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Views of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, designed by Zaha Hadid and opening Nov. 10, 2012

Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer

A

curator who launched her career
at the Jewish Museum in New
York has joined the staff of the
new Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at
Michigan State University and is getting
ready for opening events starting with the
dedication Saturday morning, Nov. 10.
Alison Gass, curator of contemporary
art, has been working in East Lansing for
seven months and also is planning innova-
tive exhibits moving into 2013.
"There will be a weekend of festivi-
ties, including tours, music and family
programs to celebrate the opening of this
special building designed by architect
Zaha Hadid," Gass says. "After the dedica-
tion, there will be a conversation with
the Broads [as founding donors] and the
architect!'
The Iraqi-British Hadid was the first
female to win the Pritzker Architecture
Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize
in architecture. Known for her bold and
unconventional forms, she won a com-
petition to design the MSU museum, her
first university building and only second
U.S. project after 2003's Lois and Richard
Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in
Cincinnati.
"She came up with the most innovative
design:' Eli Broad told the New York Times.
"It will get people talking and wanting to
visit:'
The museum, approximately 46,000
square feet in size, features a facade of
pleated stainless steel and glass. Seventy
percent of the space will be designated for
displays of contemporary art, new media,
photography and works on paper.
Two opening exhibits were curated by
director Michael Rush to demonstrate the
interest in thematic displays that pres-
ent contemporary work within historical
context.
"'Global Groove 1973/2012' is a video-
art installation that looks at seminal inno-
vations made in the field of video art pio-
neered by Korean artist Nam June Pike
Gass explains.

Eli and Edythe Broad

"Michael Rush has installed, in one big
gallery, 11 video pieces that are from dif-
ferent countries and work off the language
of video art inspired by Pike.
"'In Search of Time' will have a cross-
historical dialogue among art objects.
There will be pieces from the university's
former Kresge Art Museum, such as a
medieval triptych, paired with terrific
pieces of contemporary work, such as
a major giant triptych by British artist
Damien Hirst:'
The Broads, who live in Los Angeles, are
longtime supporters of the university, from
which he earned his undergraduate degree
cum laude in 1954. In 2007, the couple
announced a $26-million gift to create the
facility
"We have inherited the collection from
the former Kresge collection and have
wonderful historical holdings:' Gass says.
"We're also actively building a strong
contemporary collection and have a gift
of paintings, photographs and sculptures
from the Broads.
"We have a major piece by German
artist Anselm Kiefer that we borrowed
from the Broad holdings. Kiefer has dedi-
cated much of his career to issues of the
Holocaust.
"The museum will have a rotating
program of special exhibitions and draw
themes from our temporary projects to
look at the way contemporary artists are in
dialogue with the language of art history"
Gass, who was an art history major at
Columbia University and moved on to a
master's program at New York University,
started her curatorial projects by working
for a professor who also was a curator at
the Brooklyn Museum.
"My very first position at the Jewish

Museum was as a cura-
torial assistant, and I
organized an exhibi-
tion called 'The Jewish
Identity Project: New
American Photography:"
Gass recalls.
"I also worked on an
exhibition
called 'Light
Alison Gass
x Eight: The Hanukkah
Project', which featured the work of con-
temporary artists dealing with the issue of
light in honor of the holiday!'
Gass went on to become an assistant
curator at the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, where she has been employed
for the past five years. She moved her fam-
ily, architect husband Alec Hathaway and
their two preschoolers, to Michigan for
this job as he continues his professional
responsibilities long distance.
"The Broad Museum offered a once-in-
a-lifetime opportunity for me says Gass,
who grew up in Boston, where her mother
heads a Jewish day school. "I have always
been committed to contemporary art and
its social angle in the world.
"I think everybody who works in con-
temporary art knows the significance of
the Broad Foundations and collection.
They play a major role in the shape of
the contemporary art world in the United
States:'
Eli Broad, the son of Jewish-Lithuanian
immigrant parents, built two Fortune 500
companies over a five-decade career. He
is the co-founder of KB Home (formerly
Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation)
and the founder of the financial services
firm SunAmerica Inc.
The Broad Foundations were established
to advance entrepreneurship in education,
science and the arts. The Eli and Edythe
Broad Foundation and the Broad Art
Foundation have assets of $2.5 billion.
Among the upcoming exhibits planned
by Gass is "Pattern: Follow the Rules,"
which plays off the structure of the muse-
um building, patterned and opulent on the
outside and perspectively challenging on
the inside.
She has invited artists to install work

that is about formal patterns, such as the
ones involved in computers and clothing
design. The idea is to show how following
a set of rules and ending up with an opti-
cal illusion force viewers to reassess their
positions in relationship to artwork.
Another project, "The Genres:' features
the ideas of contemporary artists who
have reinvented traditional genres, such as
landscape painting or still life, related to
pieces from the historical holdings of the
museum.
A display of international scope titled
"Does Place Matter?" will explore the role
of place or nationality in artistic produc-
tions.
"It changed my life going to college in
New York City:' Gass says. "It made me
become an art history major after having
access to all the wonderful museums.
"I want to re-create that experience on
the campus of MSU, where people will
have a world-class art museum to expand
their notions of possibilities:"
Gass hopes her contributions to the
museum will extend understandings of
both art and its connection to the univer-
sity setting.
"MSU is an international research uni-
versity, and we aim to be the cultural arm
of that:' she explains. "I'm really commit-
ted to contemporary art as a wonderful
lens with which to examine our contempo-
rary condition.
"What people see in a museum should
be approached in the way they approach
our visual culture — Internet, television,
magazines, films. The museum should
feel like an extension of the visual world
around them:'

❑

The Eli and Edythe Broad Art
Museum will be dedicated and cel-
ebrated starting at 10 a.m. Saturday,
Nov. 10, on the campus of Michigan
State University in East Lansing.
There are many free activities with
advance registration required for
some. For a complete schedule of
events, go to www.broadmuseum.
msu.edu .

November 8 - 2012

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