The Museum of Art + Light (MoA+L), a new contemporary art museum, is opening in Manhattan, Kansas on 8 November.
The museum was founded by entrepreneurs and art collectors Tracey and Robert DeBruyn, Ronald Bowman and Stanley Zukowfsky to bring art to their community.
It is dedicated to connecting digital art with traditional visual and performing arts, and was created to bring art to a rural area of the US.
In a statement, MoA+L said it believes that “by positioning itself in a flourishing rural community, the museum, and therefore the arts, will thrive at this richly diverse and desired destination”.
The Museum of Art + Light is a 100,000-square-foot venue with three exhibition galleries spreading across 68,000 square feet. It also houses flexible classrooms, a maker space, a restaurant, and a curated store.
An inaugural exhibition at MoA+L is titled ‘Code & Canvas: Defining Digital Art in the Age of Blockchain’. This will be on view in the ‘De Coded’ gallery, which is the first permanent gallery for digital art, or NFTs, in a traditional museum.
The museum also includes a gallery for fine art. Guests will see works by Mads Christensen in the artist’s first solo museum exhibition. These include ‘Bloom Unfolded’, a 13-foot-tall sculpture made from acrylic and LED lights.
Bringing art to rural communities
Another gallery is called ‘Mezmereyz’. Its inaugural exhibition is dedicated to French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir and uses state-of-the-art technology to bring to life 300 artworks, family photos and films across 36,000 square feet of projection area.
“We wanted to create a museum where people from all walks of life would be immersed in an electrifying, captivating experience to engage in the artistic process, explore the meaning behind real works of art, and as a result, expand their horizons and elevate their quality of life,” said founders Robert and Tracey DeBruyn earlier this year.
“We have built a place that will make an impact on the modern visitor – people who communicate, get their news, learn, and play on a plethora of technology devices. We cannot wait for people to experience art in a new way at the Museum of Art + Light.”
Images courtesy of the Museum of Art + Light
