OPINION - Editorial

One museum to another

A dowager vs. a flashy new arrival

The venerated grande dame that is the Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in Manhattan in 1930 by prominent American philanthropist and art patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. The stylish celebrity upstart that is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art was founded in Bentonville in 2011 by prominent philanthropist and Arkansas art patron Alice Walton, youngest daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton.

There are plenty more similarities between these two museums. A recent visit to the Whitney and many, many visits to Crystal Bridges are instructive for those interested in comparing and contrasting the two.

The prestigious Whitney is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting and exhibiting American art; its holdings include more than 21,000 works created by more than 3,000 artists in the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries.

The mission of populist Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature. Its permanent collection spans five centuries of American masterworks ranging from the Colonial era to the current day. Being as young as it is, it's got some catching up to do in comparison to the Whitney; its permanent collection contains roughly 2,700 works.

Both buildings boast designs by renowned architects.

The Whitney, which opened in 1931 on West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, moved to an expanded site on West 54th Street in 1954, then to Madison Avenue at 75th Street in 1966, arrived in its new building at 99 Gansevoort St. in 2015.

Designed by Renzo Piano and situated between the High Line and the Hudson River in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, the Whitney has 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries and 13,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space and terraces facing the High Line. A gallery for special exhibitions is approximately 18,000 square feet. Additional exhibition space includes a lobby gallery and two floors for the permanent collection. There are restaurants, a research library and a compact gift shop.

Designed by Moshe Safdie and opened in 2011, Crystal Bridges is much larger, with a 217,000-square-foot complex that contains pavilions around two spring-fed ponds that house galleries, meeting and classroom spaces and a gathering hall. There's a restaurant on a glass-enclosed bridge overlooking the ponds, a museum store designed by Fayetteville architect Marlon Blackwell, and a library with more than 50,000 volumes of reference material. Sculpture and walking trails link the museum's 120-acre park to downtown Bentonville.

Special exhibitions at each museum--"Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables" at the Whitney through June 10 and "Soul of a Nation," which recently closed at Crystal Bridges and is heading to the Brooklyn Museum--would feel right at home at the other.

The Whitney has white-walled galleries with open industrial ceilings and pale gray wood floors. There's a huge elevator in the lobby that can take dozens of visitors at one time to its upper floors.

Crystal Bridges has white-walled galleries with wooden floors. It has decent but unassuming elevators. Both museums have broad stairways for those who have the energy to use them.

The Whitney has docents who actively engage visitors with questions like "Would you like to know why these photographs are arranged like this?"

There are plenty of docents--known as gallery guides--answering questions and providing tours at Crystal Bridges, as well as protection specialists, who mostly seem engaged in asking people to stand clear of the art. This happens at the Whitney, too, but is mostly accomplished by a strip on the floor in front of each work that indicates how far visitors should stay back.

No signage was seen in the Meatpacking District indicating the location of the Whitney. A question to a young resident entering an apartment in the area drew a response of "I think it's over there," vaguely indicating a location west of 13th Street. Crystal Bridges signs are all over Bentonville, including on Interstate 49.

Here's the best comparison: General admission to the Whitney is $25 for adults, $18 for students and seniors. Thanks to a grant from Walmart, general admission to Crystal Bridges is free.

So enjoy, Arkansas! Ain't nobody got nothin' on us.

Editorial on 04/27/2018

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