A New Day at the Museum

Michael and I went to the Krannert Art Museum yesterday. It was our first museum-going experience since the beginning of the pandemic. We were greeted with a work that Joan Thorne (born in 1943) painted during the 1980s called "Topog." The photograph I took of it does not do the work justice, but it is in the same vein as the cover painting on her website.

All of a sudden I realized that this museum was changing, and that I was going to see a lot more work in it by women than I had ever seen in the past.

Yes, indeed! Many of the new acquisitions were works by women. And a African mask exhibit had work by women, as did a ceramics exhibit. The "old masters" area had a large sign explaining why there were no works by women in it, and the antiquities area had a sign explaining that the museum was no longer buying antiquities.

Nobody is getting rid of old stuff and replacing it with new stuff. They are simply expanding their collection in order to make the museum a more meaningful place to experience art.

I look forward to our next visit!