Blog There's nothing stuffy about the Art Institute's Modern Wing

For all the amazing art on display, the first thing visitors will notice at the Art Institute Of Chicago’s new Modern Wing, which opened May 16th, is its size. The Art Institute has taken the notion of expansion seriously. An article in The Art Newspaper lays out exactly how seriously: The wing increases the museum’s size by 35 percent. At 1 million square feet, it’s now the second-largest art museum in the country, beat out only by the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York. The change is evident even in the pre-existing sections: Where the Art Institute sometimes seemed to be squeezing its collection of late 20th-century art and new works under one roof, the older galleries now have more breathing room. New acquisitions and works previously not on display have been placed alongside old favorites, giving the old galleries a new unpredictability.

Of course, that’s assuming that anyone will have time to revisit the old after taking in the new. Designed by Renzo Piano—the Italian architect responsible for The New York Times building, New York’s Whitney Museum, and other striking structures—the three-story Modern Wing is anchored by a spacious atrium bathed in natural light, carefully shaded by a giant canopy. It’s a neat reversal of the museum stereotype. There’s nothing stuffy or airless here, and the prominent, understated staircases give the impression of a constant upward movement.

Gerhard Richter, "Woman Descending the Staircase", 1965Dave Jordano

That’s not to say it doesn’t function just as well as a museum, however. The initial spaciousness gives way to a twisty set of rooms whose layout can be a bit confounding, and whose contents are a bit overwhelming. Put simply, there’s a lot here, too much really to take in with one visit. (The crowd during the first week, when admission was still free, didn’t help.) The most instantly notable additions come from the contemporary art world, much of which needs the extra space, like Robert Gober's wallpapered, object-filled rooms and Charles Ray's mammoth "Hinoki," a wood sculpture of a dead tree carved from a plastic cast of an actual dead tree. (It's like the sculptural equivalent of a mind-clearing Zen koan.)  Only the sound bleed from Bruce Nauman's aptly titled 1987 installation "Clown Torture" makes the new wing feel the least bit small.

The sum effect is a place that, in addition of being a work of art onto itself, brilliantly captures the continuum of art from cubism through today and beyond. Taking the elegant bridge from the new wing’s third floor to the beautiful Millennium Park, it’s hard not to feel that Chicago has a leg up on what it means to be a vibrant, growing, 21st century city.