Art Takes Center Stage

Lisa Tamiris Becker’s name will be immortalized in the new Visual Arts Complex at the University of Colorado.

The advisory board to the CU Art Museum has raised funds to name a space in the new arts complex after Becker, director of the CU Art Museum. Naming a space in the museum was a way to say “thanks” to the energetic and creative leader. Becker hopes other groups will, similarly, support the Visual Arts Complex and simultaneously honor and immortalize someone they admire.

Becker is “greatly honored” and dubs the gesture “very wonderful.” She adds, “I am pleased with honor and the tremendous opportunity to place the arts in a significant and central role on the CU campus”

Becker notes that at a typical major university, the museum and art department are consigned to the edge of campus, not situated at an institution’s thrumming heart.

Though CU’s art museum was central on campus, it lacked prominence, notes Linda Bailey, vice chair of the CU Art Museum board. “It didn’t have any presence, because nobody knew it was there,” she says. The museum itself had little space and was “almost hidden away” inside the old facility.”

At CU, fine arts have had a central place but marginal facilities. The Sibell Wolle Fine Arts Building, which was demolished last year, was built as engineering shops in 1918. Later, it was converted into the fine-arts building.

Sibell Wolle was adjacent to the University Memorial Center and thus on prime campus turf. But the facility was too small. And, as campus planners noted, it had significant health and life-safety deficiencies.

The building produced tons of toxic, flammable or corrosive waste annually, and there were inadequate, overburdened systems of ventilation, plumbing, hazardous-wastes disposal and electrical supply.

Replacing the old facility, which looked uninviting and flouted the campus architectural scheme, was a no-brainer.

The $63.5 million Visual Arts Complex aims to replace the shabby old quarters with a state-of-the-art facility that will house the museum and the Department of Art and Art History.

The 170,000-square-foot complex will be the premier visual-arts building in the CU system and the “cultural gateway” for the Boulder campus, officials say. It will also attract visitors from around the metro area, they believe.

The complex is not one building but two. On the west will be the four-story Art and Art History Department (with 900 majors, one of the largest in the nation). On the east will be the museum, a smaller facility (at 25,000 square feet) with 9,000 square feet of exhibition space.

Becker notes that the new museum will have its first permanent-collection galleries plus two changing galleries. It will also have areas for proper storage of art and facilities for the study of individual works of art.

Though the two buildings are separate (emphasizing the distinction between the museum and the art department), they are also connected by a third-floor walkway and underground hallway. Though distinct, they are complementary. So, as a recent headline quipped, “two arts beat as one.

The museum board is not the only generous contributor to the VAC. Sue Eastman and husband Bob Eastman, a member of the CU Foundation Board of Trustees, have made a donation to name a space after Garrison Roots, chairman of the Department of Art and Art History.

The late Antonette “Toni” Rosato, an associate professor of sculpture in the department of art and art history and a director of Arts Bridge at CU, is being similarly honored. Friends, family and supporters are raising funds to name a space after her.

Students, meanwhile, are relatively unsung heroes in the VAC story. In 2005, students voted to assess themselves a fee for construction projects that were not funded by the state. Thanks to their foresight, student fees have helped erect critically needed new buildings: for law, business, and the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society Institute.

Now, student fees will subsidize about $27 million of the VAC. Another $9.5 million comes from CU funding, and $17 million is from state appropriations. For a $10 million gift, the center itself would bear the name of the donor.

But naming rights come at several price points, from $15,000 for a graduate studio, an Advanced Studio Classroom for $250,000, a CU Art Museum Gallery at $1.5 million and many points between and beyond. Becker, Bailey and others hope others pursue such opportunities.

What’s in a name? In the case of the VAC, it is tangible, visible and lasting support of the arts.

For more information and to get involved, please contact Micah Abram, director of development, CU Foundation, at 303-541-1465, or via e-mail at micah.abram@cufund.org.