First, workers removed the drywall in seven of the eight galleries in the wing. (The Alonzo and Vallye Dudley Gallery, which houses time-based media, has already been addressed). Some of the drywall dated back to when the building first opened on East Campus in 1996. Rivers pointed out that, given how frequently the museum changed out exhibitions in the past, some of those walls had hundreds of layers of paint on them. When there are that many layers of paint, new paint doesn’t adhere well to the wall anymore and past imperfections, however small, are often magnified. While we removed the old drywall and installed new drywall, we also made some changes that will make a job like this one much easier in the years ahead. Many of the galleries had crown molding, which was difficult to work around, both for drywall replacement and for painting. The galleries now feature Schluter strips that neatly mark the edge of the drywall and will make future gallery preparation more efficient. But we didn’t just address the walls. While those gal - leries were shut down, we also updated the lighting system in several of them so that we now have a single track-lighting system throughout the entire museum. Materials for the old lighting system from 1996 are no longer manufactured, and having a single system is, again, much more efficient. It also frees up some storage space because we no longer have to store materials for two different systems. Our improvements to the galleries included an update to motion sensors, which help our security team monitor the safety of art and visitors. There’s more! We also refinished the floors in all seven galleries, resurfacing the wood and replacing the carpet in the Alfred Heber Holbrook and Rachel Cosby Conway Galleries. We wanted to swap out the carpet for wood flooring, but the subflooring is at two different heights, a factor that would have complicated the project and required more time than we had available for renovations. Instead, we opted for a high-performance laminate, which will be easier to clean and more durable.
We also made some changes that increase gallery flex - ibility going forward. There have been many times in the past when we opted not to take on an exhibition that was otherwise a great fit merely because it was too small for our space and simply wouldn’t look good on display. Thus, we added a vented pocket door between the Virginia and Alfred Kennedy and Philip Henry Alston Jr. galleries that will allow us to close off spaces when they aren’t needed. We vented the existing pocket door between the Alston Gallery and the Lamar Dodd Gallery to maintain humidity and temperature levels when those doors are closed, and we hope to add pocket doors to the rest of the galleries in the future. As long as we were making some noise and shutting down some areas of the building, we also decided to refresh the lobby desk where visitors check in. It now has a clean new look, and the addition of two digital signs mounted behind the desk will provide our visitors with more information. These signs tell visitors about upcoming programs, current exhibitions and how to become a member of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art and highlight our loyal Annual Fund donors. We are also taking some steps to improve navigation for visitors to the museum, with the addition of better direc- tional signage and signs for the restrooms that are easier to see. Thanks to support from the Provost’s Office, we upgrad - ed almost everything in the auditorium, adding a new screen, new microphones and new tech that will make streaming and recording programs much easier and the results more professional. Finally, we installed two wall drawings created by artist Sol LeWitt in the lobby. LeWitt, who died in 2007, was a conceptual artist whose artwork sometimes consists of instructions for making the work. Thanks to generous support from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, we borrowed the instructions from the LeWitt Collection and worked with master art install- ers from the LeWitt estate and students from UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art to carry out the execution. We are excited to have these forward-thinking contemporary works on view to welcome visitors and about the part- nership that led to these new creations.
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