By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
When Dana Friis-Hansen interviewed for the position of director and chief executive officer at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, he already knew how special the white and glass facility at 101 Monroe Center NW was.
The building, constructed in the early 2000s, was the world’s first LEED Gold certified art museum, setting a standard that only a few have achieved such as the Boston Children’s Museum, San Diego Natural History Museum, and East Lansing’s Eli and Edith Broad Art Museum. Friis-Hansen also knew of the work of London-based Munkenbeck+Marshalls Architects which designed the building and of architect Kulapat Yantrasast of wHY Architecture who completed the project.
“It was the first purposed building for the art museum,” Friis-Hansen said during a recent phone interview. At the time, the Grand Rapids Art Museum was housed in what is now the Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University’s Fed Galleries on Pearl Street. The GRAM building was designed to serve many functions with the 125,000-square-foot building having three floors of gallery and exhibition space, an auditorium, education area, store, and lobby.
“In the lobby area, we could have a classical works program and it can also host a wedding,” Friis-Hansen said as an example of the facility’s multiple uses. “The auditorium provides space for various programs, community events, and activities.”
Simply put: the GRAM building when opened in 2008 had many taking notice of what Grand Rapids had to offer and its commitment to the arts.
It has been 10 years since the facility was open and this Saturday, Nov. 18, the art museum is hosting a party, “10 at 101: Celebrating GRAM’s Tenth Anniversary at 101 Monroe Center.” The free event will include a variety of activities:
10 a.m – 4 pm.: party hat making in the GRAM’s lobby
10 a.m. – noon: birthday cake in GRAM’s Auditorium
11 a.m. – 4 p.m.: screen printing in GRAM Studio
There also will be two Drop-in-Tours to explore the GRAMs newest exhibition with a museum docent at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The exhibit is “Andy Warhol’s American Icons,” which runs through Feb. 11 and also celebrates the museum 10th anniversary since a Warhol exhibit was the first exhibition in the building when it opened.
“When the idea was first brought up to have a Warhol exhibit, the response was people have already seen that,” Friis-Hansen said. “As we discussed it further, we felt as if there was a whole generation who had not seen the show and perhaps had never seen a real Warhol.”
The “American Icons” was organized by GRAM and is designed to be a celebration of America by bringing together a selection of Warhol paintings, prints, and photographs. Among those items is Warhol’s famous “Campbell’s Soup” silk-screen and two screen prints from a 1967 series of Marilyn Monroe.
Also at the GRAM is “Christian Marclay: Video Quartet” through Jan. 14. Marclay is an international artist who has spent the last 30 years exploring the fusion of fine art and audio cultures. In this exhibit, he has taken more than 700 individual film clips in which characters play instruments, sing, or make noise in one form or another.
One of the goals of the GRAM with its current facility has been to provide the community with a broad spectrum of art such as the visual art of Marclay, the pop art of Warhol, the fashion work of Iris van Herpen, the prints of Grand Rapids artist Reynold Weidenaar, the pottery of Newcomb, and the popular exhibition “Diana – A Celebration” featuring the Princess of Wales’ wedding dress.
Looking at the next 10 years, do not expect the GRAM to slow down. On the horizon is the contemporary painter Alexis Rockman exhibit “The Great Lakes Cycle” which takes a look at the past, present and future of North America’s Great Lakes and next fall, “Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present,” which will feature more than 200 images from the past 175 years of sports photography. Friis-Hansen said the GRAM also will have an exhibit called “What Happen Here?,” which will explore how the land the museum currently sits on has changed from a place where American Natives gathered to become the site of the world’s first green museum.
Note: While GRAM does not offer parking, there are many public parking lots located directly adjacent to the museum. Various city lots do offer the first hour of parking free, and the closet is the Monroe Center Parking Ramp, located on the corner of Louis Street and Ionia Avenue.
