Five Hours, Five Museums: My afternoon in Houston [or, katy waxes nostalgic about the Menil collection] (Katy Blanchard)

My recent trip to Louisiana gave me a free day to get over to Houston to see LUCY at the Museum of Natural Science. I figured since it was a long drive there, I'd make the most of my afternoon and see as much as I could.

My morning started at the Health Museum (seen at left) which will soon house our own Surviving Exhibit. It has been expanding only over the last year and a half. They have almost doubled their exhibit space as well as grew their incoming program to include a broader science audience, fulfilling both their mission and the void in the city. They also have live theater demonstrations several times a day where they perform science experiences and dissections for the very large volume of student visitors. They recognize that this is their main audience and therefore book more scientific shows into the school year, and the broader [read Star Wars] shows for summers. I must say I was incredibly impressed with their ability to grow. It allows a girl to dream.

I followed this museum with a visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see the Lucy Show. Of course you couldn't take photos of the show, so instead you get their parking garage banner: with the kinda odd dropped-jaw aesthetic.

You had to wind through the museum through the throngs of school children [there are dinosaurs there, too, so i can't blame them] while listening to the overhead speaker system declare which school group should report to the auditorium when. Thank goodness we don't do that. It was incredibly distracting.

I was told that I would be disappointed, but that didn't mean I didn't enter the exhibit with eager eyes. I lucked out that no school groups were inside, so I was practically alone throughout the entire show. However, there was so much sound, I wish there were bodies to absorb it all.

As an optimist, let me give you the good first: The cases are mainly pulled out from the wall, with text on both sides. I have found I enjoy this more and more in exhibits [see my later review of the MFAH Pompeii show]. When cases were against the wall, they were more of a case IN the wall, much like our exhibits department has done with the Penn In The World show, allowing you to see the pieces from both sides. Also, the show gives a broader view of Ethiopia than just Lucy.

But to me, this was the uber-problem. It was a tourist show. There is nothing wrong with wanting to bring people to visit Ethiopia. But Lucy was not in context. You enter the gallery and the first and only thing you see is a cast of her skull and a large detailed wall mural of a time line. [Anyone who has spoken to me about Surviving knows I think ours is the best, go see that if nothing else] The only other objects remotely in her time period [and by that, I mean from BCE] are a few very large stone tools.

You are then dumped into a video about why Ethiopia is so great. This video is so loud you can almost hear it the moment you walk in, so I will admit I was pulled towards it. But not for long. Not that I think Ethiopia isn't great, but I'm not looking for a vacation destination. I'm looking to find out about Lucy. The next galleries are all about religious art of the 19th and 20th centuries, the beginning of the Rastafarian religion, for example. Throughout these two rooms there is an atonal wind instrument and I don't care if you call me a colonialist, it was headache inducing. I couldn't concentrate on another wooden cross and I made my way to the next room where "Lucy in the Sky" could be heard in a hallway before you think you should hear it. A hallway full of text panels about the history of australopithecines. But again, the music was so loud and the text so long, I couldn't read everything. I then wandered into the next room because I hear a video playing. Here, not a single person was identified. Not even Donald Johanson. Now, maybe I don't give the 12 year olds credit. Maybe he's more recognizable in Houston than Michael Jordan. But I only recognized one of their curators, Dirk Van Tuerenhout because he worked with us on Vanishing Worlds. I can assume the man hosting the video was their director. But seriously? No one was identified? I got more information on the annual rainfall of Ethiopia (varies in region from 4 to 80 in) than I did about the actual discovery.

You are indeed then led into a room with her actual skeleton laid out, like our Big Lady, recumbent. In a darkened room, on black velvet? The case was only about a meter high, but I know, kids. I must admit, it was pretty awe-some to see the actual skeleton. It made me even sorrier that I had missed Johanson's lecture.

When I left a man that I spotted in official polo shirt inside the exhibit asked me if I had any questions. I am not sure if everyone gets asked this on their way out, or if it was a slow day, or if it was because I was taking notes, but it was indeed a personal touch. I should have said, "yes. who was in that video?" But I just thanked him for his time.

To further prove this was co-organized by the Ethiopian Department of Tourism, the gift shop included tourist guides to the country. In the same shop were tie-ins to their Da Vinci shows. But no Eye-Witness guides to Florence.

Better than the HMNS? The rose garden that is part of the museum district. In the Texas heat, I was glad to have a shady, beautiful place to walk through. I thought it was a nice touch for the museum district.

Next? Onto the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. No photo. Sorry. I went to see their temporary exhibit on Pompeii: Tales of an Eruption. I forgot, but I had seen this show in Chicago as well. And I have started to appreciate seeing the same show in different locations. At the Field Museum, it was the same space they had King Tut, and I had many more good things to say about Pompeii than Tut, because of the way they had it laid it out. In Houston? It took up a floor. There were life-size murals of the ruins [of the "waterfront" of Herculaneum, but it was idenfied as such, so not so strange.] The show was spread out so much, that had I been there with more than 20 people, I would have been glad for the space. The show is mainly jewelry and people crowd around cases to look. In Chicago, the casts of the residents of Herculaneum were grouped together, and here, they were spread out so singularly in each room, that I walked around them much as I did the statues--for good and for bad, they were singular objects.

What I really enjoyed was the fact that nothing was in front of the wall paintings, and for the first time I saw all the graffitos on the murals from the House of the Crpytoporticus. And they were worth the price of admission right there. You can't even get that close in Pompeii.

One other thing that I will say for the MFAH is that they have instated the Target Free First Sundays. Thats right, Target is paying for the museum to be open on the first Sunday of the month. Why can't we do this? Our admission is a heck of a lot less, and their building takes up 4 city blocks on two sides of a major street. It must be cheaper for our Target to do this here.... I say we make a move before Target sponsors the Mutter...

I made one last stop in Houston. At the Menil Collection.

I am warning everyone right now that I love Renzo Piano's use of local materials and ability to direct natural light into museum collections. If I had my way? He'd do our Masterplan. But so I can't go to Houston and not go to the museums. First of all, its a free collection. Their main building [seen here] contains collections from Hissar to Pollock. But I enjoy the most is that they have several auxillary buildings of just one person's collection.

They have the Rothko Chapel, where you can actually see his work in context, and not amongst screaming children and cell phones ringing, and heeled shoes pounding.

But the one I must see while there? The Cy Twombly gallery. You can see the lighting system raised above the natural height of the roof.

I could go on and on about my favorite series in their, the monochromatic "untitled" series from 1988 dedicated to Rilke, but this is not an art history article. Its talking about things we like at other museums.

And me? I like the light. I like that several Houston museums are free [like the Menil collections], that some are free on certain days [Target Free First Sundays at the MFAH], that some are growing, [the Health Museum]. But then again, I also like that our shows are going to many of these institutions and our research can be accessed by everyone there that can take advantage of those things that we can't seem to get to: a growing audience.