KALAMAZOO, MI.-The Kalamazoo Art League welcomes the next guest speaker for its 2007-08 lecture series as Detroit Institute of Arts Director Graham Beal presents “What’s the Big Idea? Rethinking the Permanent Collection.” The event will take place Wednesday, April 9, at 9:30 a.m. at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.

Last fall, the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) reopened after a six-and-a-half year, $158 million building renovation and expansion, a project that added nearly 58,000 additional square feet, including the new 31,000 square-foot South Wing addition.

More than 5,000 objects from a collection that ranks among the nation’s finest have been reinstalled in new and refurbished galleries.

Instead of grouping objects by time period or style, many galleries are arranged according to the stories the objects have to tell. The DIA’s newly reinstalled galleries integrate technology that responds to the needs and expectations of the 21st-century visitor, while enhancing their interaction with the art. Visitors can have a “virtual” dining experience in 18th-century Europe, dance with a life-size video of an African ceremony, or use handheld computers to take a multimedia tour of great works of art.


The result is a more visitor-focused museum designed to enhance each visitor’s overall experience – from the novice museumgoer to the connoisseur.

The Detroit Institute of Arts was founded in 1885 and is recognized as one of the country’s premier art museums. The museum’s approximately 60,000 works of art comprise a multicultural survey of human creativity from prehistory through the 21st century, including the first van Gogh to enter a U.S. museum (Self-Portrait, 1887), to Diego Rivera’s world-renowned Detroit Industry murals.

Graham W.J. Beal has been the director, president and CEO of the Detroit Institute of Arts since 1999. Since then, Beal has overseen two major capital campaigns, guided the reinstallation of the museum’s world-renowned collection, and overseen the museum’s renovation and expansion. Previously, Beal served as director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, chief curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and director of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.

He is a native of Great Britain, born in Stratford-on-Avon, and has degrees in English and Art History from the University of Manchester and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Kalamazoo Art League lectures are open to the public and held in the KIA Auditorium. They are free to Art League members and $10 for non-members. Each event features a food buffet. To register for this event or to find out more, please call the KIA at (269) 349-7775.