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HOUSATONIC ART GALLERY REOPENS AFTER YEARLONG CLOSURE
An art museum is an oasis, says Robbin Zella, director and curator of the Housatonic Museum of Art. Museums offer a way to disconnect from this ever hectic world of polarizing political opinions and a constant stream of distraction via social media. Museums, Zella says “provide a muchneeded respite, where you can come and engage with a piece of art.”
So it was a huge blow last year when a flood from a sprinkler system forced the closure of the Housatonic Museum’s Burt Chernow Galleries, on the campus of Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport.
Zella says in August of last year, a monitor in a classroom above the gallery caught fire and, in an effort to extinguish the fire, sprinkler systems unleashed hundreds of gallons of water on the blaze, much of which leaked into the gallery, a 2,000 squarefootspace that offers changing exhibitions every six weeks.
Walls, floors, lights, wires and more were badly damaged though, luckily, the art on display was not. Still, it was, Zella says, nothing short of a catastrophe.
“We were basically underwater,” she says. “Things you see, and things you can’t see, all needed to be replaced.”
But, after more than a year of closed doors, the gallery had its grand reopening Sept. 5, at which time it also debuted “Close to Line,” an exhibit of paintings and sculptures by artists Mari Rantanen and Kirsten Reynolds. The works are example of geometric abstraction, in which — according to the exhibit’s program — “line, color and pattern combine to make compositions devoid of a clear connection to the real world.”
Though she didn’t curate the show (that would be the work of independent curator
Barbara O’Brien), Zella feels it’s a good choice for the first exhibit after the reopening. With their bright colors, spare design and lack of obvious political commentary, the pieces are a perfect fit with the gallery’s resurrection after the flood, Zella says.
“I think it’s really fun and very lively and colorful,” she says. “We’re living in such chaotic times and this is a nice counterbalance. There’s a lot of joy here.”
“Joy” could also describe how Zella feels about the facility reopening this month. She says, though its reopening has been in the works for a while, the better part of the work needed to get the gallery back on its feet took place within the last six weeks or so. There are still patches of ceiling in a closedoff workroom behind the gallery that are spotted with water damage.
Thankfully, the damage was covered by insurance, so the museum staff didn’t have to fundraise. But the absence of the gallery was keenly felt, not just by Zella and others affiliated with the it, but students as well.
“They have been coming up to me often an asking ‘When’s the gallery reopening?’ ” Zella says.
However, it’s not as though the Housatonic community was deprived of art during the closure. If there was a bright side to the flood, it’s that it kickstarted a plan, already in the works, to turn the whole college campus into an art museum.
Zella says the museum has a permanent collection of roughly 6,000 objects. A few weeks after the flood, she and others began grouping like items together and placing them around the campus buildings. In one hallway, there’s a collection of Latin America art. In a study area, there’s a section devoted to unconventional portraits. There are also sections for African art, ancient art, and pieces created on a certain theme (such as ships, or the use of lines in art).
Though not a substitute for a dedicated art space, Zella says, it does allow people walking through the building to be exposed to a wide variety of art and artists — the latter of which range from the obscure to such big names as Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso. Zella says many pieces will be cycled in and out, much like a “real” museum.
Still, she is happy to have the actual gallery back as well, and looks forward to leaving the past year without one behind. “That was just terrible,” Zella says.