Do you know how, when you remodel one room in your house, the other rooms suddenly need remodeling too? The same thing happens at WAM. Right before
KNIGHTS! opened last March, we ripped out the grey carpet in the Hiatt Gallery, which had been there since the wing opened in 1983, and replaced it with beautiful wood floors. It’s made a huge difference and contributes to the clean, updated look of the exhibition.
The problem was … it made one of our other main exhibition spaces, one story below,
really look like it needed a makeover. Our gallery for changing exhibitions of prints, drawings, and photographs – where
Perfectly Strange just closed – also hadn’t been updated since the 80s (the carpeted baseboards must have looked great over thirty years ago). And, to give us even more flexibility in that space, we are installing movable walls, so each show can have its own unique configuration, and putting in energy-efficient LED lighting.
The new floors – and walls -- will debut with the opening of
Uncanny Japan: The Art of Yoshitoshi on Saturday, February 28th.
The exhibition will certainly be beautiful…and so will the new floors.
- Jon L. Seydl, Director of Curatorial Affairs
