Museum Matters: Three great Dennos Museum exhibitions not to be missed – Traverse City Record Eagle

When looking ahead to what the Dennos would be showing in our galleries this summer, I knew there was a likelihood the exhibitions would not open when planned given the gallery renovations taking place.

I had invited three noted artists with connections to the region to show as part of our summer schedule.

Sally Rogers, an Northwestern Michigan College art department alum who had gone on to a very successful international career as an artist. Sally and I had been talking about an exhibition for some time. She was considering moving her studio from North Carolina to Traverse City and I told her that would be a great time to do the exhibition. It turns out she elected to make the move to New Mexico instead, where she is now building that new studio. Sally was one of a number of artists I wanted to be sure to exhibit while I was still at the Dennos, hence I invited her to show this summer. She has a major outdoor sculpture, Nexus, installed on our campus as well.

The Grand Traverse region abounds with many fine artists who focus on the landscape of our region. In my time here I have always been drawn to the work of David Grath. His palette and interpretation of that landscape was one that I found refreshing with images I could return to again and again and enjoy the result. David was another one of the artists whose work I wanted to show in a larger presentation at the Dennos. It turns out my invitation came on his 80th birthday!

The sculpture court walls of the Dennos have always been a place to showcase large scale works and they present an opportunity to look at the court itself as an installation space. It is also the visitors first look when they enter the Dennos, so what is shown there sets the stage for what is to come for that visitor. The court has also become a social space and we often end up hosting events that make it difficult to install from the floor up in the court because of that. Some of our recent exhibitions have been installed from the ceiling down to make the floor area accessible for such events.

Diana Carr creates dimensional work, but does so starting from the wall. We have a wonderful work by her in our collections. After exploring her website and seeing her past wall installations, I invited her to create an installation for the court walls.

The first caution I presented to each artist when inviting them to exhibit was to advise them that the planned opening date, which was for June of this year, could very well be pushed back due to construction issues. So they had to be flexible regarding the actual dates of installation and opening.

Thanks to challenges related to gallery flooring which I have written about in earlier columns, that flexibility was indeed put to the test. In the end we installed the Sally Rogers and David Grath exhibitions before the flooring in the galleries was complete. We finally had a formal reception for these exhibitions on Aug. 2 and the flooring in the galleries was only completed the Monday before.

These exhibitions will have shorter runs than usual. Rogers and Grath close Sept. 9 and Carr on Oct. 1. The remarks from those at the opening reception for each exhibition on its own was very positive. As a whole the three installations play off each other very well. I strongly encourage you to see them before they close. They are a testament to the talented artists Traverse City has produced and that have been attracted to this culturally vibrant region.

Gene Jenneman is the executive director of the Dennos Museum Center. He can be reached at ejenneman@nmc.edu.

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Museum Matters: Three great Dennos Museum exhibitions not to be missed - Traverse City Record Eagle