Artist, Curator, Collector: James McNeill Whistler,
Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner-
Three Locations in the Creative Process.
A Centennial Project by Joseph Kosuth

January 24 - April 6, 2003
Joseph Kosuth is widely regarded as a pioneer of the "conceptual art" movement which emerged in the 1960s as a sustained questioning of art-world orthodoxies, especially those supporting the authority of the art object over the idea of the artwork.

Marking the launch of the Centennial, Joseph Kosuth's exhibition presented a series of new installation works, including a textual neon work installed along the Museum's outer wall. Kosuth's works come in response to the Museum's collection and archives and to the material he found there.

more information ...

The Making of the Museum:
Isabella Stewart Gardner as Collector, Architect and Designer

April 23-August 24, 2003
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum opened to the public 100 years ago, but the story of its creation begins much earlier. Many of Isabella Stewart Gardner's interests played a critical role in the conception of her museum: travel, music, literature, religion, gardening, and perhaps most of all, her friendships with artists, writers, and thinkers.

Her collection of both experiences and art objects manifests itself today in the museum she created. Mrs. Gardner saw Fenway Court (as she called the museum) as a place for the "education and enjoyment of the public forever." This exhibition charts that vision.

continue...

madamimadam
a virtural exhibiton by Elaine Reichek

April 26-May 10, 2003
Conceptual artist Elaine Reichek came to the Museum as an Artist-in-Residence in February 2001. She used her residency to research and develop a group of sixteen samplers based on creation myths, in particular the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

In December 2002 Reichek returned to the Museum to prepare madamimadam. Working when the galleries were closed to the public, Reichek briefly installed her samplers among the works in the Gardner's permanent collection. madamimadam comprises a group of images of this temporary installation that can only be seen on the Web.

continue...

Raphael, Cellini, and a Renaissance Banker:
The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti

October 8, 2003–January 11, 2004
One of the most powerful bankers of the Renaissance, Bindo Altoviti developed close ties with artists in Rome and Florence. Raphael and Cellini made dynamic, and very different portraits of Altoviti, and these two works (from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Gardner Museum) will be brought together for the first time in more than two hundred years. Works of art borrowed from collections in Europe and the United States, give a full picture of the banker’s collection and raise issues around how a banker could become a patron during the High Renaissance, a period of almost overwhelming richness in the arts.

more information...