WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.- The Norton Museum of Art today announced the special exhibitions and site-specific commissions that will inaugurate this expanded and transformed institution when it re-opens to the public on February 9, 2019. With a design by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Lord Norman Foster, Principal of Foster + Partners, The New Norton will have 37 percent more exhibition space, enabling it to expand its schedule of special exhibitions, display more of the Museum’s collection and, for the first time, dedicate galleries to its outstanding photography collection. Education space will increase by 50 percent; new public gardens—the first to be designed by Norman Foster—will feature 11 modern and contemporary sculptures; and a distinctive new entrance will be anchored by Claes Oldenburg’s monumental Pop sculpture Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1998-1999).

The Museum also announced a transformative promised gift made by Palm Beach residents Howard and Judie Ganek of their collection in celebration of The New Norton. Comprising more than 100 modern and contemporary artworks, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, and photography representing primarily European and American artists, the collection will enhance the representation of art from this era with significant examples by major figures previously not represented in the Norton’s holdings. Among the artworks the Ganeks have committed are: paintings by Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke, Ed Ruscha, and Kara Walker; sculpture by Theaster Gates, Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Mario Merz, Juan Muñoz, and Kiki Smith; and photo-based work by Matthew Barney, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Pipilotti Rist, Bill Viola, and William Wegman, among many others. A selection of these works will be on view as part of the museum’s grand re-opening.

“Over the years, the Norton has benefitted from the generosity of many collectors who have given the Museum outstanding gifts of art. This commitment from the Ganeks is among the most important in the history of the Museum, transforming our collection. Like our founder Ralph Norton, who also gifted his collection to the Museum, the Ganeks recognize the impact of such giving for this institution and for future generations of visitors,” said Hope Alswang, Executive Director and CEO. She continued, “We are grateful to the Ganeks and delighted to begin sharing a number of these works with the public as part of the Norton's inaugural exhibition season in February 2019.”

“We are impressed by the leadership and direction of the Norton, and are very excited about the expansion by Foster + Partners, which will make the Museum an even more essential component of the cultural landscape,” stated Howard Ganek. “Our love of the Palm Beach community and belief that our collection will have a major impact on this Museum and its audience were paramount in our decision to direct our gift. We took such joy in building the collection and delight in knowing that at its new home at the Norton it will be seen and enjoyed by all. We also believe that our gift can inspire others who can make a difference by sharing their art.”

Leading the group of inaugural exhibitions will be the latest installment in the critically acclaimed RAW (Recognition of Art by Women) series, which discovers and promotes the work of contemporary women artists. Thanks to the generosity of the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund / ML Dauray Arts Initiative, which initially funded RAW for six years, the series will continue. The next RAW artist will be Nina Chanel Abney (American, born 1982), whose recent work explores issues of discrimination as seen through multiple lenses, including race and gender. The $1 million gift has also established the three-year Sophie Davis Curatorial Fellowship for Gender and Racial Parity, which has been awarded to Ladi’Sasha Jones, who began this February.

In addition to the special exhibitions, the inauguration of The New Norton will feature site-specific installations commissioned for the grand opening. New York City-based artist Rob Wynne (American, born 1950), who works with text and hand-poured glass, will construct a work around the three-story Muriel and Ralph Saltzman Stairway that leads visitors between collection galleries in the new Foster-designed West Wing. This commission will incorporate and expand upon Wynne’s earlier piece, I Remember Ceramic Castles, Mermaids & Japanese Bridges (2012), which the Norton commissioned for installation in the original Ruth and Carl Shapiro Great Hall. The new work, inspired by the sun and surf that define the Museum’s West Palm Beach location, also recalls the fishbowl ornaments that are referenced in the title of the original piece. A compilation of short films by photography and video artist Gregory Scott that provide a tongue-in-cheek view of art, artists, and museums will be screening in the new Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Restaurant. The artist selected to create an installation for the new double-height Ruth and Carl Shapiro Great Hall will be announced at a later date.

Thematic installations of sculptures by major artists will be incorporated into another key feature of The New Norton: the public garden designed by Norman Foster. The sub-tropical garden and green space will echo the spatial concept of the Museum’s original 1941 master plan. Mimicking the series of Art Deco-inspired pavilions encircling the Museum’s central courtyard, the Foster-designed garden will feature a sequence of “garden rooms” along the southern edge of the Museum Campus, ringing the Pamela and Robert B. Goergen Garden. Each room will be defined by native trees and plantings and will feature sculptures by artists including Keith Haring, George Rickey, and Mark di Suvero, whose work will enter the Norton’s permanent collection for the first time.

INAUGURAL EXHIBITIONS AT THE NEW NORTON

RAW: Nina Chanel Abney
February 9 – June 25, 2019
Nina Chanel Abney (American, b. 1982) paints in a bold graphic style with a brilliantly colored palette, creating powerful narratives and emblematic scenes on canvas, buildings, museum walls, and, even, basketball courts. Abney addresses the injustices of our time in compositions densely populated with abstracted, symbolic figures and shapes seducing the viewer while gradually revealing some of the most serious subjects of our time—racial inequality, gender discrimination, and gun violence, among other topical themes. In Abney’s hands, the modernist visual language of Stuart Davis and Henri Matisse is integrated with the symbolism of contemporary technology. Relevant and timeless, her paintings are revelatory and provocative avoiding judgment while demanding attention. The exhibition, curated by Cheryl Brutvan, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Contemporary Art, will emphasize recent work and be accompanied by a publication.

Out of the Box: Camera-less Photography
February 9 – June 16, 2019
From the earliest days of photography, artists have experimented with ways to record images without the use of a conventional camera apparatus. One of the acknowledged founders of the medium, the British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot, was among the first to make camera-less pictures this way, as seen in his “photogenic drawings” such as Lace (made before 1845). Out of the Box will present 40 works in this tradition drawn from the Norton’s permanent collection of photography, most of which have never been shown publicly. Starting with Talbot, then moving on to the surrealist “rayograms” of Man Ray and continuing with works by photographers including Robert Heinecken, Ellen Carey, Walead Beshty, and Adam Fuss, the exhibition will illustrate the myriad ways in which the materials and techniques of photography can create meaning without a camera. The exhibition is curated by Tim B. Wride, William and Sarah Ross Soter Curator of Photography.

Going Public: Florida Collectors Celebrate the Norton
February 9 – June 4, 2019
Going Public will present 50 to 60 rarely seen works from prestigious private South Florida collections. These exceptional loans will be integrated into the Museum’s American, Chinese, contemporary, European, and photography galleries. Artists to be represented in this exhibition will include Mary Cassatt, Nick Cave, Bruce Conner, Rockwell Kent, Anselm Kiefer, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jenny Saville, among many others.

Modern Spontaneity: Ralph Norton’s Watercolors
February 9 – May 7, 2019
The Norton Museum of Art’s founder, Ralph Norton, loved the medium of watercolor and acquired major examples by both modern American and European artists. A selection of these will be the subject of the exhibition Modern Spontaneity¸ featuring 17 watercolors from late 19th-century masters such as Winslow Homer through modernists such as Charles Burchfield, Charles Demuth, and Fernand Léger. This exhibition will reveal how watercolor both appeals to artists because of its apparent spontaneity and can simultaneously frustrate them with its unforgiving nature. The exhibition is curated by Ellen Roberts, Harold and Anne Berkley Smith Curator of American Art.

Good Fortune to All: A Chinese Lantern Festival in 16th-Century Nanjing
February 9, 2019 – January 28, 2020
Good Fortune to All will present an exceptionally rare group of six paintings from the late 16th century, which together depict a continuous scene of a Lantern Festival in Nanjing, the capital city of the Hongwu Emperor (reigned 1368-1398) who founded the Ming dynasty. The Lantern Festival concludes the fortnight of New Year celebrations in China, with the intent of bringing good fortune to all, and is still celebrated today. Countless figures in the paintings, including immortals, soldiers, children, acrobats, musicians, civil servants, and court officials, are shown engaged in various aspects of the festivities, with the center of the composition occupied by the Aoshan lantern mountain, a huge artificial landscape illuminated with hundreds of colorful lanterns. These works, recently acquired and extensively conserved through the generosity of John and Heidi Niblack, will be on view for the first time. The exhibition is curated by Laurie Barnes, Elizabeth B. McGraw Curator of Chinese Art.

Spotlight: Ralston Crawford Across Media
February 9 – May 14, 2019
In this focus exhibition, the Museum will highlight a generous loan of a Ralston Crawford oil painting alongside a watercolor and three photographs by the modernist artist from the Collection, three of which are new acquisitions. Seen together, these five works illuminate the close relationship between Crawford’s Precisionist paintings and his photographs. In all these works, he used unusual viewpoints to explore the non-objectivity inherent in industrial subjects. The exhibition is curated by Ellen Roberts, Harold and Anne Berkley Smith Curator of American Art.