Flashy new digs for OKC's art house

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is moving from cramped quarters near a horse barn to shiny new downtown digs marked by a towering glass sculpture in brilliant hues of blue, yellow and green.

It will open March 16 next to City Hall and within blocks of the newly opened Civic Center Music Hall, a botanical garden, a museum dedicated to the 1995 federal building bombing and the growing Bricktown entertainment district.

"The city deserves this," said Carolyn Hill, the museum's executive director. "A strong city needs a strong cultural center. An art museum is a critical part of that."

A 55-foot glass tower by Seattle artist Dale Chihuly will be unveiled when the Oklahoma City Museum of Art opens. Lighting will illuminate the 2,400 hand-blown, colored glass components of the statue as it stands on a reflecting pool just inside the doors of the three-story building.

The chief curator, Hardy Sloan George, hopes that moving the museum from the fairgrounds to downtown will energize the local art scene in the way that classical music lovers got a lift when the Oklahoma City Philharmonic moved to the Civic Center from a college theater in Midwest City last fall. Crowds and ticket sales have increased ever since.

Chihuly's glass work will be featured in an opening exhibit that will run through Aug. 4. A gallery for traveling exhibits on the first floor will showcase 18 of his groupings, including a chandelier, boats, birds and plants.

The museum's second and third floors will feature the permanent collection in 13 galleries. The collection includes landscapes by 19th and 20th century American artists, such as Thomas Moran, Jasper Cropsey and George Inness.

One gallery will show conceptual and kinetic art from the 1960s and after, including Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup II and Alex Katz's Jane.

A room featuring Chinese scrolls will lead to a quiet respite area where visitors can relax and use courtesy telephones.

Visitors can take scheduled tours with docents or pick up headsets for self-guided audio tours through the building, named the Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center after its biggest donor.

The museum will have a cafe, a store, three classrooms, touch- screen computers with CD- ROMs, 16 restrooms and a library.

A 252-seat theater will show international, independent and classic films on Friday and Saturday nights. Film curator Brian Hearn said he will offer movies not playing on any big screen in the city.

"People are starved for it," he said.

Hill credits the city's Metropolitan Area Projects, or MAPS, with revitalizing downtown and providing stimulus for the museum's move. City projects include the music hall, a new arena, a ballpark and a canal lined with shops and restaurants. MAPS was funded through a sales tax increase.

"The development activity is leading a renaissance," she said.

Hill, who took over the museum in 1994 after working at several New York City art venues, said the move to downtown is overdue.

The 110,000-square-foot building -- five times larger than the old one -- will allow the museum to attract better art, Hill said. And she expects the move to benefit the museum financially. The cafe and museum store are sources of income the museum hasn't had.

Also, tourists and locals are more likely to visit a museum in the heart of the city than one tucked away at the fairgrounds.

"We're here with horse shows and trade shows and the fair," Hill said. "They relate to each other. We're out of place with that."

Hill imagines students from smaller towns throughout Oklahoma coming to the city for the day to hear a 30-minute symphony concert, visit the bombing memorial and have boxed lunches at the art museum before a tour there.

Fun facts

Opening: The museum opens March 16 with an exhibit by Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly. A 55-foot glass sculpture by Chihuly will stand on a reflecting pool inside the doors of the three-story museum. Lights will illuminate the orange, yellow, green and cobalt blue hues of the piece. The statue is dedicated to the late Eleanor Blake Kirkpatrick, a museum founder.

Admission: Admission is free on opening weekend. After that it's $7 for adults and $5 for seniors and students. Children under 5 are free.

Collection: The museum will have 13 permanent galleries on the second and third floors. The galleries include Chinese scrolls, portraits from the 17th to 20th centuries, photography, German and American expressionism and abstract art from the 1950s.

Amenities: The museum will have a store, cafe, cloakroom with self- service lockers, three classrooms, a theater, audio tours, wheelchairs, infant strollers and bicycle racks.

Funding: The museum collected $40.6 million in donations for the move from the fairgrounds to downtown. The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation of Las Vegas gave the museum a $14.5 million grant. Other major donors were the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation of Ardmore and The Kresge Foundation of Troy, Mich.

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