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FeedKenyon College: A new gallery, off the beaten path
About 60 miles separate downtown Columbus from the front door of the newly opened Gund Gallery at Kenyon College. “It’s a drive,” admits director and curator Natalie Marsh, “but it’s a lovely drive.” And it is one she believes many artsy types will make to see the “high-caliber” contemporary and modern work at the 6,000-square-foot, sky-lit exhibition area.
Part of a $40 million gussying of the college’s arts facilities, the Gund Gallery building, which also houses classrooms and a theater, was designed by the Gund Partnership (designer of the renovated main library at Ohio State University) and supported in part by an $11.5 million gift from the Gund Foundation. In each case, the philanthropic Gund here is Graham Gund: Cleveland native, noted architect, avid collector of contemporary art, Kenyon alum (’63) and longtime benefactor of the college.
The gallery officially opened over a celebratory weekend in late October. With high ceilings and a pale oak floor, the space is “uplifting,” says Marsh, who previously worked for Denison University and the Columbus College of Art & Design. Light streams from a surround of windows and skylights in the saw-toothed roof. But behind the scenes, she says, is “the stuff that makes preparators ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh.’ ” She cites the “best possible” security, lighting and fire suppression systems, as well as the large loading dock and a freight elevator the size of the semis that deliver the art. These factors will allow the gallery to borrow substantial works from major museums. This is part of the long-term plan for the gallery, as is building a permanent collection.
The chief focus, though, is presenting innovative and compelling art that “supports and expands the rich liberal arts offerings of the college,” she says. And key to the Gund’s mission is cultivating visual literacy. Reading the visual is essential “to true critical thinking,” explains Marsh. “We can’t live today if we can’t effectively process the bombardment of imagery we experience,” and the centerpiece inaugural exhibition epitomizes, as she says, “seeing as a valid form of knowing.”
In Seeing/Knowing, curated by Marsh, 16 artists investigate how we experience information and data systems. As an example, the German artist Nathalie Miebach converts climate pattern data into both a sculptural form and a musical score. The two other exhibits in the inaugural program are Notations: Envisioning New Sound, a display of unadulterated musical scores by modern composers (no staffs or clefs here), and Oxherding, a collaborative reworking of a 1,000-year-old series of poems and pictures from Song Dynasty China.
Asked if Knox County was out of the way for the art world, Marsh quickly responds: “I’m quite confident new technologies allow us to not feel like we are remote.” And as an academic gallery—less pressured by the marketplace—the Gund is perfectly positioned to pursue more challenging projects, says Marsh, and they will “slowly” influence and feed into the mainstream museums—“propelling the field forward with new approaches, new ideas and genres.”
