A Visit To The Vero Beach Museum Of Art

I went to the Vero Beach Museum of Art yesterday afternoon to check out their current exhibitions, and since the second Saturday of every month is a free day there, it was the perfect time to go - as regular blog readers know, free is my favorite price point. This museum in located in Vero Beach's Riverside Park, located along the Indian River. The last time I visited this museum was years ago, when I went there to see an exhibition of Ansel Adams photographs, which, as I recall, I very much enjoyed. This is a small museum, with just three galleries, not counting works displayed in entranceways and hallways, but a groundbreaking was recently held for a new 90,000 square foot building that will not only greatly increase exhibition space but will "interweave art and nature and blur the line between the Museum and the surrounding Riverside Park." Besides connecting indoors and out, there will also be a rooftop terrace. This is kind of what the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver did when it built its new building. As you view the art there, you pass windows that present dramatic views of Denver, and it has a rooftop terrace with a cafe and bar, also with killer views of the city. In fact, I just love that building, although as for the art there, not so much. Hopefully that won't be the case with the new Vero Beach Museum of Art.

The main thing I wanted to see at the museum was Double Portraits, a collection of 47 photographs by 34 artists with the theme of capturing the "ever-evolving American South through the concept of a double portrait." There were four categories: traditional portraiture, vernacular (snapshot) photos, photos portraying connection and care, and unconventional examples of double portraits. I liked many of these photographs, although I found the unconventional samples just plain weird. These photographs were loaned to the museum by The Do Good Fund, a Columbus, Georgia charity which has a collection of 800 photographs of the American South taken since World War II, and which it makes available to regional museums and non-profit galleries. I checked out their website, and they have a very impressive collection. You can find it at https://thedogoodfund.org/collection.

The other exhibit I wanted to see was Picasso and the Progressive Proof, which features three linocut prints by Pablo Picasso: Portrait of a Young Woman after Cranach the Younger II, Pique II, and Bacchanal with Kid Goat and Onlooker. The exhibit features the finished print and the "proofs" showing the progression of the work, which as I under it, were made as successive colors were added to the work. I liked the final version of Portrait of a Young Woman (check it out at https://www.vbmuseum.org/picasso-and-the-progressive-proof/), but I really wasn't interested in seeing the various stages of its composition. As for the other two works, I found them dark and actually pretty boring. Of course, I am no expert, and have never heard of linocut prints before yesterday, so what do I know? I would be willing to take them off the museum's hands for $20, but decided not to make the offer, as they probably would have wanted cash, which I did not have.