There was something new at the Guggenheim Museum when I visited the other evening — and it wasn’t just the Kandinsky exhibition. Which is, btw, quite fine. Beautifully installed. If you go, don’t miss the works on paper in the side gallery. My two morning newspapers — The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times — gave it good reviews (here and here, respectively) on Friday. Not much more for me to say, really.
Except. I noticed one definite improvement at the Guggenheim as I walked up the spiral: there were small, round, elegant seats along the way, usually in groups of three. They fit right in, nestled against the walls separating the gallery bays. One or two hugged the winding rotunda wall, but I couldn’t tell if someone had moved them there or if that was intentional.
Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong was down in the rotunda when I finished seeing the show, so I asked him about the seats. Indeed they are new, styled to go with this exhibition. Armstrong believes, as I do, that people will get much more out of art if they stop and look deeply at the paintings along the way — seating facilitates that. Maybe people will linger more now.
The museum, he told me, already owns furniture designed for Frank Lloyd Wright’s building, but it hasn’t been used. (At least recently.) After the Kandinsky comes down…
If you’re wondering why I bring this up at all, it’s because little amenities matter to visitors. More than one director, in the past, has told me that when they ask people what changes they’d like to see, the first thing on their list is often “more parking.” And then, more seats.
Photo: Composition VIII, 1923, Courtesy the Guggenheim Museum