Michelle Cate, The Art Studio, Inc.’s assistant curator, had a chat with November’s exhibiting artist Sajeela Siddiq about the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s new Nancy and Rich Kinder Building which houses international modern and contemporary art.
Michelle Cate: So Sajeela, what made you decide to make the trip from Lake Charles, Louisiana, with your two daughters to the MFAH considering everything this year: storms, COVID, etc?
Sajeela Siddiq: Well, we were originally supposed to be in Italy on vacation, because I love to travel with the girls, but with COVID all that changed. During hurricane season we were forced to evacuate Lake Charles, so we went to Houston. While we were there we did as many outdoor activities as possible, hitting a lot of parks, but the new Kinder Building wasn’t open yet. (As soon as it was) I planned the trip. It was free (and will be free until Dec. 25) so that was another reason to go check it out.
I actually went in without any preconceived ideas about what we might see. I plotted and planned other parts of the trip, like parking, but I went into the space with a blank slate.
MC: So what did you think of the new space?
SS: The parking was actually part of the museum’s considerations from the beginning. They hired (Steven Holl Architects) who proposed underground parking. So, no matter where you park, you can enter the Kinder through tunnels which are art pieces in and of themselves. They connect to the rest of the museum campus and the Glassell School of Art.
MC: What were some of the pieces that your daughters enjoyed?
SS: The girls really liked the tunnels, the gold one (“Chromosaturation” by Carlos Cruz-Diez) is actually a subtractive light installation, which makes everything look greyscale. My littlest enjoyed the rainbow-colored tunnel by James Turrell. In the Kinder, they have all these fun things and large scale sculptures. I’m glad that they have them because it makes it easier for young kids. You know, it’s fun stuff, especially right at the beginning. I don’t know if they designed it that way or not, but…
MC: I’m sure they did. (There are six more site-specific commissioned artworks by artists El Anatsui, Byung Hoon Choi, Olafur Eliasson, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Cristina Iglesias, and Ai Weiwei).
SS: Yeah. Because there’s the Glassell School of Art, and they have lots of field trips with school children. The kids also enjoyed the video installation of themselves, and also the optical illusion art.
MC: So what were some of the pieces that you really connected to?
SS: They have these futuristic things by a Venezuelan artist, his models are hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. The models are made of a clear material. And there are little people in there, too. It’s like walking to a movie set of some sort. Futuristic, like the year 3000 or something.
MC: Sounds like South American futurism or something. Everyone’s about futurism right now. Would you like to talk about the new building generally? What was your takeaway?
SS: My favorite part would actually be the overall museum itself. The fact that there is a new, I mean, it may be part of Houston MFA, but it certainly is big enough to be a museum on its own, where you spend an entire day — it’s that big. I always felt that Houston lacked a modern art space as you see in other places. I’ve seen so many museums where the existing museum has a lot of classical Western art and antiquities and a smaller collection of modern art. Once in a while, they do have visiting exhibitions of contemporary art, but they didn’t have a dedicated (modern and contemporary art) space like this before in Houston, really.
MC: Before visitors had to go to multiple museums to see those two things. Houston has the Menil Collection for Western Modern Art. And then there is CAM across the street from MFAH which was always only Contemporary Art. So it definitely makes sense why MFAH did this.
SS: This is a museum that houses so much of what other museums have combined, and it’s the sheer volume of Modern and Post-Modern and Contemporary Art that is impressive. It has all the greats from America and Europe — Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso — that you would expect. My favorite room was the books on paper because I love drawing on paper. That room had an extensive collection of printmaking and drawings, and ink on paper. And then, of course, I’m glad that they kept diversity in mind. MFAH wants to diversify, in their own words, “In every direction.” There’s more art by female artists, there’s more art by international artists of every kind. There’s a prominent dedication to Latin American art.
I was walking so quickly through the second and third floor with the girls, but I noticed there were many international looking names. The next time I go, I will read in detail the labels and learn more about these artists and their work. One of my favorite things about MFAH is that they write substantial labels that actually go in-depth about the piece and interpret it.
There was a lot of work by the painter, Frank Stella (who is famous for his often colorful, often intertwining geometric shapes). These pieces were his early works which were very clean and hard-edged.
MC: Was there something that surprised you about the space?
SS: Just that it’s so extensive. I walked in not knowing much about the new building so it exceeded my expectations. If I were to try to compare MFAH now to any other museum, in terms of, how extensive it is, it reminded me of the Tate Modern in London or even the Vatican Museum. The Vatican Museum is one museum where you not only have classical art, but also an extensive collection of modern art. It’s huge. And I’m sure not everything is on display.
MC: The Vatican Museum? Well, I imagine in Italy, they have that long, continuous line that comes down from the Renaissance to our era where people can trace their lineage of teachers.
SS: Yes, but it is much more than that, the Vatican Museum also has a huge collection of Modern and Contemporary art from America and France. I missed going to The Centre Pompidou in Paris because I ran out of time on my trip, so it’s possible I’m missing a comparison to the MFAH’s collection there. Needless to say, the Kinder Building is very impressive. I’ve read that their goal is for Houston to be the fourth biggest art center after New York, Chicago, and LA, so this is them taking a giant leap towards that.
And it’s not just for Houstonians. I feel like people like us, who live hours from Houston can now appreciate great art. I imagine it will be like living two hours from LA or New York or Chicago and getting to see so much great art.
That reminds me… the Art Institute of Chicago has a lot of Modern Art, too. Then again, The Art Institute is also an exhaustingly big museum. The Kinder Building is big, but I’m glad that you can just visit this and it’s kind of manageable. Other places have such large spaces, you go in and it’s just exhausting in one day. My art professor called it “museum fatigue,” when you’re just up to your eyeballs in art.
Right now the MFAH is reminding me of the Louvre because it’s this whole campus that is all connected and available in one location, which is nice. I don’t know how the ticket prices will reflect after this because I visited for free right now.
MC: Yes, what they have done with the campus is really pretty smart.
SS: I recently watched a film on post-war artists, and all the terms and their philosophies were fresh in my mind. I’m excited to go back and spend some time, especially viewing the international artists that have done sort of tapestries and collages of photographs. Another favorite piece of my youngest daughter’s was, of course, the ginormous black, all black Lego. It was in one of those shared spaces between rooms. (Artist uncertain) My little one really is into Legos.
SS: There’s a lot of art with some mechanics involved. We were looking at one piece with triangles made of metal tubes hanging with strings connected to something up above. And they were going up and down and undulating, the shapes shifting their triangular shapes constantly. It’s mesmerizing because it’s all floating. I was just standing there trying to figure it out, “How is it doing that?” And, of course, my eldest daughter is mega-genius so she explained to me, “Well, there’s a mechanism up above it inside the ceiling, pulling the strings up and down.” And I’m like, “Ah!” She ended up giving this whole explanation. There were other people standing around listening.
MC: Haha! “They were just listening as junior docent Siddiq gave her interpretation.”
SS: Yeah. Oh, no. (Smiles) Jesus, it was priceless. She understands physics more than she wants to admit. I was pushing her towards it even as we were leaving the museum later. Later she said, of the museum, “Well, that was great fun.”
MC: That’s a big deal!
SS: Yeah. The younger one got tired easily, so she would sit down on a bench here and there. She was hungry. My mistake was that I took them to the museum two hours after having breakfast when it should have been right after breakfast or after lunch.
MC: OK. Good to point out. That’s a problem specific to moms but everyone has to eat.
SS: At least with timed tickets you can figure out what is the best time, and how to time it with meals and stuff you’re used to doing around Houston.
MC: So you mentioned to me earlier that you have a penchant for collecting museum pencils, so did you go through a gift shop?
SS: The gift shop in the Kinder Building, as far as I could see, was very, very minimal. And it was just a long one wall. I didn’t see a big gift shop yet which was fine because we had completely maxed out on energy. It was just in the main atrium as you entered from the street level, it was mainly a collection of books, maybe some books and bags. I didn’t get to see if they had any pencils. I usually always allow the kids to spend some money in the fabulous gift shop they have in the main building.
I love the types of toys and things that museums curate into their gift shops. I have a thing for pencils though and I look for them when I travel and notice it if a museum doesn’t have one. The Acropolis Museum didn’t have one for example. They are nice little momentos, and usually affordable. I wish all the museums in the world had pencils.
MC: “Are you really a museum if you don’t have a museum pencil?,” that is the question!
SS: Exactly. How am I to memorialize my trip to a museum if they don’t have a pencil? I bring the pencils back and then I see my kids using my pencil to do homework. And I’m like, give that back! One time, I spied my prized British Museum pyramid pencil on the kitchen counter. It has hieroglyphics that have faded because it’s five years old… I am like, “Use your own pencil!” I mean, I may never get to go back to a specific museum. I think that’s why I treasure them so much.
MC: Right? Well, thank you for your time, Sajeela. We look forward to having more conversations with you or featuring your writing in ISSUE or on www.artstudio.org when you visit more museums in the area or globally.
SS: Of Course.