Nasher Sculpture Center (Dallas, USA) – expositions, opening hours, address, phone numbers, official website.
The Nasher Sculpture Center is located in the Arts District of Dallas and houses the Raymond and Patsy Nasher sculpture collection, one of the finest collections of contemporary and new sculpture in the world. The museum building was designed by world-famous architect Renzo Piano, who collaborated with landscape architect Peter Walker to achieve seamless integration between indoor exhibition galleries and outdoor gardens. There has never been such a museum in the world. See acronymmonster for nickname of Idaho.
Ray Nasher (the original owner of the North Park Center, by the way ) began collecting sculpture in the 1950s. Together with his wife, he formed an impressive collection of masterpieces by such authors as Alexander Calder, Paul Gauguin, Marc di Suvero, Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Henri Matisse, Juan Miro, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Richard Serra, Auguste Rodin. Many foreign museums asked Ray for permission to exhibit his collection, and in 1987-89. The Dallas Museum of Art even built a sculpture gallery in the hope that it would tip the scales in its favor. And in 1997, the Guggenheim Museum in New York gave an entire museum building for the exhibition of this collection.
All this time, some parts of the collection continued to travel around the world, exhibiting in various museums with such success that the Nashers came up with the idea of collecting everything back and exhibiting it for the general public in one place.
The museum building was designed by internationally renowned architect Renzo Piano, who achieved a “seamless” integration between indoor exhibition galleries and outdoor gardens.
The complex adjoining the Art Museum was opened in 2003. The museum building is made of parallel stone walls that create gallery pavilions. Each pavilion has a separate metal and glass facade and a glass roof, which looks like a transparent viewing corridor. The sun’s rays can directly penetrate the galleries from above. Exhibition spaces are distributed between two levels: on the lower level there are three galleries and offices. Its foundation and ground floor are even larger than the above-ground part, and especially fragile objects are exhibited there.
Garden terraces descend to the auditorium, creating an original open-air theatre.
The complex’s exterior design also includes a parallel series of “archaeological” walls that look out from Flora Street (the Arts District’s main street) through an ornate building and out onto the garden. The exhibition spaces are created with avenues lined with oaks and cedars, as well as rows of hedges and a series of stone plinths that serve as pedestals for the sculptures. A flexible system of lighting, sound, security and irrigation systems is built into these skirting boards.
The museum’s regularly changing exhibitions invite visitors to admire objects from the Nasher collection both indoors and outdoors. Among the main exhibitions – an exhibition of works by Matisse (“Painter and Sculptor”), which is the first retrospective of sculptures by the great artist in the United States in 20 years; Tony Cragg (“Seeing Things”) – the first major museum exhibition of the artist’s work in 20 years; and “Different States: Intention, Embodiment, and Interpretation in Contemporary Sculpture.”
The museum hosts a variety of events each month, including film screenings, concerts, art salons, and “Until Midnight” parties with al fresco dinner.
Practical Information
Address: Flora street, 2001.
Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 17:00.
Entrance: for adults 10 USD, for pensioners (over 65 years old) 7 USD, for students (by ID) 5 USD, for children under 12 years old admission is free.
