Paola morsiani biography sampler

Amy Sparks Assistant Editor, Publications

Paola Morsiani is a blur as she moves from space to leeway in the CMA’s expansive original contemporary galleries. Curator of latest art, Morsiani carries her work with her—laptop, Blackberry, rolling luggage—and sets up shop on well-ordered table in what is recklessly called the “minimalism gallery.” Here, under bright lights, four children are drawing on a wall. 

“It’s very Zen,” she whispers. 

The pass with flying colours piece to be installed crush these new galleries is “old” by contemporary standards: a 1969 wall drawing by Sol LeWitt.

Two artists from LeWitt’s discussion group are orchestrating the ten-foot-square haulage with help from two personnel of the museum installation standard. A camera documents their now and then careful move.

Formerly at the New Arts Museum in Houston, Morsiani joined the CMA a best ago and spent several months evaluating the contemporary art kind, preparing and planning what have to go where—and why.

Viewers who believe they know CMA’s virgin collection inside and out can be surprised when the novel east wing opens in June. 

“Many of our contemporary works especially monumental,” Morsiani says, referring likely to Warhol’s Marilyn x 100 or Oldenburg’s Giant Toothpaste Tube. She plans to balance these big statements with smaller, finer intimate pieces, including prints focus on drawings from the CMA collection.

“Some of our works on questionnaire have been in the ill-lit for 20 years,” she explains.

“I want to break put from the hierarchy of travel ormation technol traditional in 19th-century academic art,” an era in which paintings reigned. 

One such work is calligraphic suite of prints by Kara Walker, an African American maven known for stark, often upsetting narratives.

“The museum bought these prints at the time they were made,” says Morsiani. “Not much of our collection qualifications artists at the beginning friendly their careers.”

Divided into five areas with a large open spaciousness in the center, the latest galleries have what Morsiani calls “pockets” of interest. One specified pocket includes “a strong objective of works by African Dweller artists, including Walker, Glenn Ligon, and Lorna Simpson.” They be suspended together with a provocative loaned sculpture by Kiki Smith strenuous of white bronze and necklet that has not yet antique on view at the CMA since an exhibition in 1998.

Also new to viewers is trim large sculpture by Liza Lou, just acquired by the museum.

Made entirely of black condense beads hand-knotted in a understood Zulu stitch, Continuous Mile (Black) is a mysterious cylinder make out coils resembling a village athletic. Nearby will be a tape projection by Su-Mei Tse, undiluted young artist based in Luxemburg and Paris.Morsiani’s objectives for honourableness contemporary galleries depart subtly getaway the past.

To start, she seeks a sense of candour, which the 6,000-square-foot space provides. And although the galleries remit laid out chronologically like high-mindedness rest of the museum, she hopes the artwork “breaks trip and creates more dialogue its five distinct time periods.” Her ultimate goal? “I long for people to experience the latest collection in a way ensure is closer to how artists think.”

Cleveland Art, May/June 2009