Large museum exhibitions may never be the same now that Intel and the Whitney museum are collaborating on a real-world and online show.
New York's Whitney Museum of American Art will officially launch the first installment of its ambitious and highly anticipated blockbuster survey, The American Century: Art & Culture 1900-2000, on Friday.
On the same day, Intel Corporation, the exhibition's most generous corporate sponsor, will open an online counterpart to the show at the chipmaker's new online gallery, Artmuseum.net.
"There will always be a group of people who will never go to see a physical show for economic or geographic reasons, and then there's a second group who wishes they could plan what they're going to see at a museum before they arrive," said Dana E. Houghton, director of corporate affairs at Intel, about the audiences targeted by Artmuseum.net.
"Artmuseum.net extends and complements the experience of going to see a blockbuster show, while at the same time it's a totally different experience."
Visitors to Intel's online version of The American Century can look at 200 of the 1,200 objects on view in the two-part physical exhibition, which includes such iconic works as Grant Wood's "American Gothic" and Georgia O'Keeffe's "Summer Days." They can zoom in to examine details such as brush strokes, and read about how featured artists created their works.
They can also design personalized virtual tours or use a paint program to create their own art.
"Going to a museum is such a fleeting experience," said Whitney director Maxwell L. Anderson. "A parallel -- but not substitute -- online exhibition will provide good context on the original works of art, both before and after one witnesses the physical show." While Artmuseum.net has been live for about a month and a half, the American Century site will be Artmuseum.net's first concurrent, online "extension" of a museum show. Until 22 April, Artmuseum.net features a virtual walk-through of Van Gogh's Van Goghs: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, which toured the United States last year.
Compared to what Artmuseum.net will do with The American Century, the Van Gogh offering was superficial, said Ciaran Doyle, director of Intel productions.
Whitney curators will craft descriptions of individual artworks for online exhibit and post biographies of all the artists featured. The site will also offer exclusive online audio tours unavailable at the Whitney itself. One such tour is conducted by Anderson, speaking as though he were guiding an art-world VIP through the real museum galleries.
Though some museum-goers might be confused by The American Century residing for the next three years at Artmuseum.net rather than the Whitney's official Web site, this is part of the deal with Intel.
Anderson said, "With Intel producing and hosting the site, we can better appreciate how the Web can be used. We wouldn't have had the resources to build a site like Artmuseum.net without Intel."
Intel's US$6 million grant to The American Century marks the largest corporate contribution in history to an art museum exhibition. Houghton said that Intel chose to sponsor the physical version and develop a virtual manifestation of The American Century for two reasons.
"We were attracted to the show's content. Two of the themes are immigration and technology, which are both issues and forces that are part of Intel's culture and life," Houghton said.
"Plus, we've been looking to bring rich content to users and help them utilize the Internet in new ways."
Although the first two Artmuseum.net ventures have, perhaps ironically, showcased more conventional, nondigital art, curators are also planning a gallery for Net-based compositions.
"We focus on blockbuster, mainstream shows because we know we will have a large audience that we can reach right away," Intel's Doyle said.
Roger F. Malina, executive editor of Leonardo, the journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, thinks Intel's ends justify its means.
"The threshold is easier to cross between audience and artist with an online version of an exhibit," said Malina. "Plus, if the corporate world sees this as a new opportunity for them, then presumably they might create new opportunities for artists."
