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To see all the reports from the Blanton Museum opening, click here for Saturday and here for Sunday.
Austin360 blogs > Live reports from the Blanton Museum opening > Archives > 2006 > April > 29
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Block, still busting at midnight
The crowds still snake around the Blanton waiting to get in. Yup — at midnight in Austin hundreds wait their turn to get into the new museum.
And once inside? They pause over prints: “That’s a real Rembrandt!” a young man with a pierced lip tells his equally pierced companions.
From elsewhere in the gallery of Renaissance prints come this: “Did you see the sheep?” a woman said peering over reading glasses to address her friend. “So much detail.”
Director Jessie Otto Hite, taking a break in a rotunda gallery filled with enormous altarpiece paintings, said she had orginally planned to stay until the crowds thinned before heading home for a few winks. “Gosh I may be here all night!” she said with a laugh.
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It’s really ONE big happy crowd
It would seem like pop rising stars Voxtrot brought their own fans with them. They’re rocking out the atrium now. People are bopping their heads, sending shout-outs down from the upper loggia.
But here’s what’s really going on: People who dig live music dig live art. Yep — it’s one big happy crowd that digs art and music in Austin. And that’s why they’re here and willing to wait an hour to get in.
Who’s almost as popular as Voxtrot right now? “Patrick” — Oliver Herring’s beguiling sculpture made of thousands of photo bits of a man copping the same pose as Rodin’s “Thinker.” Patrick’s fans can’t stay away from him. Maybe he needs a fan site like Voxtrot.
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Person in a tree
Blanton Assistant Director Ann Hume Wilson was walking the line outside the museum, keeping the late-night attendees informed and calm about the long wait, when she saw one of the museum’s free glow necklaces up in a freshly planted cedar elm.
Then it moved.
When she moved closer, she discovered that a boy, about 12 years old, was climbing up to retrieve his necklance.
“I’ve never had to say this at a museum before,” Wilson reports. “‘Sir, please get down from the tree.’”
The boy switched strageties, throwing his cell phone up as a boomerang of sorts. When the necklace fell, the crowd cheered.
Then he was free to enter the museum to hear the sweetly melodic Austin band Voxtrot, which had the increasing young group whooping and shaking.
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Big, bigger, biggest
Jeanne Claire van Ryzin: The blockbuster grows. The line now encircles the Blanton. A lucky 384 aterati came through the doors in the first 10 minutes of the Extremely Grand Opening.
Now, UT police are telling the crowds outside that the wait to see the art treasures inside will be at least an hour. Good thing the UT Marimba Band is keeping the mood festive. So are the cash bar stations where the Blantinis are flowing. Inside, the tango band Tosca lends an air of elegance to the atrium, where dancers flicked their heels.
Blanton associate director Ann Hume Wilson says that already her predictions are modest. She expected 5,000 with peaks at 1 a.m. and then again 2 p.m. Sunday. But in the first hour, 1,200 have made it in. “This is like a rock concert,” she said.
Blanton blockbuster
We have our first true blockbuster — The Blanton. A festive crowd snaked around the museum, anxious to see Austin’s new art museum. And the first-timers were a bit surprised at how many of them they were.
“I haven’t stood in a line this long since the King Tut exhibit,” said UT Spanish prof Chris Corsbie.
The very first couple from the general public to enter the Blanton? Longtime Austinites Magdeline Werner and George Shelly.
“The reason I got in is because I’m 84 years old,” Werner said. “I said ‘I’ve got to get in!’”
Werner loves the museums on the East Coast. “That was too far away,” she said. “Now I don’t have to go to New York City.”
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Members only
Even before the Blanton Museum of Art opened its doors Saturday, art lovers lined up outside the University of Texas galleries, pressing their noses to the glass before a daytime preview for dues-paying museum members.
“It was like the shopping frenzy the day after Thanksgiving,” said Martha Bradshaw, the Blanton’s director of visitor services. “People couldn’t wait to get in.”
Central Texans have indeed been cooling their heels. Since its inception as the University Art Gallery in 1963, the museum has shared quarters with the art department and the Ransom Center’s literary archives. One could trace the wait even further back the 1920s, when railroad baron Arthur M. Huntington donated the initial gift for the future museum.
Now, after the largest arts fundraising campaign in UT’s history, the 124,000-square-foot Mari and James A. Michener Gallery — the first of a $83.5 million two-building complex — gives the university’s renowned art collection the first home of its own.
The members’ day was the last of several preview events before the museum launched its 24-hour public opening 9 p.m. Saturday.
Anticipation about the new building bumped membership rates from 1,200 to more than 4,000. And 400 of those members poured through door within the first 90 minutes after opening. By mid-afternoon more than 1,400 had flashed their orange and white membership cards at the front desk.
Once inside, some folks stopped to admire the soaring two-story atrium with its dramatic skylights and sip complimentary bottles of water that bore the Blanton logo. Docents corralled the crowds for tours. More independent visitors grabbed brochures and audio guides headed straight into the galleries.
Art remained the star of the show.
Explosive abstract expressionist works inspired some to perch on benches in quiet contemplation. Luminous Renaissance paintings garnered whispered conversations. Children hop-scotched over video projections on the floor.
Longtime Austinite Pat Pope and her mother Flo Pope marveled at 18th-century French prints — and also that could finally view such treasures without having to leave town.
“For years we’ve been members at art museums in Houston, Fort Worth and Santa Fe,” said Pat Pope, adding that she and her mother traveled frequently to those cities to attend exhibits. “Now we don’t have to leave town so often. We’re even going to come back to the museum on Sunday for the rest of the party.”
Flo Pope said the Blanton will put Austin on the map for like-minded cultures vultures in the Southwest. “Now they have to come see us,” she said.
That certainly was the case with UT alumna and museum education consultant Susana Monteverde. She drove up from Houston to use her new museum membership for the first time Saturday. “I never went to a football game the whole time I was at UT, but I will cheer for the art,” she said.
Children cheered too.
Sean Debardelaben wandered through the permanent collection galleries with his daughter Celeste, 7, and her friend Oscar Newman, also 7.
“I get inspired by the art that I see here and it makes me want to get out my sketch book and sketch,” said Celeste Debardelaben excitedly.
Her father said he bought his family a museum membership just in the past few months and planned to add the Blanton to their regular weekend destinations. “We’re even excited about the 24-hour opening. We’re coming back on Sunday.”
Larkin Wynn, 10-year-old daughter of Mayor Will Wynn, said the room filled with delicate mobiles by Argentine artist Daniel Joglar “looked like the Olympics in space.” She was there with her sister Kyre, 7, and mother Anne Elizabeth Wynn, longtime Blanton supporter and arts advocatee.
While the art captivated the crowds, shopping slipped onto the agenda for many. By mid-afternoon, the museum shop kiosk reported more than $3,000 in sales. At $20, the new Blanton catalog proved a popular seller, as were postcards featuring the museum’s masterpieces.
Still the actual masterpieces inspired the most praise.
“Art is rich, and now what a plus we have this place for ourselves,” said Flo Pope. — Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
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