Lynn and I recently had two sublime visits to two of the great museums in the world (see recent posts about MoMa and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) which reminded us of a recent bad museum experience at one of the more obscure museums in the south (particularly Wilmington, North Carolina)
Lynn and I visited the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington recently (February) and were underwhelmed in the extreme. First off most of the gallery space was closed as was the cafe (on a Sunday no less). Second, the gallery space that was opened was full of the museum's old collection which I have seen many times.
I understand the need to have some down time between exhibits, but try something different. I had interned at the museum when it was St. John's Museum of Art at its old downtown space (I worked for free while consultants got paid a lot of money for who knows what?). Ren Brown was the Director, Tiffany Kitchen was on staff and there was a lot of stuff in storage that the museum didn't have enough room to hang.
Most of this stuff never made it to the light of day. But our most recent visit made me wonder why that stuff didn't rotate in? Did it get sold, lost, stolen? (as a Minnie Evans piece did when I worked there in the early 90's).
The other issue we had was with the receptionist of all people: She was curt and short and not very charming (I think her name was Nadine something). In any event, she had brownish-reddish hair and snapped at us about the most innocuous questions.
Can't say we would recommend this place, makes more sense to drive the two hours to visit a relatively respectful NC Museum of Art in Raleigh...
