Bellevue Art Museum delays reopening until fall

By Warren Cornwall
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

	Rick Collette
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The shuttered Bellevue Art Museum has postponed its planned reopening from July to October, giving the museum more time to address a host of decisions critical to its attempted revival.

"We have determined it is more important to open when the time is right," says an announcement on the museum's Web site (www.bellevueart.org).

Museum board President Rick Collette declined to discuss museum plans, or the new target for reopening, before a press conference Monday.

The museum closed last September after nearly running out of cash. That came less than three years after the museum moved with much fanfare into a new, $23 million building in the heart of downtown Bellevue.

During its brief tenure in the new building, the museum was plagued by accounting problems, overly optimistic budgets, lackluster fund raising and a series of contemporary art exhibits that failed to spark wide interest.

While a general outline for a revamped museum is beginning to take shape, details about wooing donors and the museum-going public, and avoiding a replay of last year's financial collapse, have yet to be revealed:

• Museum leaders say a business plan is ready, but haven't made it public.

• The museum's board needs people who can attract major donors and bring arts expertise to bear. Few changes have been announced since the departure of a number of board members, including major benefactor Mary Shirley, last fall.

• Museum leaders are working to redesign the interior of the museum, criticized by some as a difficult place to display art. But they haven't said how much it will cost or where they will get the money to pay for the redesign.

• An executive director and curator are vital for defining a museum's artistic direction, museum management experts say. But there is no word whether a director or curator has been hired. Businessman Mark Haley is the museum's interim managing director.
 
"People are going to want to know who's making the artistic decisions about what art is going to be exhibited," said Jim Kelly, executive director of 4Culture, previously called the Cultural Development Authority of King County. "I do think it would be helpful if they started to identify some of the key players in the museum's next life."

Two of those players are the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, headquartered at the University of Washington campus, and the Pilchuck Glass School, which has a campus outside Stanwood, according to an article written by museum officials for a Bellevue Downtown Association newsletter.

The glass school plans to have a permanent informational exhibit about the school at the Bellevue museum, and a rotating exhibit of glass artwork, said Erin Moore, communications coordinator for the school. Neither party will have to pay for the deal, which arose after the museum approached the glass school, she said. They have not signed a detailed agreement yet.

Haley has long been associated with the glass school, previously serving as president of its board.

The Burke Museum is working on an agreement with the Bellevue museum, but it's not clear what might be displayed there, said Burke spokeswoman MaryAnn Barron. An option under discussion is having one exhibit a year at the Bellevue museum, curated by the Burke, from its permanent collection, she said.

"It is in the works, but it isn't finalized in any form," she said of the deal.

Both projects underscore a shift toward an emphasis on craft, design and Northwest art, announced in a mission statement for the new museum. They also suggest ways the museum is trying to address its lack of a permanent collection of artwork to display, and an abundance of classroom space.

Collette has previously said educational programs, which had been a centerpiece of the new museum when it opened in 2001, will be scaled back. The classes, which were expected to make money, turned out to be money-losers. The Pilchuck exhibits would be housed in former classrooms, according to the article by museum officials.

The museum plans to reshape the ground floor to create "the feel of a comfortable lounge" and turn the open space along the north side of the building into an enlarged museum shop featuring work by local artists, according to the article.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com

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