This post is written by Emily Ballew Neff, executive director of Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, a singular cultural amenity for this community.
By Emily Ballew Neff
When we celebrated our 100th birthday in May 2016, a day-long event that included singer Joyce Cobb, a New Ballet Ensemble performance in front of RedBall Project, and 1,500 cake pops, I walked by our giant birthday card and noticed hundreds of brightly-colored well wishes written by party-goers.
This message stood out: “Brooks has brought Memphis together.” While I have no idea who wrote it, that wish was the best birthday present of all.
Those five words perfectly articulate one of the many ways art museums function in communities across America. A professor of mine once said, “Art Museums are a playground of the mind.” I always liked this analogy because while you can’t run as you would in a park, you are basically flexing the same muscles. They’re where the eyes and the mind go to hang out, mess around, explore, and open up whole worlds.
Like all art museums, the Brooks is an aggregator of art and people that provides elevating experiences in infinite combinations of awe, wonder, surprise, inspiration, and fun. And as those experiences are shared, they build community.
Emily Ballew Neff
Every time someone says, “Oh, I loved those giant bunnies in the park” or “Remember when the Brooks did that Marisol show?”, they reference those shared experiences that both celebrate what brings us together and illuminate our differences.
Can you name an American city that doesn’t have a thriving art museum? Art museums and thriving cities go hand in hand.
The Brooks is a necessity, not a perk; a fundamental part of a healthy public ecosystem, not a cherry on top.
We don’t save lives, but we help make lives meaningful. Just yesterday, we learned that a one-hour art museum tour is linked to relieving chronic pain and has the potential to redirect the misuse of opioid analgesics. Another study notes that just one student field trip to an art museum equals 53 days of additional learning in school and results in more engaged students better equipped to think critically.
Economic impacts are also significant: 78% of all leisure travelers participate in cultural activities, including art museum visits, spending 63% more on average than other leisure travelers while doing so. Those concerned about government support (or sometimes the relative lack thereof) of the arts should know that for every $1 that the government invests in the arts, they see an average return on investment of more than $7 in taxes.
We don’t really need these arguments to know that art museum access is one of the secrets to a well-lived life. At the Brooks, we hope that we inspire, lift, confuse, amuse, and provoke all sorts of responses that connect us to what it means to be human, a question that we will always explore and never be able to answer definitively. That’s the beauty of it.
Come see for yourself what’s happening at the Brooks, and don’t forget, the museum is free on Wednesdays! Here are some highlights:
* the latest iteration of Rotunda Projects with Federico Uribe’s 24-foot tall tree made out of khaki pants;
* Brooks Outside with Julien de Casabianca’s murals of enlarged details from Brooks paintings, selected by community members, that will pop up in surprising places around Memphis;
* Jaume Plensa’s Talking Continents, an archipelago of steel sculptures that mark the first time the sculptures of this internationally-renowned Spanish artist will be seen in Memphis;
* And, in time for the winter holidays, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Visions of Hawai’i, a small blockbuster that the New York Times calls, “eye-popping.”
* Music, photography, and history lovers will especially enjoy Ernest C. Withers: A Buck and a Half Apiece, which includes photographs of famous musicians and nightclubs (yes, you will see the late, great Aretha Franklin here);
* American Haiku: The Woodcuts of Ted Faiers, the Memphis artist and Memphis College of Art legend;
* Community collaborations with MCA, Rhodes College, University of Memphis, and Christian Brothers University in the nationwide For Freedoms, which models how art and conversation can urge communities to greater civic action;
* The Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) parade and festival on October 27;
* And a new series of figure drawing sessions and Art & Wellness programs, plus we continue our popular series Yoga in the Galleries;
The Brooks is many things: a place to view great art: a source of civic pride, a key piece to what makes Memphis an excellent choice to live and work, a provider of unparalleled educational opportunities, including art therapy for students and community members in need, to name a few.
But I hope you will just remember this: we are also your playground of the mind.
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The Brooks Museum is many things but not a good place to enjoy good art.
A big part of the problem is the building, another the collection and the available funds.
My feeling is that the Brooks wants to many things at once. While we might see a new fancy building for the Brooks in a couple of years. My expectations are quite low for that new location. We might get a good looking building but we probably won’t get a good art museum with interesting exhibitions.
Recently I have been to the Frist Art Museum in Nashville for the excellent: “Chaos and Awe: Painting for the 21st Century ” exhibition. That seem to be a great concept for a Museum with no collection on it’s own.
I also enjoyed the Toledo Museum of Art and the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga. I can imagine that all of these museums have better funding.
I wish the Brooks would ask itself first what it wants to be in 20 years instead of rushing into a architectural competition for a nice new fancy looking building. At the end it all comes down to the collection and the ability to create good exhibitions. If all money gets eaten up by paying for the loans on a fancy building the Brooks will do not much good for the community.
Without a great vision there won’t be a great Brooks Museum.
Some people do not appreciate how cool the Brooks is, with different architectural eras smooshed together. If it’s necessary to rebuild the brutalist concrete panel part, I’ll contribute to that. Taking a little of the golf course to expand – great.
I went to the opening of the present wing when the mayor gave an utterly pedestrian reason for it: that big corporations liked to see art museums in cities they were thinking about. He did not get that excellence is a treat, that many citizens live between cinderblocks and sheetrock and never see anything created for beauty and inspiration, but your city’s art museum is exactly that.
I have mixed emotions about Brooks moving downtown, but I’m hoping that the new building can have as much character as the present one. We are lucky to have such a good museum and here’s hoping a new building can make it even better. Hopefully, the big money folks behind the move will also put some money into increasing the collection.
markusmemphis is right about Brooks.
A new building is not going to elevate this museum if it is saddled with huge debt for decades.
The Brooks collection is only average when compared to similar art museums in other cities.
It is a vast overstatement to say that Brooks brings Memphis together. It’s really more for the elite and corporate.
Emily Ballew Neff must surely know that average Memphians have never entered its doors and are unlikely to ever do do. Her bylined piece here sounds very elitist.
Apparently, you’ve never been there when all the school groups in all their diversity have enjoyed the art and the new emphasis on engaging them in activities.
I go to Brooks to remind me of the incredible creativity in Memphis more than anything with the works of our own nationally important artists. Also, there are works that are cited in national articles about important artworks.
Emily speaks the truth. She should ignore the people who always have something negative to say. Bet he hasn’t been to a Brooks exhibition in years.
I think all of us love having the museum in the park, but if the upkeep of the old buildings is taking money that could be spent for more art and programming, it makes sense to consider a move. Our priority should be the best possible museum for the art. The mayor should make it his priority to find a public use for the building that makes sense for the park.
Brooks Museum should not take on massive debt for a new building. That is how many cultural organizations have died.
I’ve always thought Overton Park is the perfect central location. Downtown will be much less accessible.
38112: From what I hear, the price of the new building will be underwritten and will not accrue to the museum itself.
I have confidence in the director to do what’s best for the museum. She understands all the issues firsthand.
I have mixed emotions about the relocation. Great for Downtown, bad for Overton Park and Midtown. The move may have more to do with Tourism Development Zone funding as the relocation will easily exceed one hundred million dollars and may be hard for the Brooks Museum to fund alone. The cost to complete what the Brooks is proposing will be astronomical especially considering the seismic issues of constructing a museum, a large subterranean parking garage, and a long pedestrian bridge connecting the bluff to Mud Island.
A subterranean parking garage would replace the existing garage (approximately 600 spaces) and include additional spaces to fit the needs of the museum will be quite costly and likely in excess of fifty million dollars. One Beale had to alter their plans due to the same issues and are now proposing an above grade parking structure located at the top of the bluff instead of on the edge of the bluff (see the article below – you may need to cut and paste the link into your browser). http://www.highgroundnews.com/devnews/HowOneBealeWillChangeTheDowntownSkyline.aspx
Other questions remain about parking such as where will those who currently utilize the existing parking garage park during the demolition of the existing garage and construction of the new garage (likely over a year)? There are big stakeholders involved who utilize the existing garage including the Madison Hotel, University of Memphis Law School, Memphis in May, Convention and Visitors Bureau, nearby architectural firms, law firms, and other offices including those in the Cotton Exchange Building, the residents of nearby Shrine Building and other condominiums/apartments, as well as the many great restaurants nearby (Flight, BarDog, the Little Tea Shop, Maciel’s, Front Street Deli, etc.).
There are other major challenges to the new location including the relocation of the fire station to a property across Danny Thomas. Relocating the fire station is a challenge that has not even been raised as the proposed location is outside the Downtown Fire Zone. This relocation could significantly raise insurance rates for those that live, work, and play in the Downtown Core and may result in more vacancies in the area. Other issues include finding a new user for the existing museum, as well as security, maintenance of the grounds, and the homeless/panhandlers that are currently problematic in the area.
A more cost effective solution would be to retrofit the existing parking structure placing a park on the roof and construct the museum on the Cossitt Library grounds next to the Law School and former Customs House. If the fire department is relocated, the station should be placed within the Downtown Fire Zone. Then perhaps, the existing parking garage with a rooftop park could be expanded from Monroe Avenue to Union Avenue.
Those are great points. I always liked the park over the garage that was part of John Kirkscey’s art park idea for downtown, but he could get no traction since he was just one of us rather than a so-called stakeholder with a big checkbook.
I’m really suspicious that city government keeps throwing around the TDZ like it’s a giant cash register. I can’t possibly have enough money for new Brooks, aquarium, new Lowe’s hotel, and convention center renovation. Some enterprising report, if there are such things any more, should really ask about this.
I had forgotten the museum is free on Wednesday. the list of activities also reminded me that I should pay more attention to what’s going on there.
I’m assuming that she has a cost breakdown comparing this building to the new one. Do you know where I can see them?
I travel to big American cities for leisure and museums are important to me when I travel.
The Brooks move to Downtown will open up the museum to a entirely new audience. Every tourist that visits Memphis will be downtown at some point. The move is a huge win.
To me it’s important that Brooks be less “little old white Southern lady” and become more forward thinking. I want a Museum that shows me the best in African American Art (Mark Bradford for example). A museum that takes risks. A museum that is not afraid to be provocative. And please build a cinema in the new museum to bring back the movie programs that Brooks once showed.