By Andy Pavey
paveyand@grinnell.edu
The Faulconer Gallery, an institution foundational to the Grinnell College art community since its inception in 1999, has a new name and a new mission.
Now known as the Grinnell College Museum of Art, it will seek to better bring the visual arts to a 21st-century campus and to all its audiences, and better identify itself as a full-fledged museum. “We’re doing what we’ve always done, but now we’re hoping that people see it as a whole package,” Director Lesley Wright told the S&B.
Historically, Wright says, the Museum of Art has been a fragmented presence on campus and in the minds of community members.
“When we conducted a self-study as part of an internal review during the past eighteen months, the survey results both on and off campus show that pretty close to a majority of people didn’t realize we had a collection. They separated the Print and Drawing Study Room from the Faulconer Gallery… not understanding that they were one institution. We think the name ‘Museum’ is more likely to connote that yes, there is a collection behind the exhibitions that go on in Faulconer Gallery,” Wright said.
Wright also hinted that a long-term goal of the Museum is to gain its own dedicated building on campus. This would allow the Museum to feature permanent exhibitions and have dedicated space for its own arts programming.
“We have this geographic challenge, which is that our print room is in Burling Library, and the exhibition space is in Bucksbaum, and most of our staff is in Bucksbaum but some have to be in Burling, too. In a wonderful world, we’d all be under one roof and doing what we do in one shared space,” she said.
Wright, like many of the Museum’s staff, has been with Faulconer Gallery since its inception on campus, and is excited to have seen it become an instrumental element of campus life over the last twenty years.
“At its inception it was a blank slate… [Students and faculty] now understand that a museum is something that can touch and benefit every aspect of campus life, and that is something we have worked hard on,” Wright said.
She also stressed that the Museum is committed to becoming a fixture of the community as well.
“We are quite committed to the fact that you can have the greatest collection and wonderful exhibitions, but if you don’t do robust outreach, you won’t get people through the door.”
A new exhibition, titled ‘For Campus and Community: The Grinnell College Museum of Art,’ showcases many of the most significant acquisitions in the Museum’s collection and publicly introduces its new name to Grinnellians new and old.
“Our 20th anniversary is September 25th, and we’re going to do a little birthday party on the 27th, too,” Wright said. Grinnell College’s art collection includes over 5,000 objects from antiquity to the present day. The exhibition will be on display from August 23 to December 14 in the Faulconer Gallery.
