When I-64 dumps Charlottesvillians in the heart of Richmond, and they see the stoplights, the long, flat stretches of pocked roads and chain restaurants they’ve never heard of, one thing usually comes to mind: I should have stayed in Charlottesville. But if there’s any reason to weather the task of getting to Richmond, it’s the new Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
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Highlights at the newly renovated VMFA include one of the finest collections of German expressionism, an impressive assortment of French modern art and nearly a quarter billion dollars worth of American art, donated from the McGlochlin family, for whom the new wing is named.
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The museum reopens this week after $150 million in upgrades that began in 2005 and shuttered the facility for 10 months. Seen from the city’s Boulevard, the renovated museum cuts a handsome figure, marrying the original 1936 structure with a design worthy of any New York museum. That’s the new McGlothlin Wing, a colossal and modern concern that adds 53,000-square feet of gallery space—more space than any other art museum in the state—to the museum’s existing 80,000. The expansion and renovation will put the museum in the top 10 comprehensive art museums nationwide. And what’s more, the glass facade will now welcome visitors seven days a week, for free.
At a press opening last Thursday, museum director Alex Nyerges took to the makeshift stage in a well-tailored suit, awash in the museum’s natural light, and previewed the facility’s new features. After some some highfalutin yadda yaddas (“We’re going to bring the world to Virginia…”) Nyerges itemized the wealth of new amenities: Special exhibition space has doubled, allowing the museum to attract a higher profile of traveling exhibitions, including what he called the “most important show of Tiffany that’s ever been done.” That will open at the end of May. A sculpture garden and outdoor plaza are also nearing completion.
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Alex Nyerges has been director of VMFA since 2006. Now he has to realize an ambitious master plan for the Museum of Fine Arts’ more than 13 acres.
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The architect on the case was Rick Mather, an American who operates out of London. It was Mather’s first major American contract, according to his associate Peter Culley, who spoke on his behalf. (Mather was stuck in soggy England beneath a cloud of volcanic dust.) Culley said the architects were hoping that visitors would not suffer from “museum fatigue”—as I understood it, the exhaustion that strikes when you enter huge, artificial environments like shopping malls and museums. Symptoms tend to include shaky knees and general feelings of confusion.
At VMFA, relief from museum fatigue comes in the form of five catwalks that intersect the heart of the glimmering Cochrane Atrium. The design allows viewers to take a deep breath and to admire the bright, open space before plunging into the next exhibit. Featured there is Sol LeWitt’s final sculpture, “Splotch #22,” a mash of jagged spires that look like candy stalagmites from a forgotten corner of Mr. Wonka’s factory. LeWitt’s sculpture would pop on its own, but it does even more so in a place that holds few artworks.
Go to the Feedback blog to see some photos of the revamped museum’s inside.
Man or mausoleum?
A special shout out to my new best friend Taj Mahal! O.K., I may not be the blues legend’s top amigo. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t interview him before his show this Friday at the Paramount Theater. Mahal was generous with his conversation and warmed up quickly. We touched on everything from music that’s recently blown his mind, to his recent work at the Dave Matthews Band’s studio, to what it was like to be in an interracial roots group with Ry Cooder in 1960’s Los Angeles. Read more after the break.
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Taj Mahal was born in Harlem, raised in New England, and was first exposed to world music through his family’s short-wave radio.
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I got an 11th hour e-mail from Taj Mahal’s publicist last week, asking if I’d like to interview the blues giant before his show at
the Paramount Theater on April 30. It was short notice, but the opportunity was too great to pass up. “Taj”—which is how everybody refers to the man born Henry St. Clair Fredericks—was in Hawaii, where he played the
Kokua Festival, the yearly event organized by Jack Johnson. It was a fitting place to speak to the globetrotter, who made his name incorporating world music into what he knew best: the blues.
When I thanked Taj Mahal after our talk, he asked for one thing in return: “Make sure you put my website up there in big letters.” That’s
WWW.TAJBLUES.COM.
I heard through the grapevine that you’ve recently been in the Charlottesville area recording with Vusi Mahlasela, the South African musician.
Yeah, I’m working on Vusi’s record. I was producing on that one. It’s great. I haven’t heard the final mixes or anything yet, but we were finishing up the last of the stuff.
You were at Haunted Hollow studio, which is the Dave Matthews Band’s studio.
Yeah, but I didn’t see him at all. I saw his mom, and his sister and his cousin.
Your guitar playing is dense with influences. There are elements of Delta blues, palm wine, high life and slack key, elements of reggae. You play like a lot of people, but nobody plays like you. Who are some of your favorite guitarists?
I listened to John Hurt, sure, as a guitar player.
Oscar Moore, also Django Reinhardt, “Reverend” Robert Wilkins, you know. There are a lot of different obscure finger pickers. There’s
Franco, and a lot of the guys over from Africa play, guys from South America.
Caetano Veloso, who’s from South America. Franco’s from the Congo. And of course there’s Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and those guys who really play the American side of the guitar. And other players who play from other traditions of music, really—I like a lot of good players.
How do you seek out new music? Do you learn by traveling?
I’m just curious about the world, I’m curious about how humans do stuff that can relate from one place to the next.
Where does that curiosity come from?
I heard the music of the world when I was a kid, because I was already multicultural when I came into this world. My mother was an African-American woman from the South and my father was an Afro-Caribbean man from the Caribbean…There’s not just what you see on the “Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour” or Ed Sullivan. They’re good, but they were never the ones doing what’s happening.
I read an interview with you from about a decade ago where you said that Americans look to Europe for culture and credibility, when there’s so much here going on.
Yeah, it’s true. It’s tremendous what’s happening here, but people don’t listen to what’s at home. They just don’t look at what’s going on.
Is there anything you’re paying attention to in American music?
Yeah, but it’s not going to be on the radar. It just isn’t. There’s a lot of people here playing music in the United States but they don’t get any recognition because this is a popularity contest kind of deal. And that’s just what really kind of ruins it, ultimately. You don’t really have to have any value culturally, or spiritually, or of any other kind to be all over the place. They [popular musicians] don’t spend half a second as they should looking at the culture. You can make all the money you want, but why make all of the money you want at the expense of great culture?
Speaking of that, you’ve made a name for yourself by mining world cultures and making them fit in with what you do—the blues. As more people turn on the TV and get on the Internet, popular music everywhere sounds more and more the same, to some ears. How are traditional forms of music faring in that environment?
They’re intact! But they’re under attack. There’s no way that some modern person, no matter how much they sell…if what you need is 100 percent to give what you need to do some spirit and culture, and all of that kind of stuff, and you’re only giving 2 percent, that’s nowhere near 100 percent. Then who loses? The people that buy the stuff. The people who are making the money—that’s all they’re looking at [in the industry]. I’m not mad at them for dealing that way, but I am upset that there are these people thinking that’s the full extent of what’s available, and that’s never true.
So what’s valuable now? What’s the most recent thing that you’ve heard that blew your mind?
Oumou Sangaré, one singer from West Africa who was nurtured in Mali. Or
Aster Aweke, from West Africa. Unbelievable, I mean just unbelievable. One is Ethiopian [Aweke], the other is from West Africa [Sangaré]. It’s unbelievable. To hear the latest album by [Congolese guitarist] Franco—killer. The last album of Ali Farka Touré, with Toumani Diabaté, and Vusi Mahasehla’s new album. Now that’s music.
Man, how do you keep up?
You could live 10 consecutive lifetimes and never hear all of the music that’s here on this planet. There’s no way. Even if you did it everyday for eight hours a day. Wouldn’t happen. There’s just so much music out there. So I just stay out of the popular play, whoever it is, whatever is going around—it’s the latest virus, the latest disease going around, and it’s all about the sales. It’s not about the people. Music is part of culture. It’s what helps people make it from one place to the next. It’s part of ceremony, and people are still doing it that way in the rest of the world.
On top of having your finger in so many pots worldwide, some say your work with the Rising Sons was as important as any in growing American interest in roots music.
Oh yeah, it was a very important band, but you got to realize, like I say, America is about popularity. For all intents and purposes, you want to put four white guys and a black guy up in front of the ’60’s audience—in the 1960’s America was not ready for it, and frankly, they’ll never be ready for it.
Even today?
They all seem that they’re ready for it, but they’re not ready. It’s always the same thing. The people were—I’m just talking about the established American side, wondering how’s this gonna play out? They just didn’t think they weren’t ready for that. They were ready for the music, as long as the black music had a white face to it, but for black music with a black face? They weren’t ready for that. And they still aren’t. The people are, but the industry is trying to think about trying to make a lot of money. You can make more money with this guy playing it rather than that guy.
The only reason Hendrix got to make is that he came in on the English channels, because he recorded and the people he was working with were English, and a separate channel to the main stage. Coming from outside the industry. Who—except for Michael Jackson—who has risen to that kind of status in the United States? Nobody. You can sell a lot of records, but you can’t get that kind of sustained top hand.
Do you see any hope in someone like Ben Harper who has enjoyed your patronage for a few years now?
Ben’s really great, Ben’s really great. He’s done really well, he’s carved a good niche for himself, but he hasn’t carved a niche in blues. If he tried to carve a niche in blues, they would just swarm him, you know. Because somehow or another they don’t want to market it unless they can market this other kind of thing. Ben’s done really well. And he’s smart. But the blues market is saturated by posers, and there’s just nothing you can do about it but play the real stuff and hear the real people.
Who out there is the real people?
The Music Maker Foundation in Hillsboro, North Carolina, has got probably the most amazing—I’ll tell you who else is out there that I like, this group called the
Carolina Chocolate Drops. Pure. Check them out. Find them, get them on there. Another band,
Homemade Jamz Blues Band. They’re youngsters, only 17. Their youngest sister is playing drums, brother is playing bass, other brother is playing guitar, dad steps in on harmonica every once in a while. They’re killer. This is what’s coming up. And why aren’t the cameras all on them like they are on some other people?
And speaking of that kind of relationship you’ve had with people like Ben. You’ve had the opportunity to be on the other end, where you worked with some of the masters, like when you got to work with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. How does it feel to be on the other end?
If you wait, your time will come. That’s all it is, I’m not trying to do anything. I’m just saying to young musicians, “You don’t have to do it by the book, you can do it by your own book. You can make your own story.” And that’s what people want to hear, they want to hear the story, and that’s what these guys have going on, and that’s what they’ll hear from me is you should do your own story. And that’s what they did.
Are you working on a follow-up to your last album, Maestro?
No, not at the moment. I mean, there’s always music. If someone came up to me tomorrow and said, ‘You want to make an album,’ and then, ‘we’ll make sure you get paid until it’s done,’ I’d do it. I could do it.
The five-bedroom house at 1214 Rugby Road sits on more than two acres of land and a sizeable bit of local architectural history. But, at $5 million-plus, can it shake recent real estate trends?