by Roby Brock (roby@talkbusiness.net)
Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts executive director Dr. Victoria Ramirez is ready to wear a new hat. With renovation of the new museum in Little Rock’s MacArthur Park complete, Ramirez and her team are prepared to run an arts center instead of a construction site.
“Well, we were all ready to put our hard hats down. I will say that. We were ready to start to be museum professionals. For me, I feel like I’m back home. I’ve worked in museums my entire career, and I feel like we are finally focusing more intently on our mission-based work, which is serving the community and bringing exceptional visual and performing arts experiences to this community,” Ramirez said on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics. “We’re planning our programming and next exhibitions for the end of 2023. We’re looking at 2024. And as we keep saying to people, the best is yet to come because we’ve got a lot more to share in the future. So it feels good to be a museum employee again.”
The architecture of the new building is as much a piece of art as the collections it houses. Designed by world-renowned architect Jeanne Gang of Chicago-based Studio Gang, the 133,000 sq. ft. museum has a new north and south entrance, with the north entrance restoring an original art deco façade from the 1937 Museum of Fine Arts building that had been hidden for decades.
https://talkbusiness.net/2023/07/the-arkansas-museum-of-fine-arts-is-bringing-something-new/