified for our preparators, who will make a mount for it, and our carpenters, who will build the proper-size “porthole” display case.
Preparators John Lendvay and Mary Nicolett assemble mannequins and take height measurements so they will know where to place them on the platforms in relation to the projectors, which will eventually bring their faces to life.
Once the Odyssey gallery mannequins have been placed, the preparators hang the projectors a precise eighty-eight inches away from their noses so that the faces will align properly and not look like Picasso paintings.
LED strips are affixed inside the Urban Jungle gallery platforms before their frosted Plexiglas tops are installed.
Naked assembled mannequins await dressing in what was deemed the “morgue” but later transformed into the Exhibition Store.
Several tightly fitted leggings and stockings were packed directly on their legs to save wear and tear from dressing and undressing them at each venue. Thankfully, the mannequin body parts were labeled so we could easily match them to the proper legless torsos.
Tanel Bedrossiantz from Gaultier’s Paris atelier and local mannequin dresser Greg Goolsby join us on our first day of costume installation.
By the end of our second day, sixty mannequins throughout the exhibition have been dressed, including the catwalk models and their surrounding “punks.” We made it a priority to focus first on those with projections to allow as much time as possible for alignment and editing.
As hectic as the installation is, we find time to appreciate the humor – here Montreal’s organizing curator (and former model) Thierry Loriot demonstrates how to properly wear a Mohawk before attaching it to a mannequin head with double-stick tape.
Preparators and carpenter Dennis Bishop install the screen scrim and fine-tune the chain mechanism of the catwalk.
The porthole into the Urban Jungle gallery is finished, allowing visitors a sneak peek into the installation, and at the DMA’s Margot B. Perot Curator of Decorative Arts and Design Kevin Tucker, who is working with preparator Mike Hill on mannequin placement.
Mannequins patiently await their turn to be mounted on their catwalk platforms.
Tanel detaches a mannequin’s hands in order to install its many bracelets.
The “Hussar coat”-look silk faille skirt is unpacked. This piece has its own crate and is packed suspended over a cone support.
Gaultier atelier staff member Thoaï Nirodeth laces up the Chantilly lace body stocking. The Skin Deep gallery is the last to be dressed and installed because the back wall was built over a doorway we needed in order to move the large mannequin cases in and out of the space.
We discover that a new mannequin has been sent for Madonna’s dancer’s costume in the Skin Deep gallery, and this one does not want to support himself (or Madonna) on all fours. After consultation with our conservator John Dennis and the Gaultier atelier, we build a mount to support him at the collar bone (surreptitously hidden by his black scarf).
A shipment of new outfits arrives from Paris, including the cowboy and cowgirl looks at the entry of the exhibition (created specifically for the Dallas installation), the 3-D “horn of plenty satin ribbon corset-style gown (which was just on the runway over the summer), and the costume from the film Kika. Upon unpacking the helmet, we notice the absence of a key accessory—an early model video camera. We locate similar ones on Ebay, but are fortunately able to obtain one overnight from a friend of a coworker who (thankfully) never throws anything away.
The final shipment arrives from Montreal, including mannequins for the new outfits just arrived from Paris and clothing items with animal-related components that had been delayed due to customs problems.
Although it is standard practice to allow artwork twenty-four hours to acclimatize after arrival, time is of the essence and we unpack the final shipment immediately, which includes the doll with the ostrich-feather dress in the Boudoir gallery. In order to import items made from endangered animals or migratory birds, it is necessary to apply for government permits, which can take months to process.
Preparator Doug Velek installs the final two works on paper amid hair clippings in the exit gallery—the space that had been used as the “salon” of wig stylist Hugo Raiah.
Preparator Lance Lander was instrumental in “lassoing” the numerous and complicated AV components in the exhibition, and also came to the rescue by lending the final accessories to complete the cowboy and cowgirl “looks.” (The lasso and Black Stetson were requested by the atelier at the last minute.)
Carpenter Dennis Bishop puts the finishing touches on the projector covers in the Odyssey gallery.
Jean Paul Gaultier comes straight from the airport for his first walk-through of our installation. Several of us were on hand to welcome him and are privileged to watch the design genius at work as he adjusts the drapery of fabric and modifies accessories. To add more of his characteristic je ne sais quoi to the Chalk-striped mink pantsuit, he borrows a gold lamé turban from one of the female punks (now stylishly bald) and adds the Plastic bolero with gold thread embroidery.
Registrars, preparators, and even our chair of collections and exhibitions scramble to clean, arrange, and affix the mirrored tiles to the platforms in the Metropolis gallery.
After final consultation with Jean Paul Gaultier, his atelier staff hang the train of the Satin cage-look corset dress on the wall according to his specific direction.
Reagan Duplisea is the Assistant Registrar for Exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art.
I’m on Day Three at the DMA and feeling very much at home. Directors are always at home, because the job follows us there. In the case of the Dallas Museum of Art, it’s great fun to get to know so many new people in such a short time, and to absorb the rhythms of a venerable institution that is forever in the moment.
Unpacking a few hundred books and displaying a few souvenirs and personal photographs has already made my new office feel familiar—as does knowing that dear friends have worked in this office for many years before I showed up. The choices of how time is spent in the first few weeks are clear up to a point—lots of events and opportunities to connect with everyone from staff to visitors to donors and trustees to others throughout the Metroplex. The script not written is how to blend my experiences with the needs of the DMA, which will be a fresh and exciting challenge. My inner circle of staff is already learning about my foibles and tone, which I try to keep informal, fast-paced, laced with humor, and open to experiments that fail.
While I will return to this space from time to time, it’s probably easier to find me on Twitter (@MaxAndersonUSA), which demands haiku-like precision but slightly less time. Excited to see what happens on Day Four!
Maxwell Anderson is The Eugene McDermott Director at the Dallas Museum of Art.
I like my office workspace. It has what I need to get through each day . . . desktop computer, telephone, robot USB flash drive, exhibition catalogues, personal photographs. It’s my home away from home. But as a museum registrar, my job requires me to leave my workspace pretty regularly. And lately, I’ve been enjoying that mobility more than usual.
What has led to my mobile euphoria? Two words . . . i. Pad.
My job requires me to work in a variety of locations including art storage spaces and exhibition galleries. Not to mention at museums across the country and throughout Europe when I travel as a courier. And normally, I would carry a bagful of supplies. But no more.
With an iPad handy, registrars can enter framed artwork dimensions directly into the database from art storage.
Now with an iPad in my hand, I can leave the clipboard, paperwork, digital camera, and pencil behind when I trek to the galleries or to art storage. Thin and lightweight, the iPad is the near-perfect substitute for the traditional methods of doing several registrarial tasks.
In the Registrar’s Department, we’ve developed iPad workflows for tasks including condition reports, incident reports, and art movement location changes. We can also access our database remotely in order to enter data directly without the need for taking notes and returning to our desktop computer. To the layman, these are neither the sexiest nor the most fun things to do with an iPad. But to a museum registrar, they seem heaven-sent.
It’s a great feeling to walk out of an art storage space or exhibition gallery knowing that when I return to my desk, I don’t have a step 2 of the process to complete. For several tasks, the iPad allows me to complete all phases of the process remotely.
By converting condition report forms to PDF documents, we can now markup these essential documents using the PDF Expert app on the iPad. This app not only has a variety of useful tools, but the marks are editable which makes for cleaner documents.
Need to mark up a condition report to show an area of concern on a painting surface? Done.
Need to sign, e-mail, and print a shipping receipt from the art dock? Done.
Need to edit an exhibition floor plan illustrating art placement changes and e-mail it to the exhibition designer? Done.
Need to take a photo of installed casework and record the measurements between objects for future reference? Done.
Thank you, iPad.
A registrar compares submitted text for an upcoming publication to the text on the object labels in the galleries. Her edits on the iPad can then be saved and emailed to the Publications Department before she ever leaves the galleries.
While working on recent exhibitions, both at the DMA and outside the museum, I used an iPad to access crate lists, object checklists, and gallery floor plans, and to send e-mails and photos directly from the galleries. It is so refreshing not to have to sort through piles of paperwork, stapled lists, and hand-jotted notes trying to find what I need. Just a few simple taps of the screen, and I’m jumping between apps and documents with little effort or confusion.
We’ve been using the iPads since the summer, and we’ve only begun to unlock the potential. It’s a bit time-consuming to research the apps to find the best ones suited to our needs and then to develop the necessary workflows, but, in all honesty, it’s actually a lot of fun.
The iPad will be a game-changer for museum registrars, and at the DMA we’re embracing that change one app at a time.
Brent Mitchell is Registrar for Loans and Exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art.
To celebrate you, our more than 50,000 combined Facebook and Twitter followers, we are offering our fans two days to experience one of “the hottest tickets in town,” The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, at the general admission price of $10! Head down to the DMA on either Tuesday, December 6, or Wednesday, December 7, and show the Visitor Services Desk that you follow us on Facebook or Twitter* on your phone to receive the $6 discount.
*One discount per person; discount may not be applied for both Twitter and Facebook.
This wooden object, which has been at the DMA since 1975, was misinterpreted as a “ceremonial digging board.” Walking through the galleries of Peruvian art, I was struck by the large size and stark, seemingly utilitarian design of this object and was encouraged to research it.
Ceremonial digging board, Peru, Ica Valley, Ica, 1476–1532, wood and paint, Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 1975.24.McD
The figures are beautifully painted and remarkably well preserved. At the very top stand nine small, enigmatic figures. Underneath those are four rows of geometric designs, while six small water birds line the side. But other than the carvings at the top, it is a plain board. Because most “art objects” of the Americas are often practical as well, I wondered what functions this could have had. Investigations into similar objects of this type yielded an interesting new interpretation. We now know that it is a steering centerboard, and represents a fascinating and extremely useful sailing tradition.
From Lothrop, Aboriginal Navigation off the West Coast of South America. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute Volume LXII, 1932.
Boards with the exact same shape and similar carving have been found in graves of the very rich on the south coast of Peru. The associated grave goods and the fine quality of these carvings (some were even found covered with gold foil!), indicate that these were high status objects.
The Ica
These boards were associated with the Ica culture of Peru, who preceded the Inca Empire and were located in the very dry desert on the south coast. The Ica culture flourished from about 1100-1300, before being taken over by the Inca Empire.
From Benzoni, History of the New World, 1546.
How Was It Used?
When archaeologists started finding these wooden boards in the early 1900s, they classified them as ceremonial agricultural implements or ceremonial digging sticks. Through the research of anthropologists, we now know that this type of object had a very different function.
This object is a centerboard used for navigating large balsa wood rafts on the Pacific Ocean. Though not exactly a rudder, it functions in a similar way, steering the craft. Through the interplay of sails and the movements of several of these centerboards, balsa wood rafts carrying up to twenty tons of cargo and as many as fifty people could travel all along the coast of Peru and Ecuador. We have some evidence that they traveled as far as the Pacific Islands, a distance of over four thousand miles!
From Juan and Ulloa, A Voyage to South America, 1748.
How Do We Know?
Anthropologists in the 1940s were interested in the maritime techniques and capabilities of the ancient Peruvians. Most objects associated with sailing did not survive, since they were made of perishable materials like wood and cotton. The wooden paddles and centerboards (like ours) do survive, because they were purposefully buried in the graves of high-status people. The dry desert conditions on the south coast of Peru allowed them to remain intact, and archaeologists started finding them in the early 20th century.
One important scholar, Thor Heyerdahl, spent years researching Peruvian navigation and sailing. He actually built a balsa log raft modeled on ancient vessels, and named it Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl and five companions tested the sea-worthiness of their vessel and several of their other theories on trans-Pacific contact between native peoples. They sailed for 101 days over 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean, ending August 7, 1947. A documentary called Kon-Tiki detailing their voyage—with all its challenges and successes—was made in 1950. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1951 and is being remade in Norway to be released in 2012.
You can watch the movie online here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGooopCTmpg
Many Uses
Some of the rafts seen by the earliest Europeans off the Andean coast carried merchants and tons of cargo on board. Others were used for army transportation and the conquest and control of warlike islanders off the empire coast. Still others were used by fishermen who went on extensive expeditions. The Spaniards even recorded Inca memories of individual merchant rafts and large, organized raft flotillas that set out on exploring expeditions to remote islands.
Diagram of a large Balsa-Log Raft. From Lothrop, Aboriginal Navigation off the West Coast of South America. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute Volume LXII, 1932.
Raftsmen in north Peru were great mariners who played fatal tricks on Spaniards who voyaged as passengers on their balsa rafts. The natives simply detached the ropes holding the log raft together, and the Spaniards fell through and drowned while the sailors survived because they were outstanding swimmers. Other early chroniclers state that even before the arrival of the Spaniards the coastal Peruvians, who “swam as well as fishes,” lured the highland Incas into the open ocean on balsa rafts, only to undo the lashings of the logs and drown their less sea-minded passengers.
Wendy Earle is the McDermott Graduate Curatorial Intern for Arts of the Americas and the Pacific.
Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving!
There are six exciting galleries inside The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk exhibition, from a red light district to a motorized runway. For the Punk Cancan room, we decided to tag the walls with details of Gaultier and Dallas with the help of graffiti artist Jerod DTOX Davies for Blunt Force Crew/Beastmode Squad. Below is a behind-the-scenes look at the tagging process.
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Photography by Adam Gingrich, Dallas Museum of Art Marketing Assistant, and George Fiala.
You may have heard that the U.S. Premiere of The Fashion World From Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk opened yesterday at the Dallas Museum of Art. But we had a week of pre-opening events prior to Sunday, including the Press Preview on Thursday morning. Below are a few of our favorite shots from our time with the “enfant terrible”.
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Kimberly Daniell, Public Relations Specialist at the Dallas Museum of Art