Modern Art Oxford reopens its doors to the public this Saturday, after completing a £2 million pound renovation to make the building’s facilities more welcoming and accessible to the local community. We had the opportunity to view the new space at MAO’s press event, including a guided tour with resident artist Emma Hart and architect David Kohn, to explore how the museum has been transformed.
The new space has a wider, more open feel, with a warm colour palette of oranges and browns to help create a more homely and less industrial atmosphere. That said, the layout also brings to the forefront features from the building’s original structure as a brewery, such as the cast-iron columns that are now a central feature of the ground floor. This is where you’ll find the museum’s new and improved shop, as well as communal spaces for chatting/reading and several digital displays to explore the gallery’s current and archived collections.
Where you would once have found the shop, there is now a dedicated community gallery, currently exhibiting Tender Grounds. This collection of works by Katrina and Luca Dayanc, Jamie Bragg, and Ash Goller was curated for the Platform Graduate Award, showcasing up-and-coming post graduate creatives; using contrasting textiles, embroidery, film and large scale painted canvases, expect to find themes of queer identity, communality, nature responding to architecture and the uncomfortable legacies of colonial heritage. Just next door, the museum has opened up part of the ground floor into a brand-new educational space, which can also accommodate lectures and live performance.
On the upper floor in the main gallery, the first exhibition of the new MAO is Sikan Illumnations, a display of works by Afro-Cuban artist Belkis Ayón, a hugely influential figure in Cuban art and one of few artists to document the rites and mythology of the Abakuá, an all-male religious fraternity combining both West African and Cuban influences into their practices. In particular, she draws on the gendered tension of one of the Abakuá’s most central mythic figures, a woman named Sikán who was sacrificed for discovering the sacred voice reserved only for men. Ayón’s preoccupation with mythmaking and ritual is reflected in the methodical nature of her process, the printmaking technique known as collography, in which materials are added to the printing plate in a kind of collage to create a multi-textured effect when printed upon.
The museum’s basement has now become its café space, made especially vibrant and cheery by the motif of hands that characterise Emma Hart’s work. Intended to evoke the celebratory mood of a rave, the backs of the chairs are designed to evoke a crowd of waving hands, while the orange, purple and red colour scheme, Hart tells us, was intended to mirror “an Ibiza sunset”. The hand of the artist can also be found in the tabletops and stool seats, each of which are based on hand-drawn circles, adding a sense of authenticity and connection to its maker.
You’ll notice too, a change in MAO’s promotional material, from a fresh new logo to a colour palette recalling the works of the British Modernists and places of public gathering such as train stations and post offices.
The museum will be open for entry on Saturday, with a preview party taking place this Friday to showcase its debut exhibitions and live DJ sets from Earthly Measures, celebrating sounds from around the globe - head on down to be the first to experience the new space for yourself.