Photo Roundup

This just in–our photos!

See more after the jump…

A penny for your thoughts

Okay, so we’re not actually paying, but we would love to hear more about what you thought of our first After Hours event last night. Personally, we were thrilled. More than 600 people came to our premiere to take in the art & ambiance, catch up with friends old and new, and enjoy live music and drinks around the courtyard, and we hear you had a great time.

Our friends over at Yelp are already buzzing about the evening, and a little bird tells us that Going will soon be posting pictures from the night. Keep an eye out for the next Improper, and if you’re lucky, your mug may just show up there, too. We’ll have our own Flickr album up on Monday, but in the meantime: what did you think? Add a comment below and let us know.

A couple words from people who attended:

“I think it’s great that one of the best museums in Boston is appealing to a wider audience & offering something to appeal to all 5 senses.”

The best aspect: “Feeling like I was at a private party at this beautiful museum!”

“Wonderful chance to mingle and enjoy the museum in an intimate atmosphere.”

“Relaxed and social vibe, good people watching and the most beautiful venue in the city.”

Preview of coming attractions

A taste of tonight’s tour of the galleries, in search of Asian objects:

Asian objects make up the third largest category of artworks at the Gardner Museum, after Italian and American art. Isabella Gardner’s interest in Asia began in 1883–84, when she and her husband Jack visited Japan, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, and India. She bought only a few things on this trip, but filled scrapbooks with photographs, notes, flowers, and assorted souvenirs.

Then, around 1901–3, Isabella bought Japanese screens and Chinese scrolls, along with carved and painted wooden panels. Most of these came from dealers’ shops here in Boston. A decade later, she sought a few select masterpieces of Asian art.

Isabella left nothing about why she collected what she did, but you can see from this chronology that an interest in Asia and Asian art ran throughout her life…

Sonic calligraphy

I often think of shakuhachi music as sonic calligraphy. Starting from a particular form, the piece of music, you create audible “brush strokes.” As in Japanese calligraphy, the artifacts are part of the art: the roughness of the breath, the unpolished sonorities of the bamboo, the rhythms that flow from the individual performer’s ever-changing physical and emotional state. In calligraphy, the final visual product may be almost unreadable as kanji, even as it expresses the deepest meaning of the characters. It is the same in shakuhachi music: no two performances are the same, and the expression is completely of the moment.

Why After Hours?

Well this is the first blog entry for Gardner After Hours - more to come from some of the cool artists, performers, and staff here at the museum who will be working with us on these nights.

So I guess the first question to be asked and answered is: why are we doing this? To me, the answer is pretty obvious: for you. It’s a new century, and in order to keep being accessible to visitors we have to be open at a time when they can actually visit! Don’t get me wrong; I love all the quirky, surprising and beautiful things about the Gardner, but the first thing I thought when I started working here over four years ago is WE NEED TO BE OPEN AT NIGHT! So after years of rallying the cause, it is finally going to happen and I couldn’t be happier!