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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. Free Museum entry alert, courtesy of The Frick Collection, which is temporarily calling home the Breuer building at Madison and 75th. This week, The Frick announced that kids from 10 to 17 can come see the collection for free from now until the museum heads back to its original home on East 70th Street, which is getting a major overhaul. What challenges and opportunities did it present to rethink a collection for a new space? Let's ask Frick Collection curator, Aimee Ng. Aimee, welcome.

Aimee Ng: Thank you, Alison. You have a lot of fans at The Frick.

Alison: That's so nice to hear. I'm going to ask a super basic question that someone might be afraid to ask, but that's part of my job. What is the origin of The Frick Collection?

Aimee: It is the private collection of the industrialist, Henry Clay Frick. It is a collection that lives in his home, his family home that he always was intending to leave to the public as a museum.

Alison: The collection is moved because of this huge renovation of the original space. What renovation are we talking about?

Aimee: It's not a huge renovation, it's not an enhancement project. This is a landmark building. We want to keep a sense of the house, so you feel like you are still going into The Frick House. We are opening up things like the second floor was always off limits, up the grand staircase. Nobody could ever go up. Now, those old bedrooms, the historic bedrooms are going to be gallery spaces for smaller-scale objects, and people are going to be able to go up those stairs like The Frick family did in 1915.

Alison: That's exciting. I think that's huge to get to go to the second level.

Aimee: Yes.

Alison: Take us into the planning and the strategy to move a collection to a very different space because the Met Breuer is modernist and brutalist and obviously the family home is a gorgeous Gilded Age home.

Aimee: What we wanted to make sure was that we weren't going to miss this opportunity. Without exaggeration, this is the most exciting moment in The Frick's almost 90-year history, moving the entire collection out of its original setting of this Gilded Age mansion, very refined, a little intimidating to newcomers, to a totally modernist, brutalist building. What we didn't want to do was recreate The Frick at the Breuer building. We wanted to give that sense to a totally different look. It did take a lot of research trips and what relationships can Modernism and Renaissance Italian paintings have. It really was operating under the philosophy that how you experience a single work of art can totally change depending on how, where the setting in which you see it. We really took that to heart. We wanted to take one important thing from The Frick. When you go to The Frick, it is an intimate experience. You have a direct access to works of art, no glass on paintings, no vitrines, no stanchions, nothing. You feel like you're there. We wanted to bring that also to Frick Madison. That's what you get. You get a very direct experience of works of art.

Alison: My guest is Aimee Ng curator at The Frick Collection. We are talking about its temporary home at Frick Madison at Madison ind 75th Street. About some of the opportunities and challenges of moving a collection. All right. One of my producers just wants to know, how? How do you move the arts?

Aimee: One by one, very carefully.

[laughter]

Yes. As you can imagine, the moving of the collection, it was a very long process. Because it really is a one-by-one thing. Things that haven't moved for 100 years or so are pretty fragile. You have to make sure that they have the right crates, cushioning, and protection and the right people who know how to move them. Even though it was only five blocks away, this is a major ordeal.

Alison: I actually can't imagine. It sounds enormous. What's something that we might see at Frick Madison that will really feel different or is truly different than it was at the original home?

Aimee: I'll give you the example of one of our prize paintings is a painting by Giovanni Bellini. It's been called The Most Beautiful painting in America. It's certainly one of the most important Italian Renaissance paintings in America, Bellini's St. Francis. Normally in the house, it's in what's called the Living Hall, surrounded by Titians across from Holbein with a couch and tables and porcelain and curtains, et cetera. We built its own little chapel in Frick Madison, and it faces only one thing, a window out onto 75th Street. It communes with its natural light. This has been one of the most I think compelling examples of how you see a work of art can really change the way you experience the same object. For example, the late Peter Shel Hall, who had written about The Frick and written about Bellini for decades with the New Yorker, he came to visit when we first opened up Frick Madison. He sat in front of that Bellini for half an hour-

Alison: Wow.

Aimee: -and said, I have seen things in this painting here that I never noticed for the last 30 years, back in the house. That's the kind of thing we're talking about. We just give each object a different way of being seen and a lot of space around it so that it can just have its own moment.

Alison: I just had this moment of thinking that could apply to our lives.

Aimee: Absolutely.

Alison: Put yourself in a different situation. Put someone else in a different situation and see how you experience it.

Aimee: Absolutely. Honestly, as a staff member, I feel different in this building as well. Curating and the way I talk about art, the way I interact with the public is different in the Breuer building. I think it's a really great shakeup thinking about the future of The Frick when we move back to the mansion, to the historic home, that it's not a step to the past, but a step to the future having learned something in this space.

Alison: I guess Aimee Ng, she's the curator of The Frick Collection, which is now at Madison and 75th. I understand that the-- Is it the clocks are having a moment at Frick Madison?

Aimee: The clocks are having a moment. Yes, there are certainly a display of clocks that aren't normally seen, and we have a special exhibition on celebrating a gift from the Alexis Gregory collection that includes, it's a bit of a [unintelligible 00:06:39] cabinet of curiosities. Among them are two pretty amazing clocks. One in the shape, it's a gold Rhinosoros surrounded by jewels and pearls. They definitely need to be experienced in person. I can't really describe it because it sounds a little crazy.

Alison: Yes. For people who don't know, it's not just a collection of paintings. There are all sorts of interesting objects. Would you share a few of the greatest hits?

Aimee: Sure. In addition to the Rembrandt and the Titians, and the Vermeers, we also have a great collection of sculptures. Renaissance sculpture, Verrocchio all the way to the 18th century as well, Houdon. The decorative arts is a really big part of this collection that often goes under unnoticed, I think, in the house because it feels like part of the decoration, and especially these objects like clocks, like carpets, like vases, like furniture that suddenly in Frick Madison have a life of their own and become art objects and not just supporting players to the paintings and sculptures.

Alison: Oh, that's so interesting, that idea that if they're in this concrete building and not up against something else of the period, they actually really stand out. You actually can see them in a different way.

Aimee: Absolutely. Right. Sèvres porcelain made in the 18th century in France, so delicate, so shiny, so fragile up against concrete grids. Materially, it's a very different experience.

Alison: I mentioned at the top of the segment that this policy, which I thought was so interesting, I follow you all on Instagram. I thought, oh, that's really interesting that they're going to have kids come in between 10 and 17 for free. Tell us a little bit about what went into that decision.

Aimee: Well, we've always loved engaging with youth from ages 10 to 17 through school programs. We wanted them to be able to come in beyond those school programs with their families. Part of it is a lot of us who've been at The Frick for a while have heard from a lot of people, "I remember my first visit to The Frick, my mom took me and I just couldn't believe, I saw this Rembrandt." It's those initial formative experiences that are total, you don't have to know anything about Rembrandt to have some visual response to his painting. Well, we didn't want to limit that to only people whose moms could take them and pay for their ticket to The Frick. We wanted that to be an experience that not just local New York City kids, but any kids from around the world, from 10 to 17 can come in and feel like they are welcome and they have a place to have those experiences.

Alison: It's my understanding that kids under 10 while we love them because everything is so accessible, probably you've made the decision that that's not the time to try out your kids' willpower.

[laughter]

Aimee: That has been a long-standing regulation. We have a waiver from the city and that is simply because of the safety of the objects. We do have porcelain set out on tables that if you do knock into them, they will fall over and break. Because we want to preserve that sense of the house and the intimacy and the directness without stanchions and barriers and bars, it does mean that kids can celebrate their 10th birthday at The Frick.

Alison: What are some programs you're excited about?

Aimee: I'm really looking forward to my next exhibition, which is something that has really come out of being in this new place. In the fall, I'm opening an exhibition co-curating it with consultant curator, Antwaun Sargent on the Art of Barkley Hendricks. Barkley Hendricks, for those people who don't know, was the first really Black American artist who took old master paintings, European style and painted his contemporary black contemporaries friends, strangers, family. This was in the '60s, The Frick was his favorite museum and this is the place to do it.

Alison: Antwaun has been a guest on this show, but if you would share a little bit more about Antwaun and his role as a co-curator.

Aimee: Yes. We were chatting one day about programs at The Frick, I was introduced to him and he suggested Barkley to me. He said it in a way that was, "When we're thinking of contemporary artists at The Frick, we can't just put anybody there." This is just a social conversation. Who would Frick have collected if he was collecting now? That was the idea. Barkley's paintings are so refined, so smart. They're so grand in their manner and in their skill that it does seem to be the kind of paintings that Frick if he were collecting now contemporary art, he would go for it.

Alison: I know you've been asked us a ton of times, but I'm going to ask it out of journalistic integrity. When do we think that the original Frick will reopen?

Aimee: We have about another year at Frick Madison, which I think for those who are just coming out to travel and we had a lot of international people say, "I wanted to catch it before you go back." We have about a year, but remember how long it takes to move a collection. [chuckles]

Alison: Case in point. Aimee Ng is a curator at The Frick Collection, currently at the Breuer at Madison and 75th. If you've seen The Frick in its original home, as Aimee has explained, it's a different experience seeing it in this new space. You might want to check it out. Also, just for folks who are on a budget, you have pay-what-you-wish nights.

Aimee: We sure do. Thursdays from 4:00 to 6:00 are pay-what-you-wish.

Alison: Aimee, thank you so much for being with us today.

Aimee: Thank you, Alison.

Alison: This is All Of It.

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