Michael Workman

I've never set foot in the Terra Museum.

Not once, ever. I've had the occasion recently to discuss this omission to my museum-going experience with several friends and colleagues, and find that a hugely disproportionate number have never visited the Terra. Why? Perhaps there's no single, pat answer. I find that I know more about the museum through the reports of its infighting and board foibles than its programming. Ever since founder Daniel J. Terra passed away in 1996, the museum has been loudly drifting into obscurity. As an institution founded to house the magnificent art collection of Terra and to focus on showcasing American art, its purpose had obviously become too unwieldy for its humble origins (it started in a flower shop in Evanston). The decision to relocate the museum to its present location on the Magnificent Mile was also an odd choice, as was the decision to open its companion museum, the Musée d'Art Américain in Giverny, France, while the parent museum was floundering so spectacularly.

But this is all blood under the bridge, now that the museum has announced it will close. The central question to ask in the context of the museum's failure is about the value of the Terra's programming. After all, what draws in sustaining crowds is the value of an institution's help in educating its host community about its mission. So, why was the programming so imperceptible to the community? Some reports suggest simple naiveté on the part of the museum's founder. After all, museums are not made viable merely as public monuments. My sense of the Terra has been that it has long made the egregious error of focusing too closely on a wooly individual vision rather than seeking ways to educate the community as to that vision's farther-reaching purpose.

Not that a long flirtation with retracting the founder's gift of the museum to the community in order to relocate out-of-state didn't wound its investment in that community as well. Clearly, it did. And, despite the board's failure to reinvent the museum and the messy litigation that ensued--litigation that ended only when the Illinois Attorney General stepped in to adjudicate the matter--the museum's ultimate pratfall, however, lay in its inability to distinguish itself. This unfortunate fact made it unable to compete. As such, reducing the Terra to its role as a grant-giving organization (the Terra Foundation currently runs the museum) may eventually prove a more functional strategy. Though somewhat coldly comforting, a significant portion of the collection that makes up the Terra's legacy will be maintained and made available to the public at the Art Institute. Yet, one can't help but wonder whether attempting to answer the questions as to the Terra's philosophy, audience, and objectives would have propelled it out of the toxicity of conflicting intentions that came to define the museum's leadership.

Sadly ironic, then, is the fact that, concurrent with the news of the Terra's closing, curators have announced a spectacular final program, "Modern Matters," a sixteen-month series focusing on early modernism in American art. By staging a series of exhibitions clearly updating the connection between the museum's collection and its curatorial mission to modern practice, the Terra signals with previously lacking potency its relevance to the contemporary point of view. If only the Terra had previously managed this well at addressing the modern dilemma that has long plagued other museums--namely, the necessity of breaking with a speciously fostered institutional isolation--this museum's role as an asset to the city in its role as guardian of an important civic and artistic mission may not have come to such an untimely end. Patrons of the Terra and Chicago's art community as a whole will definitely be worse off for its absence.

Knocking Down the Walls

Threewalls, a new nonprofit art residency, exhibition and education organization, hosts a benefit this Thursday to support its autumn unveiling, with proceeds going toward "leasing a space and keeping the lights on." Headed up by former Dayton, Ohio resident Jonathan Rhodes, he explains that the purpose of the organization is to "make Chicago more viable outside of academia for emerging artists. My sense is that people come here for the schools, but leave because of the lack of an energetic community to support their work." The benefit, taking place in the first-floor exhibition space at 835 West Washington, marks the opening of the organization's doors to curatorial proposals and applications for residency.

Alluding to the three walls of standard exhibition cubicles, the organization's goal is to provide broader support to working artists. Through the residency program, artists will be provided space to create their art and, through the curatorial projects, space to exhibit that work at the end of their tenure. The organization will also provide resources, such as printing, to artists selected for programming through association with other local art groups. Rhodes notes that Threewalls already functions collaboratively, with the silent-art-auction aspect of the benefit curated with assistance from local art groups 1R Gallery, MULE and Hixson/Dillon.

The Terra Museum of American Art is still located at 664 North Michigan, (312) 664-3939. Threewalls benefit, July 24, 6-10pm at 835 West Washington, first floor, (312)209-3241.

(2003-07-23)

Also by Michael Workman

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The aptly titled group show "Summer" at Bodybuilder and Sportsman Gallery in the West Loop neighborhood is among the most compelling of the exhibits on offer.
(2003-07-16)

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When you manage successfully to balance curiosity and intelligence in the same show--watch out
(2003-07-09)

Eye Exam
Attending the opening of "America's Best: Art Inspired by Pabst Blue Ribbon" at the March to the Sea Gallery in the Humboldt Park neighborhood this past Friday, I was keenly aware of the presence of a commercial network.
(2003-07-02)

Eye Exam
Attendance numbers at the opening night of any exhibition serve as no more an indicator of the success of the art on display than prowess at the game of Scrabble functions as a measure of literary talent.
(2003-06-25)

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(2003-06-18)

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(2003-06-11)

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(2003-06-04)

Eye Exam
(2003-05-28)

Neo-religion
(2003-05-28)

Eye Exam
(2003-05-21)

Eye Exam
(2003-05-14)

Eye Exam
(2003-05-07)

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