Contemporary Art in Charlotte
Sol LeWitt. American. 1928–2007. Wall Drawing 995: Color geometric form (outline). 2001. Acrylic paint on wall. One is constantly reminded as one walks through the Bechtler galleries that the process of collecting was intensely meaningful to the family due to the friendships and collaborations they maintained with the artists whom they collected. Perhaps the smallest piece in the collection reveals this most intensely, a tiny bronze head study by Alberto Giacometti. The piece is only about two inches tall, and Andreas Bechtler often carried it in his pocket like a talisman, before surrendering it to the museum’s collection. The Bechtlers were close to Alberto Giacometti and also to his brothers Diego, whose decorative arts and furniture filled the Bechtlers’ Zurich home, and Bruno, who designed a home for the family in St. Moritz.
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Given his family history and the exposure he has had to art, it is little wonder that Andreas Bechtler is an artist himself and recently had a well-received opening of his work at the Projective Eye Gallery.
McColl Center
At the opposite end of downtown from the Mint and the Bechtler sits the McColl Center for Visual Art, which is a preeminent artist-in-residence program seeking to “demystify the creative process, which makes contemporary art more accessible and raises the perception of the value of artists to society.” The setting for the Center is a gothicrevival church built in the 1920s. The church thrived for decades and then fell victim, like the rest of Charlotte’s downtown, to the death knell of