Menil Drawing Institute to open Nov. 3

Photo: Paul Hester

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The Menil Drawing Institute, designed by Johnston Marklee, as it appears from West Main Street. The first freestanding facility built for the acquisition, exhibition, study, conservation and storage of modern and contemporary drawings will open to the public on November 3, 2018. less

Photo: Paul Hester

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An aerial view of the Menil Collection campus as it will look from the southeast.

Photo: Johnston Marklee

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This Untitled drawing in ink on plastic is among works by Jasper Johns that will be on view in the first exhibition at the Menil Drawing Institute.

Photo: Collection Of Janie C. Lee

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A rendering of the West courtyard of the Menil Drawing Institute, designed by Johnston Marklee, shows the sloping steel plate roof that will extend toward the landscape.

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"Skin," a 1965 work of charcoal and oil on paper, is among works that will be on view in the first exhibition at the Menil Drawing Institute. "The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns" will be up Nov. 3-Jan. 27. less

Photo: Promised Gift From The Collection Of Louisa Stude Sarofim

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The Menil Drawing Institute, now under construction, will be the first free-standing facility in the U.S. built for the conservation, study, exhibition and storage of works on paper.

Photo: Johnston Marklee / Igor Brozyna

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A rendering of the Exhibition Gallery space at the Menil Drawing Institute, which Rebecca Rabinow believes will change Houston's arts culture.

Photo: Johnston Marklee / Igor Brozyna

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This untitled 1990 watercolor, graphite and pencil drawing by Jasper Johns, acquired as a bequest of David Whitney, is among works that will be on view in the first exhibition at the Menil Drawing Institute. "The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns" will be up Nov. 3-Jan. 27. less

Photo: The Menil Collection

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The Menil Drawing Institute, which has looked so enticingly ready for months from Richmond Avenue, will open Nov. 3 with an exhibition of works on paper by Jasper Johns that has been almost as highly anticipated.

The now-official date falls more than a year after the Menil Collection initially planned to open the world's first building dedicated to modern and contemporary works on paper.

Johnston Marklee's innovative design for a sleek, low-slung and relatively modest building proved harder to execute than expected, given the architects' exacting standards.

Menil Collection director Rebecca Rabinow, cautious after having to cancel an opening originally scheduled for October 7, 2017, has made a case for patience.

"Everything is custom. That is a challenge," she said. "We're in it for the long haul. We don't need to rush it for an artificial deadline we've set for ourselves.

What it looked like last summer: Menil postpones opening of new Drawing Institute

Nature intervened, too, after hard freezes this winter claimed many of the new plants that had just been installed into the new park that envelopes the institute and its serene courtyards, designed by landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

The 30,000-square-foot, $40 million institute is the the fifth art building on the Menil's 30-acre campus. Renzo Piano's main museum building remains closed for major renovations and a gallery redesign through the summer. Rabinow has not yet announced a reopening date, although she also expects that project to be completed by this fall.

Inside the closed Menil, curators prepare for a major reboot

In the meantime, Piano's also airy Cy Twombly Gallery, the site-specific Dan Flavin installation at Richmond Hall, and contemporary art installations in the darkened Byzantine Fresco Chapel are open to visitors, along with the greenspaces around the campus.

The institute will open with "The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns," an exhibition of 41 works on paper that also celebrates the publication of the artist's catalogue raisonné of drawings, a six-volume work documenting 800 drawings. That project has been in the works for nearly a decade. (The catalog will be released later in November.)

Promised gifts by Menil trustees Janie C. Lee and Louisa Stude Sarofim and a bequest from David Whitney have made the Menil one of the world's largest repositories of drawings by Johns and a primary institution for viewing and studying this important aspect of the artist's practice.

"The Condition of Being Here" will trace the chronology of Johns' career and his method of working in motifs, rather than in series; with materials that include graphite, ink, charcoal, watercolor, colored pencil, acrylic, water-soluble encaustic, pastel, powdered graphite, gouache, and oil stick, on surfaces ranging from paper to plastic.

The institute, the new park and the renovations of Piano's original building were funded by the Campaign for the Menil, which raised more than $121 million, surpassing its original goal by more than $6 million. The campaign also supported construction of a new Energy House that has heated and cooled all of the campus' buildings since February 2017; and an increased the endowment that allows the Menil to offer free admission to all of its exhibition and public spaces.

Molly Glentzer writes about arts, culture and public spaces for the Houston Chronicle.

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