By Fletcher Word
The Truth Editor
The Toledo Museum of Art will be closing a number of galleries in December in order to undertake some major renovations to the facility’s infrastructure – HVAC, electrical and plumbing – as well as a total reinstallation of the way its art is presented to visitors. The reinstallation will be complete in 2027.
The following galleries will be closed and the art currently contained in them will go off view for the duration of the project – the Great Gallery; Galleries 22-27 (featuring Dutch and French Baroque and Rococo paintings and sculptures; Galleries 32-33, featuring European art; Gallery 34 featuring selections from the jewelry collection.
The project is the first comprehensive gallery reinstallation in over 40 years and, in addition to the infrastructure rehabilitation, will be designed to reimagine the visitor’s experience.
Adam Levine, the Edward Drummond and Florence Scott Libbey director of the Toledo Museum of Art, held a town hall on Sunday, November 16, to explain why the reinstallation was necessary and what the experience will be for visitors after the project is complete.
First of all, the HVAC, electrical and plumbing systems must be upgraded – they have been in place for more than 40 years without substantial upgrade and are not expected to last more than a few more years.
“Our heating and cooling system is at the end of its usefulness,” said Levine. “And every gallery was going to have to be closed by 2027 anyway.”
Now that those systems must be upgraded (to the tune, said Levine, of $23 million), the museum has a unique opportunity to re-imagine the galleries in a way that will alter a visitor’s current experience to one that makes more sense in today’s world.
The new experience, said Levine, will be “a history of the world chronologically” so one can “understand what was happening simultaneously in different cultures.”
This means that a visitor will enter the museum and view what was happening in the ancient world and where it was happening during the same time periods in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, for example. Today’s museum, as do virtually all museums, segregate presentations by country or continent and by types of art – even if a collection of ancient Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphics leads one directly into the impressionistic world of 19th century France.
“Our mission is to integrate art into the lives of people,” said Levine. “A chronological installation allows us to tell a true history of the way relate to time. It will show how the world has always been connected.”
The reinstallation of the galleries in chronological order is virtually revolutionary, as Levine explained. No other museum in the United States offers such a view of art to visitors and, in fact, only one in the world currently does – the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Such a reinstallation will be enormously expensive, no doubt, however, private philanthropy will provide the total costs for the project, Levine said.
He also noted that the plans for the project have not been completed in a vacuum with the input of only a select few. Although by now, the Museum is far enough into the project that the plans are virtually complete, it has been a lengthy process and 1,000 Toledoans were consulted, he said.
The galleries to be renovated will close on December 15. The following areas of the Museum will remain open – the Glass Pavilion; Classic Court, Wolfe Gallery and Galleries 1, 4, 6, 7, 15, 16, 18, 19, 35; TMA Café, TMA Store and Library; the Family Center and Education Wing, all entrances, elevators and restrooms and the daily glassblowing demonstrations.