When the River Cities' Reader profiled Figge Art Museum Executive Director Sean O'Harrow in March 2008, he was, by virtue of having just seven months on the job, mostly talk. There wasn't much of a track record to cite, but he spoke with passion about enhancing the Figge's educational and community missions.
Ten months later, O'Harrow seems poised to deliver on many of his promises.
For example, a March exhibit of Michaelangelo sculptures will be the first time those have been seen outside of Florence, Italy, O'Harrow said.
More importantly, those Michaelangelo sculptures - newly cast in bronze from the fragile originals, which were scanned with a laser - can be touched, and O'Harrow is working to bring in sight-impaired people to feel them.
"Art museums normally ignore these communities," O'Harrow said in an interview Monday. "My view is: Bring everyone in sometime, somehow, for some reason. ...
"I'm really keen to have people experience things in different ways," he added. "No one living has ever been able to touch a Michaelangelo work."
The announcement on Friday that the Figge would be housing most of the University of Iowa Museum of Art collection (nearly all of which is being stored in Chicago following the summer flood in Iowa City) was further confirmation that O'Harrow is serious about education.
