If you’ve noticed a little electricity in the air on campus lately, it may be the excitement around the opening of Hope’s Kruizenga Art Museum. Our new museum enhances the role of the college’s permanent collection as a teaching tool. Designed by architect and Hope alumnus Matthew Vander Borgh ’84 of C Concept Design, the building provides space and resources to conduct scholarship using artwork from around the world.
The latest issue of News from Hope College included the article “Global Scope, Lasting Impact,” which describes the academic mission of the the Kruizenga Art Museum.
From the article:
[Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga Curator of the Kruizenga Art Museum Charles] Mason is eager to see the museum connect with departments in every academic division — not only the arts, but also the humanities, natural and applied sciences, and social sciences — to find ways that the objects, their history and their context can enrich the experience of students campus-wide. One themed exhibition, for example, might include a concert featuring music from the tradition represented. Another might compare and contrast Tibetan and European monastic traditions.
“Our goal for the first year is to show the breadth and overall quality of the collection, to give people a sense of the range of material that we have in the collection and how it could potentially be used to support a wide range of academic disciplines,” Mason said. “So it’s to some extent going to be a kind of ‘greatest hits’ of the Permanent Collection, but with an eye toward having pieces out that we can use to begin conversations with faculty and students from different academic departments across campus about ways that we could integrate the museum into teaching and learning.
Though it was created with students and scholars in mind, the museum is open to all. Come visit! In the meantime, check out this recent media coverage about the Kruizenga Art Museum:
Museum director Charles Mason talks about the new Kruizenga Art Museum at Hope College (mLive.com, Aug. 31, 2015)
Art seldom seen opens at Hope College’s Kruizenga Art Museum (mLive.com, Sept. 11, 2015)
See how Hope College’s new, $5M art museum makes a statement (mLive.com, Sept. 7, 2015)
So you want to start a college art museum… (Hyperallergic.com, Sept. 10, 2015)
Project Gallery: Kruizenga Art Museum (Architect Magazine, Sept. 15, 2015 )