Washington College Magazine
College Gets Art Smart Thanks To Kohl Gift
Monika Weiss "Phlegethon-Milczenie" 2005. View of the installation at the Kunsthaus Dresden. Upcoming at Cisneros Fontenals Art Foundation, Miami Basel (December 6, 2006-February 18, 2007)
Monika Weiss "Horos," 2006. View of the artist's public project at Manchester College, part of the exhibition "POZA," Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, on view through January 28, 2007.
Sometimes good things come to those who wait.
The performing arts capital project, originally scheduled to get underway in July 2006, was delayed first when college planners tinkered with the original design and again when President Baird Tipson pressed for an art gallery.
With the new design addressing aesthetic issues and incorporating the additional infrastructure required to protect significant works of art, the project is ready to launch in January 2007. What's more, funding for the art gallery has been secured.
Washington College parents Benjamin and Judy Kohl have pledged $500,000 for the creation of a new 1,200-square-foot art gallery. Mr. Kohl, who joined the Board of Visitors and Governors in 2006, serves on the Performing Arts Campaign Committee.
The Kohl Gallery will be located on the first floor of the Gibson Performing Arts Center, which is slated to undergo extensive renovation and expansion.
"Our spending so much time in Italy has made the visual arts an integral part of our lives," remarked Ben Kohl, a Renaissance scholar who taught medieval and early modern history at Vassar College. "Funding the Kohl Gallery meant enhancing that importance by assuring a state-of-the-art venue for the visual arts at Washington College."
"I am delighted to hear about the new gallery," remarked Monika Weiss, the College's new assistant professor of studio art. "envision it to be focused on contemporary art exhibitions, with a strong curatorial and conceptual focus, having an interdisciplinary and multimedia agenda, similar to other university and college galleries.
I am therefore looking forward with great anticipation and also with excitement to see what kind of curator and/or gallery director will be subsequently hired to oversee its programming and to run the space."
Once classes conclude in early December, the music and drama departments will be packing up and moving out. Drama students are already using alternative performance spaces, and musical groups, including the Concert Series, will perform in Norman James Theatre.
"The difficulty now is finding a place for the ensembles to practice," notes Louis Stettler, the College's senior vice president for finance and management. "We're looking at leased spaces, but then there's the transportation issue. We need a space dedicated to these ensembles because they need to be able to secure their instruments."
It's a short-lived dilemma; the College expects the new facility to open in August 2008.
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