In this first episode we are going to explore the Rollins Museum of Art in Winter Park, FL. As you may have guessed, the museum is part of Rollins College. Rollins College first opened up in 1885. The museum however, opened up in 1978 with funds provided by George and Harriet Cornell, both alumni of Rollins College. George Cornell actually is a descendent of Ezra Cornell, founder of Ivy League school Cornell University in Ithaca NY, AND the Cornell family can be traced to the Mayflower!
The interesting thing about the Rollins Museum of Art is that it is actually the only museum in the greater Orlando area that houses a collection of European Old Master paintings. Now, if you’re not big on museums or art, and you are exploring this podcast just to try something new or on a dare and you’re asking yourself, what is a European Old Master painting? It is a painting by any painter before the 1800s that had considerable skill like Da Vinci, Raphael, and Rembrandt.
Now Rollins Museum of Art also has contemporary art. It’s a small museum (just one floor and maneuvering through it is pretty easy without a map), that tries to give you a little bit of everything. Also, it’s the first college art museum in Florida to be accredited as a museum by the American Alliance of Museums or the AAM. More on the AAM in another episode, but it’s the organization that helps provide support for US museums.
The Rollins Museum of Art is currently FREE ADMISSION! You can walk around the school grounds afterwards. And for my Spanish speakers – Rollins has a Spanish art talk session with the Curator herself, Arte y Cafe. The Rollins Museum has 3 exhibits currently displayed and they are all different in their own way. Right when you first walk in there’s a hallway showcasing very modern art called “Art Encounters One Act of Kindness: A World of Difference,” and this is on display through May 14, 2023. And if you are really big on contemporary art, then you might like this one. My favorite work is the 4-piece sculpture called Protestor I-IV by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes. It’s made up of four geometrical representations of protestors, and it had a “voice.” I could practically hear their echo, but at the same time, the quietness of the museum helped show what the protestors were fighting against – being silenced, which can be literally or figuratively. It’s this contrast of loud and quiet working simultaneously that brought the piece to life.
Their larger exhibit “Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Art 1960s-1970s,” THAT is the exhibit to go see. There are three galleries dedicated to this exhibit and each gallery is dedicated to a specific country with artists showcasing their heritage. Now, you are going to see some traditional artforms for each culture but in new ways, and that is the totally awesome thing about art! There is this sense of familiarity, but there’s a whole new life these artists gave to their subjects, and that’s what art does. You take something, deconstruct it, and put it back together but exposing the layers hidden underneath. This exhibit is a partnership with New York University’s Grey Art Gallery. The founder, Abby Weed Grey, was a collector of modern Asian and Middle Eastern art, who in essence started the Grey Art Gallery. And a lot of art collections/ museums start with this one person who saw the potential in a specific area and did everything in their power to put a spotlight on it. Some of the art is hard to understand, and that’s okay. Walking through the galleries, I noticed myself gravitating towards certain forms of presentation more than others. All of these countries were going through their own phase of drastic change, of modernization, and this exhibit does a great job of reflecting that atmosphere of change.
There is one painting by Turkish artist Cemil Eren, called “Vision”, created in 1963. And it’s this piece that shows a figure in the center, but nothing about the figure or anything around it is defined. The soft earthy tones the artist used allows the piece to be open to whatever your mind sees. I kept going back to it. I wouldn’t mind buying a replica actually. When you find yourself going back to a piece, just stay and pay attention to your thoughts. Oftentimes there is something within the artwork that you pick up on, but you don’t quite know what it is. Everyone, this is that scene in every move making fun of people standing around in art galleries. A few of the other pieces I enjoyed used layered calligraphy in creating the artwork, so there’s multiple layers of meaning involved in a single piece that you can just get lost in. One example of this is Colt 45 by Iranian artist Faramarz Pilaram.
The third exhibit was created on-site, “Billows” by American artist Barbara Sorensen and is on display through December 31st as well. It is a very simple exhibit but, because of its simplicity, for me it really brought home what the purpose of art is. Recently, I was reading about a study on awe. A-W-E. Awe, is this sense of feeling something is bigger than you, and that in effect provides you with this grounding experience that puts everything into perspective for you. Anything that you have going on at home, at school, work, friends, side hustles, you name it. Sorensen does a lot of nature representational art, on a large immersive scale. And this piece was a great way to close my visit to the museum. It was elegant and soft, but yet the material is stiff and seems to be made of zippers – but it’s not. I kept walking underneath it, almost as if it could wrap around me. And I TWIRLED while looking up. I just let go.
I had no idea what exhibitions were on display when I decided to go to the Rollins Museum of Art. But I was really happy by the end of it. My decision-making process can be very simple. I often ask myself, what haven’t I done yet? And then I try to do whatever it is. So go ahead, give it a try and let yourself be awed.
Come join us next time when I visit the Albin Polasek Museum!
Listen to this episode on Spotify!
Museum Musings 
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