Grand Door Opening @ Madison's Chazen Museum of Art

Madison\'s Chazen Museum of Art celebrates a grand door opening to their new addition this weekend, October 22 and 23. Director of the Chazen Russell Panczenko enthusiastically talks about the opening after his long tenure at the museum, which began in 1984, with the realization of this dream for concentrated gallery space for the permanent collections. The recently finished Chazen fulfills Panczenko\'s, the city\'s and the University of Wisconsin\'s vision to add over 80,000 square feet over three floors to the museum. 

These 80,000 square feel will showcase their permanent collection and temporary exhibitions that have been in the planning stages since 2007. Actual groundbreaking for the museum happened on May 1, 2009 and finally this October the entire community will realize the completion of this long term dream come true. Panczenko chatted from his Madison office about what led up to the grand opening festivities planned on this Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5:00 p.m., that invites the Madison community, and then greater Southeastern Wisconsin to explore the Chazen Museum of Art. 

Could you tell us about the new museum?

The new museum will more than double the size of the Chazen\'s gallery space, allowing us to show more of the Chazen\'s permanent collection. It\'s an amazing building with a third floor pedestrian bridge that connects the original and new building. But the bridge is also a gallery that you walk thorough, about 32 feet wide and 60 feet long, designed as an art gallery to take you from one space to the other while viewing art, visually connected to one another. 

What works of art will be on display as part of the Chazen\'s permanent collection?

The third floor of the museum houses some of the permanent collections we\'ve had to keep in storage. We have a large selection of African Art and the new building doubles the size of the Asian Gallery. We\'re also dedicating a small gallery space to Midwestern Magical Realism to include artists such as John Wilde and Fred Stonehouse. We\'ve put a lot of money into taking our permanent art out of storage, and then restoring and framing it for these new galleries. A large portion has never been seen, on exhibit before. We also have been interested in acquisitions, purchasing new paintings, including an immense oil by Tom Uttech that was exhibited at Tory Folliard Gallery for his last show in spring 2011. It\'s a painting from his migration series that we have a wonderful wall to place it on.

What will be exhibited on the first floor in the new museum?

The first floor will provide two galleries for temporary exhibitions. [One named the Pleasant T. Rowland Gallery.] The walls soar 21 feet high to show large-scale artwork. We will be exhibiting the Chazen paintings, an opportunity to display some work from their important collections including David Hockney and Robert Motherwell ["Discerning Taste: Paintings from the Simona and Jerome A Chazen Collection"]. The Sean Scully exhibition also looks fantastic, exhibiting his larger artworks that we\'ve never been able to show before. ["Sean Scully Paintings and Watercolors"] It definitely demonstrates the potential of these new galleries. [Sean Scully (b. 1945) is an Irish born printmaker and painter who now resides in New York. His abstract, contemporary works, which often feature color blocks in stripes, are collected worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum.]

What are some favorite artworks you have the opportunity to put on display?

We have two works of contemporary studio glass that are inspired by the relationship between art and science, yet used in, expressed in a completely different way. A Danish artist Stefan Dam studies the cabinet of curiosities, and the specimen bottles they used to hold. While his work looks like specimen jars, they are simply inspired by them, while not actually being a specimen jar. British artist, Luke Jerram, creates a glass portrait of the e-coli virus. He actually studies with a virologist and then designs his glass. However, you\'d never know, expect, you\'re looking at a deadly organism when you see his glass sculpture. No clue that\'s what you\'re looking at. These two artists, inspired by science from divergent viewpoints, create equally beautiful objects.

What\'s the best event happening this weekend, if you can choose one?

That this building, the architecture is also a piece of art. An elegant and positive statement about contemporary architecture. An Argentinean named Rodolfo Machado [from the Boston based firm Machado + Silvetti] designed the building and it\'s a real addition to the skyline of Madison. Also, we hope the new Chazen will entice the university students to come and explore, use the museum for learning and to relax culturally and meaningfully. As long as I am a director for the museum we will operate as a non-profit model, with free admission, to give the entire community a chance to explore and be exposed to new art and ideas. The entire weekend is very exciting, all so exciting.

The Chazen Museum of Art festivities begin at noon on Saturday with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Afterwards the museum hosts live music performances and 40 minute gallery tours throughout the expanded museum from noon until 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Free admission to the museum and the weekend events.