Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art Celebrates Rebuilding
Marjie Gowdy
Friday, March 28, 2008
Biloxi, Mississippi, Fall 2007—The centerpiece of rebuilding for the Gulf Coast two years after Hurricane Katrina—a tourism destination designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry—will celebrate the start of construction on Saturday, December 1, at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art campus. The public is invited to the free event at 10 a.m. on December 1 as the spectacularly unique George Ohr Gallery pavilion is opened, halfway through installation, to the community.
“The erection of the Ohr pods will serve notice to the people of the Mississippi Coast that the Ohr O'Keefe Museum of Art is alive and well, but maybe more importantly, the raising of the Ohr pavilion will tell the nation and yes the world that the Mississippi Coast is moving forward, rebuilding and moving toward a future that will be the envy of every tourist destination in the country,” said Larry Clark, President, Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art Board of Trustees. ‘We have a unique opportunity to show that a museum can be about the arts and about economic development by being a world -class attraction.”
- Ten tractor trailers filled with aluminum “pods” that will be the exterior skeleton of the George Ohr Gallery at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi began arriving at the construction site Nov. 7. The pods were fabricated in Kansas City, Mo., by A. Zahner, Inc., the primary metal provider for architect Frank Gehry’s designs around the world. The exterior of the Ohr pavilion will be completely installed by Dec. 31. In January, the museum will open bids for general construction of the first phase of rebuilding.
- Also starting soon on the site will be the building of the Pleasant Reed Interpretive Center, a 1,200 square foot replica of the original Pleasant Reed House, built in 1887 by a former slave.
- Details are coming together for the December 1 public celebration of the Raising of the Pods; the event is called “The Dance Begins”, based on Gehry’s famous prediction that he would make the five-building museum design “dance with the trees”. The public event begins at 10 a.m. Speakers include Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway and Harold Closter, Director of the Smithsonian Affiliations program, and Ricky Mathews, publisher of the Sun Herald. Lucimarian Roberts of Biloxi will give the invocation, and the color guard from the 81st Training Wing at Keesler AFB will present the colors. Special guest will be Brian Zamora, architect with Gehry Partners. Additional speakers will be announced soon. Also present will be characters portraying George Ohr and Pleasant Reed. There will be music by the Gulf Coast Youth Symphony Orchestra and dancing as well. Local cuisine including Slavic pusharatas and pastries from the Vietnamese-American Le Bakery—both staples of the highly diverse Point Cadet/East Biloxi neighborhood of which the museum is a part--will be served, along with mulled cider. Potters will perform on stage, and a children’s tent will offer free arts activities. Winners of the Ohr Pod art and poetry competition will be displayed. Admission is free. Parking is at the former Lady Luck parking lot and at the Biloxi Yacht Club.
The December 1 event will mark the halfway point in two months of raising what trustees of the museum dub the Ohr “pods”, subtly turned metal structures that surround what will be four intimate galleries devoted to the pottery of the self-named “Mad Potter of Biloxi”, George E. Ohr (1857-1918). The museum Board of Trustees has contracted directly with A. Zahner Sheet Metal Co. of Kansas City, Missouri, known as a leader in metal fabrication for structures around the world, and particularly for work on Gehry-designed structures from Europe to Asia to Tulsa. The direct contract between Zahner and the trustees for the exterior skeleton of the Ohr gallery coincides with a public bid process for the museum construction project; Zahner’s crew will be at the site by the first week in November, and the aluminum frame for all four Ohr gallery spaces will be complete before Christmas. By late October, the museum trustees will advertise for bids on the entire project; once bids are opened in December, the board will decide how many buildings of the five-structure Gehry-designed campus it can afford to build—using insurance proceeds and grants—in the first phase. Also to be rebuilt will be a replica of the Pleasant Reed House, which was the restored house created by a former slave and now will be named the Pleasant Reed Interpretive Center, for emphasis on a broad range of African American history and culture.
The Ohr pavilion exterior was chosen by the trustees as the first step in rebuilding because the soaring design symbolizes the determined nature of the people of the Gulf Coast, including George Ohr, whose own pottery studio burned down in 1894 in downtown Biloxi. A few days later, Ohr began to rebuild, creating the best works of his career. This concept for rebuilding is called by the museum “Ohr Rising” and has been used in numerous museum programs since the storm, from a school play to educational outreach to a new, national exhibit of Ohr’s pottery curated by Ohr-O’Keefe staff.
The five buildings designed for the campus by Frank Gehry are: the Center for Ceramics, with large pottery studios that will be opened to the public; the Welcome Center, home to a café and bookstore; a contemporary art gallery; the Ohr gallery; and the gallery of African American art.
In July, the museum received a $15 million insurance settlement from Lexington Insurance Co., negotiated by Page Mannino Peresich law firm of Biloxi. As trustees note, the settlement represents the hundreds of donors who made pledges, gave donations of all sizes, and bought bricks in a campaign that continued through the storm. The insurance proceeds are invested in six local banks. Museum staff notes that all records of gifts are intact and all pre-storm donors will be recognized on a plaque in the main Welcome Center at the new campus. Additionally, records are in place for companies, institutions and families who had given funds for naming of some areas of the new museum prior to Katrina. There will be no solid figures for rebuilding until the bids are opened in December; however, the board assumes the campus will now have to be built in phases due to funding needs. The museum has hired a new fundraising counsel, Alexander Haas Martin Inc. of Atlanta, and the firm’s emphasis will be on raising major gifts at the national, rather than local, level. The museum has had a great deal of support for transitional operating monies at the national level since the storm due to the institution’s involvement in programming for diverse groups in the community and its dedication to high quality art programs; funding and other support has been provided, to name only a few, by The Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as well as by many local foundations including the Gulf Coast Community Foundation and the Chisholm Foundation. All gifts, before and after the storm, are kept on a secure database; individuals may check on their donation at any time at 228.374.5547.
The George Ohr Gallery was the final building on the campus that Gehry designed, and it has been variously described in the media over the years as zen-like or as wedges of clay. What the gentle metal twists do emanate is a reflection of the pavilion’s natural setting among the ancient Live oak trees, most of which survived the storm. The forty-foot-high Ohr gallery is divided into four small galleries and a long glass and steel atrium. The gallery building is scheduled to be built in the second phase of the construction plan, pending the outcome of bids and fundraising. The aluminum exterior skeleton, however, sets the tone for the contemporary, airy feel of the entire campus. As the Ohr gallery is eventually completed, it will have two galleries with white walls and two with wood. Entering each room will be not unlike entering a cathedral-like setting, with sunlight streaming down the tall walls from a skylight overhead. On the outside, the aluminum will be covered in a stainless steel skin, brushed an angel hair finish. Bricks purchased by donors will line the floor of the atrium; over $130,000 in bricks for three areas of the campus had been sold before the storm.
The inaugural exhibit of Ohr pottery for the future gallery was designed by the late David Whitney, a revered art curator who had an equal affection for his friends Frank and Berta Gehry, and for the work of Ohr. Whitney once related to museum staff how, in the 1970s, he had introduced his friend Andy Warhol to Ohr pottery. The exhibit curated by Whitney, who was chairman of the museum’s National Council, was completed after his June 2005 death in Biloxi by Whitney’s friend Debby Taylor, Ohr expert Eugene Hecht, Brian Zamora of Gehry Partners and Marjie Gowdy, museum Executive Director. The files for the exhibit, which will feature one hundred Ohr works from local and national collections, are also intact. In conjunction with the inaugural exhibit, an Ohr collector who prefers anonymity and gave through his company, Northcentral University of Arizona, provided a $120,000 grant to the museum for a new book to be written by Eugene Hecht, based on the theme of Ohr as an “American Maverick”, a trailblazer in the field of modern art pottery.
Following Katrina, friends of David Whitney created the David Whitney Building Fund for the George Ohr Gallery. Close to $300,000 for the fund has been raised to date, including challenge gifts of $50,000 each from Ronald Lauder and from Jo Carole Lauder as well as an additional $100,000 capital gift from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The fund will remain open for additional gifts.
The five buildings of the museum campus are to be set on a terrace, under construction before the storm, of over 14 feet above sea level; additionally, the building design has undergone wind tunnel testing. Most of the structure is made of steel and concrete. The buildings were still under construction at the time of the storm with a valid building permit; only one was destroyed—the African American building, on which a barge landed. “The five Ohr Museum buildings, as with any building, will be far less vulnerable once they are complete,” notes Joseph Crain of Guild Hardy Architects, Biloxi, executive architects who coordinate the project with Gehry Partners and the museum. “During construction, buildings tend to be ‘open’; doors and windows are not installed. A hurricane will pressurize the interior of a building in this state, putting extreme pressures behind the exterior wall assembly, rendering it vulnerable to blow-out. This condition is often referred to as a "breech condition". An example of this is when the garage door blows in during a hurricane; the interior becomes instantly pressurized and often roof failure results shortly thereafter, as upward pressure removes the roof deck from below. Also, any small breech in an exterior enclosure during a hurricane will let in a catastrophic amount of water.”
Crain continues: “The Ohr Pods were particularly vulnerable when Katrina struck because they were being erected (three days before the storm) and were standing individually rather than tied together as one composite structure. Had they been all erected and laced together with the structural top skin, it is quite possible they would have withstood even the storm surge. The structures of these buildings (braced heavy steel structure and concrete) are the most effective form of coastal construction. This is reflected in the insurance rates for such structures, which (as the museum has seen) are considerably more favorable than other structural systems.”
All of the Ohr pottery and other museum ceramics collections including those of Joseph Meyer, Ohr’s mentor and father of Newcomb pottery, as well as photographs and archives from the Reed House, remained safe in the storm. Most are in storage at a vault in north Mississippi. A small collection of Ohr pottery is on permanent public display at the Swetman House, a historic house loaned to the museum by the City of Biloxi as a transitional location. A grant from the Getty Foundation is assisting the staff in exploring optional methods of storing the bulk of the pottery north of the coast during August-September of each year, having small, portable exhibits at the new museum in case of pending storms.
The event December 1, called “The Dance Begins”, will be the culmination of two years of work by museum trustees and staff. Chairman of the event is past president Judy Steckler. A breakfast circa 1900 will be served, and dignitaries will speak, including Harold Closter, Director of the Smithsonian Affiliations Program. The museum has been an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution since 2003. There will be an exhibit of winners of a new K-8th grade coast-wide art competition being held by the museum in honor of the raising of the pods. Parking will be off-site at the former Lady Luck parking lot on Highway 90.
