Palmer Museum of Art Director Erin M. Coe On the Institution’s Recent Expansion

In June, the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State debuted a new building designed by Allied Works and landscape architect Reed Hilderbrand, who previously designed Denver’s Clyfford Still Museum. University museums usually offer a more intimate art appreciation experience than other institutions but the Palmer Museum of Art is defying that stereotype with its three-year, $85 million now-completed expansion. The museum, which reopened in June, is now housed in a 73,000-square-foot building—nearly double the previous footprint—with twenty galleries (fifteen permanent galleries plus five galleries devoted to special exhibitions) adjoining the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. There are also new educational and event spaces along with a museum store, café and outdoor sculpture path.

As part of the opening, the museum unveiled Dale Chihuly’s Lupine Blue Persian Wall, a 13-foot-long site-specific installation inspired by the university’s arboretum, as well as several new acquisitions by artists such as Fernando “Coco” Bedoya, Joseph Delaney, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rodrigo Lara, David MacDonald, Malcolm Mobutu Smith, Toshiko Takaezu, Akio Takamori, Kukuli Velarde, Patti Warashina, Purvis Young, Malcah Zeldis and Arnold Zimmerman. It also unveiled a new way of seeing the university’s collection of American, European, African and postwar modern and contemporary art. Nine “perforated stainless-steel lenses” give visitors an expansive view of the surrounding landscape while allowing natural light into the galleries—filtered, of course, to safeguard the works on view. That is, Palmer Museum of Art director Erin M. Coe tells Observer, part of what makes the institution special—the collection of American art, in particular, is displayed in “direct dialogue with views of the mountains and valleys they evoke.”

Christening the space is a large exhibition of works by artists with strong connections to Pennsylvania titled “MADE in PA” (on view through December 1). The show features paintings, sculptures and mixed-media pieces by Vanessa German, Franz Kline, Jeff Koons, Roberto Lugo, Edna Andrade, Howardena Pindell, Andy Warhol, Andrew Wyeth and Keith Haring, among others. The companion exhibition, “Made in PA on Paper” explores the university’s legacy as a land-grant institution with works celebrating the state’s natural resources and urban centers by artists including Mary Cassatt, Henry Varnum Poor, Dox Thrash and Morton Schamberg.

Observer recently had a chance to ask Coe a few questions about the Palmer’s expansion, what it means to incorporate nature into a museum’s design and the impact she hopes the new building will have on the museum and its community.

What can you tell me about the Palmer Museum’s collection? Will the new structure change how the collection is displayed?

There are three significant ways that the new building will change how the collection is displayed. Of the twenty spacious, distinct galleries, fifteen will be permanent galleries pulling primarily from the collection. This allows the Palmer Museum of Art’s curatorial and educational team to tell multiple stories concurrently in dedicated spaces and provides substantially increased opportunities to pull from the Museum’s expansive collection. The Teaching Gallery, a new feature for the Palmer, will enable Penn State faculty to integrate art within their curricula and create learning experiences for students in a range of disciplines across the university. Faculty may request to view any work from the collection that is not currently on display for a special learning session or class visit in the new Object Study Room. And finally, the new building has nearly doubled the gallery space, allowing a larger portion of our collection to be on view to all visitors alongside special exhibitions.

I read that the new building ‘pairs art and nature.’ What exactly does that mean and, on a practical level, how does the structure link what’s outside and inside?

The grasslands, gardens and woodlands of the Arboretum provided the inspiration for the museum’s design, and interlocking sandstone pavilions place the Museum within the flows of the greater landscape. The Palmer Museum of Art’s new building also brings the outside in, inviting visitors to experience art in a light-filled context. The Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Gateway is an overhead glass bridge joining the Palmer’s two main wings, which house public gathering spaces and exhibition galleries in the west and administrative offices, classrooms and educational spaces in the east. Outside, the bridge creates a new gateway to the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens and the Pollinator and Bird Garden beyond. Ultimately, it is my hope that visitors will not discern a separation between the architecture that contains these spaces and the outside landscape but rather conceive of both as one continuous experience.

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How does the expansion tie into or support the Palmer Museum of Art’s overall goals for the coming years?

The Museum is a key element of Penn State’s land-grant mission of teaching, research and public service and has long been a vital and accessible cultural resource for Penn State’s students, faculty and scholars. The new building promises to expand the scope and scale of these critical initiatives in the near and long term. Through world-class objects, programs and outreach, the Museum is a welcoming, inclusive and vibrant forum for authentic arts experiences and cultivates meaningful dialogue about today’s most potent ideas and pressing concerns.

Envisioned as a teaching museum for the 21st Century, the Palmer Museum of Art is a beacon for advancing the arts and humanities on Penn State’s University Park campus and throughout its diverse communities. The new museum building allows the Palmer to foster academic collaborations and strengthen student engagement through hands-on learning in a purpose-designed classroom space and in areas like the Teaching Gallery and the Object Study Room designed for innovative cross-disciplinary programs.

Were the new exhibitions that coincided with the opening specifically chosen to complement the unveiling of the new space?

The exhibitions were curated to showcase the beauty and complexity that is Pennsylvania, the artists that the Commonwealth has nurtured and inspired and the transdisciplinary work that makes Penn State a world-class institute of learning and research. “MADE in PA” highlights three generations of artists who are natives of Pennsylvania or built their careers in the Keystone State. The paintings, sculptures, mixed-media works and installations address an array of themes relevant to Pennsylvania’s long history of academic training and innovative artistic practice, the complicated legacies of its varied geographies and socio-political realities and the hybrid identities and cultural exchanges through time and space that characterize the work of Pennsylvania artists today. The thematic sections include Rooted in Realism, Pennsylvania Modern, The Land and its Legacies, Pop and Politics and PA Now.

Do you anticipate that the expansion will increase engagement with the surrounding community? Or draw people from further away?

The expanded footprint of the new museum will let us plan more ambitious and relevant exhibitions, programs and events that foster frequent, deep engagement with our community—on campus, in our borough and throughout the region and beyond. By locating the new Palmer Museum building at the Arboretum, Penn State is creating a unique, world-class cultural destination that will increase visitation to Central Pennsylvania.

What’s one thing you wish more people knew about the museum?

Visiting the new Palmer Museum of Art provides a remarkable opportunity to meander through spaces filled with works of art as though one were strolling through the neighboring gardens—to experience art, architecture and nature as something both intimate and immense.