Gallery One at the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Collection Wall in Gallery One, Cleveland Museum of Art. © Cleveland Museum of Art.

In January 2013, the Cleveland Museum of Art unveiled Gallery One, a unique and state-of-the-art space dedicated to interpreting the Museum’s permanent collection through hands-on and technology-based interactives. While the scope and sophistication of the digital technology is remarkable – the gallery currently features the largest multi-touch micro tile screen in the United States – the success of the gallery lies in how these technologies have fostered new ways for visitors to engage with the collection and with each other.

Located next to the North Lobby at the Museum’s main entrance, Gallery One was conceived from the beginning as an interactive gallery that would attract visitors who might not feel comfortable in a traditional art gallery environment. According to Director of Interpretation and Education Caroline Goeser, the museum “wanted to dispel the myth that people have, that they don’t know enough to go into an art gallery and get something out of it.”

Gallery One features a number of installations of art, including masterpieces by Picasso and Rodin. Rather than by time period or geography, works that span across the collection are grouped thematically to explore subjects like the human figure in sculpture, or globalism in the history of art. These contextual displays unify disparate works to allow visitors to explore broader ideas about the universality of art concepts and practice.

One of the central features of the gallery is the Collection Wall, a 40-footwide multi-touch screen which displays images of over 3,500 objects from the Museum’s collection. A kind of digital visible storage, visitors are welcome to explore the collection, choose objects that they find visually striking and discover new works and new meanings.

Technology in this gallery is not used just as a content delivery system but as an opportunity for social and kinesthetic experiences. One technology piece called “Strike a Pose” allows visitors to explore sculptures of the human figure from ancient Greece through to the present. Visitors become engaged with the sculptural works by being asked to take a similar pose – the software then measures the accuracy of their pose with respect to the artwork.

Developed in close collaboration between museum educators, curators, designers, members of the exhibition management team and media design firm Local Projects, Gallery One is an example where technology isn’t just used for its own sake but instead to foster new ways for visitors to engage with art in different and unexpected ways.

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