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Sound Wave Artist: Beth Galston
Music City Center, Nashville
Installed: 2013
CREATIVE SHOWCASE At Music City Center in downtown Nashville, creating an art collection that would bring local residents together was an explicit goal of Mayor Karl Dean, according to Rich Boyd, who serves as the center’s art consultant. Dean “wanted the facility to be more than a place for conventions,” Boyd said, “but to serve as Nashville’s front porch.” Music City Center opened this past
May with a collection of 103 works of art, eight of which are large-scale, site-specific pieces commissioned for the architecturally innovative cen- ter — which you might argue is a work of art in itself. Much of the artwork, like the guitar-shaped outline on the building’s roof, draws on Nashville’s musical heritage. But the center’s col- lection also is imbued with contempo- rary energy and local flavor — 43 of the artists are regional. “What we wanted to do was, not just
fill space with decoration, but showcase the creative vitality that resides within the middle Tennessee region,” Boyd said. “The visual arts are exploding in
44 PCMA CONVENE OCTOBER 2013
Nashville. We are identified with music
— and we take that identification proudly — [but] the visual arts and the number of galleries opening is just astounding.” In Boston, where the Massachusetts
Convention Center Authority (MCCA) has operated a community art program since the mid-1990s, the opening of the Boston Convention and Exhibi- tion Center (BCEC), with more than a half-million square feet of space, in 2004 was a turning point, said Susan Merritt, a consultant who runs MCCA’s art program. “The sheer expanse [of space] was so much greater than at [Boston’s Hynes Convention Center],” said Merritt, a former art museum curator. MCCA Executive Director James Rooney “used the opportunity to expand the art program tenfold,” Mer- ritt said, “in terms of art and quality.” When Rooney first contacted Mer-
ritt, she had anticipated that MCCA was interested in purchasing art for a collection at the BCEC. Instead, Rooney had a different vision — of art continu- ally moving through the BCEC and the Hynes, keeping the visitor experience
fresh. In addition to exhibiting some permanent pieces, MCCA secures one-to-three-year loans for large-scale works, including sculpture, from galler- ies or directly from artists. Additional artwork at the centers comes from Boston-area artists — the MCCA works with the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism & Special Events to install exhibits last- ing for about three to four months each, showcasing local work from profes- sional and student artists. The exhibits represent “a melting pot of mediums,” Merritt said.
The art offers visible proof that Bos-
ton is not “an old, tired, provincial city, or even just a center for technology and education,” Merritt said, “ but a hotbed of artistic activity.” The “art reflects community,” Rooney said. “By support- ing the local arts community, we feel we support the vibrancy and uniqueness of Boston and its diverse neighborhoods.” The MCCA’s art program “also brings
the community into our facilities, show- ing them the work and the benefit of what we do,” Rooney said. “Without it, we’d just be another convention center.”
THIS PAGE, PHOTO BY DEAN DIXON PHOTOGRAPHY; OPPOSITE, AARON T STEPHAN