Calder Gardens appoints curatorial leader and sets September opening

Calder Gardens, a cultural project in Philadelphia that has seen few new major arts venues these days, is moving closer to fruition this week with the announcement of a planned September opening and central hiring.

Juana Berio, currently curator and sustainability advisor for the Whitney Museum's Independent Research Program, has been named senior director of the $58 million exhibition spaces and gardens program. Separately, a $30 million donation is planned for Calder Gardens.

Alexander Calder (1898-1976), a native of Philadelphia, became one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century, known for his bent wire works, quietly spinning mobiles, and sturdy stables.

A native of Bogotá, Colombia, who immigrated to the United States in 2006, Berio has also worked at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She said the founder's concept of the institution as something other than a museum attracted her to the role.

“I'm very interested in experimentation,” Berio said in an interview. “My guiding principle in thinking is: What are our needs today? Technology is playing a huge role and our lives are more distracted than ever. This project will help foster self-reflection and contemplation.”

Berio added that Calder's kinetic mobiles, which move with the wind, evoke “the concept of impermanence.”

Calder Gardens on Benjamin Franklin Parkway features 18,000 square feet of exhibition space and a Dutch landscape in a building designed by Jacques Herzog, founder of the Pritzker Prize-winning architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron. There is a vast garden designed by designer Piet Odolf. Known for his work on the High Line.

Although Calder Gardens is an independent institution, it receives support for management, operations, and educational programs from the neighboring Barnes Foundation.

Alexander S.C. Lower, chairman of the Calder Foundation and the artist's grandson, said in an interview that many of the people who applied for Berio's job “were lackluster and thought it was going to be a museum.” . (A feature that makes it not a museum is that there are no labels on the walls.)

Lower added that Berio's experience working with contemporary artists is significant because Calder's work has a visionary dynamism. The artist even had his own version of performance art.

Mr. Lower said that in his Paris studio in the 1920s, his grandfather would manipulate his sculptures while putting on a miniature, multi-act circus, the Cirque Calder.

Lower, who is also chair of the Calder Garden Curatorial Committee, said the garden will focus on displaying Calder's work, both from the foundation's extensive holdings and from loans from other sources. However, he added that in the future there may be “invited interventions” into works by other artists, and Berio will play a role in curating them.

First, the building must be completed.

“All the heavy construction has been completed,” Lower said. “I would like to take my time with the installation and first experience the building without art.”