We’re able to track this metric through our dashboard, and although visitors can (and do) ask about anything and everything in the Museum’s permanent collections and special exhibitions, certain trends do emerge. One is that “size matters”—simply put, many people are drawn to the largest objects in our galleries. Here are a few works that consistently make our “top ten”!

This cartonnage, which is the inner-most case for a mummified body, was for the priest Nespanetjerenpere.

Cartonnage of Nespanetjerenpere: This beautifully preserved and highly detailed cartonnage has popular appeal because it’s a mummy container, and who doesn’t want to know more about ancient Egyptian mummies? It also benefits from its placement along the main axis of the Egyptian galleries aligned with the entrance.

The Stuart portrait of Washington has greater prominence in the redesign American art galleries than the previous installation.

Gilbert Stuart’s full-length portrait of George Washington, in our American art galleries, offers a familiar face in addition to its imposing size. Visitors are often curious to know whether this is the “real” or “original” portrait of Washington. (in fact, it’s one of about a hundred portraits by Stuart depicting the first President and several in this particular format!). The painting’s many symbolic and historical details make it an ideal subject for ASK chats.

A Little Taste of Outside Love by Mickalene Thomas attracts visitor attention by size and sparkle.

Mickalene Thomas might not be a household name like George Washington, but A Little Taste Outside of Love stops many visitors in their tracks due to its majestic size, bold patterning, and self-possessed model—not to mention the thousands of rhinestones that give sparkle to its surface. And, like Nespanetjerepere and Stuart’s portrait of Washington, it has a prominent placement that pulls visitors closer.

The Bierstadt landscape is a visitor favorite and a collection highlight. Photo by Britteny Najar.

Not every large and asked-about work is a figurative subject. Albert Bierstadt’s A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie is a landscape painting on a grand scale (84 feet square!), and its dramatic lighting effects and finely painted detail make it feel hyper-real. It still seems to have the same awe-inspiring effect on today’s visitors that it did on its original audience in 1866.

We could name a few other examples, especially large works or installations that have their own gallery spaces (from the Assyrian wall reliefs of the Northwest Palace at Nimrud to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party), but you get the idea!

Of course, having said all this, there are also other reasons that a particular work of art in the galleries may catch the eyes of ASK users. We’ll continue to explore this question in future posts.

In response to a few informal questions I asked about her works in our collection, her photographic process, inspiration, and mentors, LaToya provided literally pages of thoughtful, detailed, and illuminating answers on everything from how she got started as a photographer, to her artistic forebears, to her thoughts on community, representation, inequality, and exploitation. I was floored by the thoroughness and generosity of her response and immediately started thinking about how we could incorporate this unexpected and wonderful resource into the exhibition. Our conversation was turned into a booklet and installed in the gallery for viewers to read, and it now appears here as an online resource as well.

Hearing directly from an artist, in their own words, can be an invaluable addition to one’s own thoughts about a work of art, as was the case in my conversation with LaToya.  It provided me with an even fuller and more nuanced understanding of the work on view and of her practice in general, an understanding which I’m so happy to be able to share with you!

A collaborative project between the artist and her audience, Wish Tree is Ono’s open invitation to viewers to write their own wishes on small tags that the writer then hangs on the live tree – making a kind of living monument to all our dreams, big and small.  Ono has recounted that as a child in Japan she would write wishes on small pieces of paper which she then attached to the branches of flowering trees in the courtyard of a temple.

Yoko Ono's Wish Tree installed on our third floor.

Over the course of our exhibition, as the tree fills with wishes, the museum will occasionally collect the tags and at the end of the show, all the cards are returned to Ono, to be buried, unread, around her Imagine Peace Tower, a 2007 installation in Reykjavík, Iceland, dedicated to the memory of her late husband John Lennon.  More than a million people have shared their wishes with Yoko Ono, and we invite you to add your dreams.  As the artist has said, “All my works are a form of wishing.  Keep wishing while you participate.”

GO Featured Artist, Yeon Ji Yoo, installs her work in the exhibition.

You may have noticed that we’re opening GO on a Target First Saturday. Given the democratic nature of the project, we thought this would be a fitting way to get the show off to the right start.  For this month’s programming, our education team worked with GO’s Neighborhood Coordinators to pull together an evening full of events showcasing all the great things going on in Brooklyn—from Coney Island to Bushwick!  It’s going to be an exciting night with performances from Underground System Afrobeat, Maya Azucena, AVAN LAVA, L.O.U.D. (League of Unreal Dancing), and Parachute: The Coney Island Performance Festival.  Our GO Featured Artists—Adrian Coleman, Oliver Jeffers, Naomi Safran-Hon, Gabrielle Watson, and Yeon Ji Yoo—will be giving pop-up talks next to their works starting at 8pm (get in line early for free tickets, which will be distributed from the visitor center at 7pm). There’s more, too, so check out the full schedule.  Best of all, Target First Saturday is free!

During the evening, we’ll be hosting a special event for Members who’ve taken part in GO. You’ll find us saying hello to our awesome voters and making sure they get their GO swag.  Also, our friends from NYCHA will be joining us as our educators lead tours through the installation for housing residents.

Sharon and I have been fortunate enough to meet many of you throughout this process and to read and learn from your valuable feedback; we are very proud of what we’ve accomplished together and we hope that we’ll see you again on Saturday night to celebrate GO Brooklyn.

In the studio with Naomi Safran-Hon.

The nominations from the community offered a remarkably broad range of artists and practices. We were struck by the different art worlds represented by the nominated artists. Although painting prevailed, we saw work representing a range of media styles, and subjects. We also appreciated that the artists ranged from the self-taught to the academically trained, and that some are full-time artists while others create their art alongside other careers.

Our challenge was to take this array of options and to think about the show as an entity, including its cohesiveness and scale. We wanted to select a group of artists who would represent the range of those nominated, and the artistic spectrum of those working in Brooklyn. Ultimately we strove to present a strong cohesive exhibition that reflected the artistic choices that reflected the democratic process of GO.

As we deliberated and strategized, we recognized that difficult choices needed to be made. We decided to chose a group of artists that represented the breadth of practices we had seen in the studios and a selection of several works by each artist to convey a sense of depth. Given the size of the mezzanine gallery we had at our disposal, this meant that the group of 10 nominees had to be pared down to fewer finalists.

Curators taking a look at the work of Naomi Safran-Hon during the installation of GO in the Brooklyn Museum mezzanine gallery.

As with all exhibitions initially everything seems possible until the moment for difficult decisions arrives. We hope that everyone who has engaged in this project will come to see the final exhibition. As we install the show this week, we will begin to see the relationship between the individual works by each artist as well as the conversation between the different artistic voices in the gallery. The distinctive space of the mezzanine gallery presents unique opportunities for the installation and exhibition design, including the placement of informational texts and the inclusion of a community component to reflect the open studio weekend and the tremendous activity that led us to this installation.

Over the past year and a half, we discussed many ways to approach the exhibition, including whether or not the exhibition was necessary. In the process, we considered various models. For instance, we have already mentioned the inspiration provided by ArtPrize and our interest in modifying their framework to see work within the context of the studio and to require voters to nominate fewer artists. We also looked at the Walker Art Center’s 50/50: Audience and Experts Curate the Paper Collection, an exhibition that invited the public to vote on a selection of images on a kiosk at the museum and online, while their chief curator chose works by artists represented in depth in the museum collection. The resulting selections were hung in two sections, sparking “a range of questions about the dynamics between ‘audience’ and ‘expert,’ or between curatorial practice and so-called ‘mass taste.’” By contrast, the Hammer’s new Mohn Prize awardee was chosen by public vote from the museum’s Made in L.A. biennial exhibition. The experts, a jury of curators, winnowed the pool from the 60 exhibiting artists to 5 before inviting the public to vote. This model shifts the weight of decision making toward the experts. We also considered our own past projects, particularly Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition. While Click!, a great success, has served as a model for many subsequent projects elsewhere, it focused on using the internet as a tool and the photographs, though Brooklyn-themed, were judged online and in isolation.  During GO, we wanted to shift the focus more toward seeing a body of work in the studio with the artist present while creating an awareness of the art-making taking place in various communities throughout Brooklyn.

Installation of GO started on Monday in our Mezzanine gallery on the second floor of the Museum.

Since the main objective of GO was to connect the community with the vast number of artists working in their neighborhoods, the process included meeting and talking to artists face-to-face as well as scores of opportunities to encounter art in the flesh, so to speak. We invited the public into artists’ studios and asked it to nominate artists, creating the shortlist of artists for me and Eugenie Tsai to visit and select for the show, creating a collaboration between members of the community and the museum curators.

As always, practical issues arise. With exhibitions, the issue is always one of available space during the preferred period of time. We wanted the exhibition to follow the open studio weekend as quickly as possible and estimated that the entire process would take about three months, putting the opening in early December. We also felt strongly that unveiling the show on a First Saturday would be in keeping with the community-spirited character of the show. We felt now was the right time with Brooklyn experiencing such a great renaissance and with such widespread enthusiasm for the incredible creativity in the borough.

More to come this week!

The video, which you can watch above, shows Ai dancing with colleagues at his Beijing studio. He called the video “Grass-Mud Horse Style,” which refers to a fictional creature used to symbolize anti-censorship in China and has been an ongoing theme in his work. Since 2009, Ai has become known for his political activism and use of the internet and social media as a platform to address social and political issues. This activity resulted in his detention in 2011 for 81 days by Chinese authorities. Most recently, he was unable to attend the opening of his retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden because his passport is being held by authorities. Ai produced this video as a reminder that freedom of speech and creative expression should be allowed to all.

Like PSY’s version, Ai’s video quickly went viral, but was removed from Chinese websites. In response, artist Anish Kapoor invited hundreds of friends to his London studio to create their own video as a sign of support. He also asked individuals and institutions around the globe to participate. The resulting video was released late last week with clips from many museums including ours. Anish Kapoor explained in the press release: “Our film aims to make a serious point about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It is our hope that this gesture of support for Ai Weiwei and all prisoners of conscience will be wide-ranging and will help to emphasize how important these freedoms are to us all.”

The short clip in Kapoor’s video featuring the Brooklyn Museum is part of a full version we produced, which includes a cameo from our Director, Arnold Lehman, and our staff.

Ai Weiwei’s retrospective, Ai Weiwei: According to What?, is on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden until February 24, 2013, before it travels to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Miami Art Museum. We’ll be the final venue of the North American tour; the exhibition will open here in April 2014.

• Adrian Coleman, Fort Greene, painting
• Oliver Jeffers, Boerum Hill, painting, illustration, and drawing
• Naomi Safran-Hon, Prospect Heights, painting
• Gabrielle Watson, Crown Heights, painting
• Yeon Ji Yoo, Red Hook, mixed media sculpture

We will be discussing our choices, challenges with the show, and the installation process more in the next couple of weeks. For now, we have been focused on compiling the checklist and working with our designer, registrar, and editorial staff to plan the exhibition, gather the works, and prepare the written materials to accompany the show.

We hope you’ll continue to join us as we move towards the exhibition, which opens December 1 as a celebration of not only these artists, but all the artists and participants that made GO such a great success.

Roman. Double Cosmetic Tube, 4th-5th century C.E. Glass, 5 1/8 x 1 1/16 x 1 7/8 in. (13 x 2.7 x 4.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Robert B. Woodward, 01.123.

Looking through our ancient holdings, my attention was immediately caught by the blown glass vessels used to hold perfumes, ointments, or eye makeup (kohl). These so-called cosmetic tubes have been found mainly in tombs, giving rise to the highly romantic and almost certainly false belief that they were used to collect the tears of mourners. They are thus sometimes referred to as lachrymatories—an erroneous historical designation that nonetheless creates an imaginative link between them and Othoniel’s work called Lagrimas (Tears), a collection of jars filled with small glass shapes floating in water.

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His series of untitled blown-glass sculptures that hang from the gallery ceiling like overripe, seductive fruit also bear a distinct resemblance to these elongated and biomorphically-shaped  cosmetic tubes. I wonder too if Othoniel had these ancient vessels in mind when he designed the new limited-edition bottle for Dior’s perfume, J’Adore.  With its pendulous shape and spiraling trail of glass, this contemporary perfume bottle would not appear out of place among the toilette items of a wealthy 4^th century C.E. Roman woman!

Roman. Double Cosmetic Tube with Ribbon Handles, 4th-6th century C.E. Glass, 3 1/8 x 1 1/8 x 5 1/16 in. (8 x 2.9 x 12.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Robert B. Woodward, 01.370.

The glass ribbons looped along the sides or encircling many of these cosmetic tubes might have been functional as well as decorative. Oils were an important component of ancient perfumes and makeup and this raised ornamentation would facilitate a grasp on what could become a slick surface.

Roemer, 1680-1700. Colorless glass, height: 9 9/16 in. (24.3 cm);. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Wunsch Foundation, Inc., 2001.94.1.

A similar strategy is in play on this seventeenth-century roemer, a drinking glass common in Germany and the Netherlands (and frequently depicted in Dutch still-life paintings). Its base is punctuated by a series of textured glass beads called prunts that make a pleasing contrast to the smooth bowl. In an era when forks were not used regularly and cup handles weren’t common, prunts would help greasy hands maintain a grip on slippery glass. They remind me of permanent finger prints marking the spots where glass came in contact with flesh.

Nearly all of Othoniel’s works are informed by the aura or trace of a body: the oversized necklace as bodily surrogate, the implied occupant of an empty bed, glass shaped (or “wounded”) by a glassblower’s breath and touch. In this way, his poetic works resonate with centuries-old vessels and their intimate sensory connections to the long-vanished bodies that once held and used them.