In a recent online column, Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith said downtown’s new Nasher Sculpture Center “will make Dallas a can’t-miss arts destination.”
Neighborhood resident Jed Morse agrees. As assistant curator to the Dallas Arts District’s newest addition, he should know. Morse, who lives in the M Streets, is seeing the culmination of a “too good to pass up” opportunity come to fruition when the center opens to the public Oct. 20.
It’s “incredibly different” when compared with projects he has worked on previously, he says.
“First of all, I’ve never had the opportunity to help open a brand new institution like this before. Working with architects and the construction company, putting into place the initial concept and getting installation ready in a new space — they were all new and exciting challenges.”
To date, much of Morse’s responsibility has been to figure out which sculptures looked best where.
“I help think about the conceptual underpinnings of why one work is placed next to another,” he says. This part of the job has presented some interesting challenges, given the diversity of the collection’s pieces. The smallest works are two figurines — carved in wood and cast in bronze — by Alberto Giacometti. Each measures about an inch tall.
The largest is a work by Richard Serra called “My Curves are Not Mad.”
“It’s made up of two steel plates that are 14 feet tall, 44 feet long and two inches wide,” Morse says. “They each weigh about 50,000 pounds. It’s massive but incredible. They stand one right behind the other, and people are meant to walk in between the plates and see how they take up the space and engage the environment around them. It’s not like looking at a painting; it’s a much more physical experience.”
An experience that visitors are not likely to find anywhere else in the country.
“Nasher is a one-of-a-kind institution — an indoor/outdoor museum that’s dedicated solely to the display and study of sculpture,” Morse says. “For it to be an integral part of our urban setting is incredibly unique.”
And we have one man to thank, he adds.
“It’s just an unbelievable act of generosity on Raymond Nasher’s part,” Morse says, “… to build a sculpture center all on his own, without any cost to taxpayers. It was a realization of a longtime dream of his and his late wife Patsy’s to make their collection as accessible as possible to the public, to give it as wonderful a home as possible.”
All total, the project’s costs hover around $70 million, all paid by Nasher and his foundation.
“It really is his gift to the people of Dallas,” Morse says. “You just don’t see such acts of generosity very much.”
