KC Studio asked Marc Wilson, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell director and chief executive officer at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, a couple more questions that might be off the beaten path and this gave Wilson a chance to explore his relationship with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art just a little differently.
Taking a page from the popular movie, “Night at the Museum,” which museum would you want to spend a night at? After picking the museum, is there a gallery or exhibit space that you would spend the most time in?
Wilson says at first he thought of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the British Museum in London, England, or the Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. “What place has magic and presence? For me, the answer is right here at the Nelson. I would spend time in our Chinese painting gallery. Chinese painting offers some of the most sophisticated aesthetic sensibilities ever devised. The best are both powerful and subtle at once, while offering the viewer a chance at an experience that unfolds and gets deeper the more the viewer concentrates and works at communing with the work and the mind of the artist. Experiencing the Nelson’s art collections is also about developing your innate visual I.Q. Much of the world around us is ordered visually. Like anything else, you have to work at developing that visual intelligence.”
The phrase “All Passes. High Art Alone is Eternal” is on the 1933 building. If you could become a piece of art when you die, what would you become?
Wilson decided that if he could, he would become one of two pieces housed at the Nelson. The first might be “St. John the Baptist” by Caravaggio. “It’s the painting that bridges the classic world and the modern world.” According to many scholars, the piece at the Nelson is almost devoid of any religious imagery, but captures a private world rather than a narrative. He is also fond of the 12th century bronze Shiva Nataraja. As a child, he was moved by a 16th century German gilt cup. “My parents took me to concerts and museums. As an 11-year-old child, I remember that cup from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Good art resonates across time and culture. It is a celebration of what we are doing right.”
