2col Building…jpg

View from Kettner Boulevard of the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Building, left, and David C. Copley Building, right, at MCASD Downtown. —Philipp Scholz Rittermann photo

1col deSalvo

Roman de Salvo, “Utility Filigree,” electrical conduit, boxes and connectors, sited in the Kresge Foundation Stairway, Copley Building, MCASD Downtown. —Pablo Mason photo

2col Warhol Mao

Andy Warhol, “Mao Tse Tung,” 1972, silkscreen on paper. —Philipp Scholz Rittermann photo

MARCH

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SAN DIEGO EXPANSION COMPLETE w/3 cuts

avv/gs set 2-8 #687808

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. — The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego opened its new facility on January 21, at the Transit and Cultural Hub downtown.

The expansion features permanent commissions by artists Richard Serra and Jenny Holzer and opening exhibitions of work by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Ernesto Neto, Roman de Salvo and Richard Wright.

The project, designed by Richard Gluckman of Gluckman Mayner Architects, adds 30,000 more square feet of museum program space, new outdoor exhibition facilities, and an artist-in-residence studio, all located opposite its existing downtown galleries.

The new structure, a distinctly contemporary three-story building, named in honor of San Diego philanthropist and newspaper publisher David C. Copley, stands adjacent to a preserved and thoroughly transformed historic structure — the 1915 Santa Fe Depot baggage building, now named in honor of MCASD benefactors Joan and Irwin Jacobs.

The Copley Building features a newly commissioned installation, “For MCASD,” by artist Jenny Holzer, which employs thousands of LED lights enclosed in clear plastic tubes. Installed vertically on the Copley Building’s Kettner Boulevard façade, these lights display scrolling texts of more than 200 of Holzer’s signature “Truisms” and other texts in both English and Spanish.

These two buildings join MCASD’s existing facility at 1001 Kettner Boulevard, which opened in 1993. MCASD also maintains its original site in the 1915 Irving Gill-designed former residence of Ellen Browning Scripps, located on three acres of oceanfront property in nearby La Jolla.

Architect Richard Gluckman sought to maintain the open, loft-like spaces of the Santa Fe Depot’s former baggage building and sensitively carved out new glass entrances that permit open views and crafted a lobby space that preserves an industrial feel.

The first exhibition in the Jacobs Building’s Foster Gallery is “The Hour of Prayer” by Finnish video artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila. Based on an episode in the artist’s life, “The Hour of Prayer” tells a story about death and mourning in New York City and Benin, West Africa. Split into four parts and projected simultaneously in four screens, the installation immerses the viewer in the narrative. The exhibition is on view through May 27.

San Diego-based artist Roman de Salvo has created a permanent, site-specific installation, “Utility Filigree,” for the Copley Building. An artwork using the artist’s own “modular macramé” — composed of electrical conduit, boxes and connectors — is installed on all levels of The Kresge Foundation Stairway, inside the Copley Building, providing both light and fanciful ornamentation.

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto has created a monumental, untitled installation in the Farrell Gallery that features hanging polyp-shaped sculptures. Made of fragrant spices such as lavender, cloves and turmeric stuffed into skin-like Lycra fabric, these works are suspended throughout the gallery, engaging the visitors’ senses of sight and smell. The MCASD-commissioned installation is in place through May 27 and is part of MCASD’s permanent collection.

Scottish artist Richard Wright has created two site-specific works for the Jacobs Building, made during a two-month residency at MCASD in 2006. Neither piece is situated where a viewer might expect to find a wall drawing; instead Wright sited his work as a means of engaging the architecture of the space.

Working slowly and meticulously, he drew delicate lines of gold-leaf paint on a window between the Strauss and Farrell Galleries, for a work that will be permanent. Wright’s second work, situated on the 30-foot north wall of the Strauss Gallery, features a simple geometric form in a repeating pattern that ebbs and flows according to the artist’s direct physical response to the space. This installation is on view through September 23.

On view in the new Jacobs Building, as the inaugural exhibition in the Wortz Gallery, is “Modern American Masters.” This group of post-World War II American works by Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly, Clyfford Still, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol represents the pinnacle of American midcentury art practices, from Abstract Expressionism to Pop to early Minimalism. The exhibition, presented by UBS, a global financial services firm, will be on view May 20–July 7.

For information, 858-454-3541 or www.mcasd.org.