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John Wieland and his late spouse, Sue, didn’t plan to change into artwork collectors. When the couple started buying artworks practically fifty years in the past, they didn’t even consider it as amassing—they have been motivated by easy necessity. “We had a home, and we would have liked some artwork on the partitions,” Wieland tells Observer. However what started casually grew into a set of greater than 400 works that as we speak serves as a cultural magnet within the Southeast.
Wieland constructed his profession as a housing developer, finally founding a agency, John Wieland Houses and Neighborhoods. He achieved nice success, and that success continues to form his way of living as we speak. Though the couple’s first purchases have been useful—a strategy to fill empty partitions—John and Sue quickly felt the necessity for a tenet, one thing past instant attraction. Given his profession and their curiosity within the idea of home life, the selection appeared apparent: their assortment would deal with artwork about home and residential.
“Virtually all of us are lucky sufficient to stay in a house,” Wieland explains, which makes the theme practically common in its enchantment. Within the early days of the couple’s amassing journey, their interpretation was literal. “If we noticed a murals, it could must have a reasonably good-sized home proper within the center to qualify.” Over time, although, the scope expanded, they usually “broadened it out in order that it may be consultant of what occurs at house or a portion of the home.” This evolution led to acquisitions like a mid-sized portray by Haley Barker of a Christmas tree. “You consider the vacation and religion, and naturally, the Christmas tree is a part of it.”
From there, they established one of many assortment’s central tenets: discovery. In line with Wieland, the gathering is supposed to be “a brand new method of artwork for the individuals who go to”—an ethos that may come to form the founding of The Warehouse, the up to date artwork establishment that now homes the Wielands’ assortment. The 37,000-square-foot warehouse on Atlanta’s west facet was renovated to accommodate the rising holdings and opened in 2010. Since then, The Warehouse has served not solely as a sensible resolution but additionally as a charitable strategy to share artwork and, as Wieland says, “complement the museum expertise.”
The Warehouse has its personal management: director Philip Verre and curator Jack Wieland, who handle and interpret the gathering past its ties to the household. The Wieland assortment continues to develop, and since its opening, Wieland says that guests are persistently shocked by what they encounter inside its partitions—few count on such breadth from a set devoted to deal with and residential. Whereas every particular person takes away one thing completely different, one piece that stands out is Blue Hallway (2000) by James Casebere. The {photograph} reveals an inside hallway practically submerged in water, with solely the tops of doorways and partitions seen above the darkish liquid. From the right-hand facet, a highlight cuts into the gloom, illuminating the sting of a doorway. Within the dimness, the beam feels as vibrant because the solar. The work captures the complexity of the gathering’s themes: the centrality of house, the sense of the sudden—the place does the sunshine originate?—and the promise of discovery—what lies beneath the water?
A go to to The Warehouse is eye-opening, and there’s a lot we will nonetheless study from the Wielands and their imaginative and prescient. However above all, one reality stays: artwork feels most alive when seen inside a house.
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