Dayton:Aspen, Aspen:Dayton?

There's a new museum in Aspen. Yes, that Aspen, the town in Colorado probably better known for skiing than art. More precisely put, there's a new museum building in Aspen, as the original Aspen Art Museum opened in 1979 in the European model of a Kunsthalle. In general, a Kunsthalle does not have a permanent collection. Instead it mounts temporary shows, hosts symposiums and workshops and features artists.

This is a model that works for a lot of cities, as pointed out this past Sunday by Holland Cotter of The New York Times. He notes that Aspen's modestly sized museum has no permanent collection and is a potential working model for a lot of small to medium size cities between the coasts.

According to Mr. Cotter: ...."why settle for being a New York-Los Angeles outpost? Why not take advantage of the excitements that regional consciousness can offer, and by doing so chip away at the tired East Coast-West Coast hegemony?

The Aspen Art Museum’s founders were wise to create a noncollecting, community-serving museum on the classic European kunsthalle model, a model that assures that even residents of small cities have access to art and some say about the choice of it."

A facility like this does not have to buy art or maintain a collection. It can stay fresh in this way and promote talented regional artists. He notes that not every artist is driven to go to the large art centers and that smaller communities also have busy art scenes.

Aspen's new museum has its issues; it is not perfect. But it does offer a model for smaller metros: the idea of incubating spaces with pop-up, local shows that are exciting, thought-provoking, and supported by their communities. There is art excitement in one's hometown, and it's time more people understood that. Dayton, in the artistic sense, could be the next Aspen.

To read Mr. Cotter's full article on the Aspen museum: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/arts/design/a-museum-is-in-aspen-but-not-of-it.html?ref=design