Wonder World was packed with people at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Friday.
Monday is the final day to visit the inaugural exhibition at the Bentonville museum, so visitors have one more weekend to take a look.
Executive Director Don Bacigalupi says the collection was designed to make contemporary art more approachable.
"It may be challenging , it may be quizzical, it may actually make you think a little bit, but it really is fun, it's engaging," he says. "I think it was an enormous success. We had 225,000 visitors and I think, for all of those folks it was a way to understand contemporary art."
The gallery space is filled with works created from a variety of mediums, from silk flowers, to puzzle pieces, to a pen drawing of a bear, which upon closer inspection, is actually made up of thousands of words.
"That is amazing," says Lynette Ames says, peering at the picture. Ames says she wasn't a big fan of contemporary art, until walking in to Wonder World.
"I didn't know what to expect when I walked in," she says. "But I think it's beautiful. I think the pieces that were selected for this particular special exhibit are extraordinary."
This weekend is the last chance for visitors to see the pieces together in one space, but Bacigalupi says each piece is owned by the museum, so they won't be gone for good.
"You'll see some of the familiar works from the collection popping up in the collection galleries over time," he says. "There are a lot of folks who have already become devoted to specific works in the show and we want to make sure that they get to see them again."
A new exhibition, The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision will open May 5. The museum's first traveling exhibition will feature 45 landscapes on loan from the New York Historical Society.
Monday is the final day to visit the inaugural exhibition at the Bentonville museum, so visitors have one more weekend to take a look.
Executive Director Don Bacigalupi says the collection was designed to make contemporary art more approachable.
"It may be challenging , it may be quizzical, it may actually make you think a little bit, but it really is fun, it's engaging," he says. "I think it was an enormous success. We had 225,000 visitors and I think, for all of those folks it was a way to understand contemporary art."
The gallery space is filled with works created from a variety of mediums, from silk flowers, to puzzle pieces, to a pen drawing of a bear, which upon closer inspection, is actually made up of thousands of words.
"That is amazing," says Lynette Ames says, peering at the picture. Ames says she wasn't a big fan of contemporary art, until walking in to Wonder World.
"I didn't know what to expect when I walked in," she says. "But I think it's beautiful. I think the pieces that were selected for this particular special exhibit are extraordinary."
This weekend is the last chance for visitors to see the pieces together in one space, but Bacigalupi says each piece is owned by the museum, so they won't be gone for good.
"You'll see some of the familiar works from the collection popping up in the collection galleries over time," he says. "There are a lot of folks who have already become devoted to specific works in the show and we want to make sure that they get to see them again."
A new exhibition, The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision will open May 5. The museum's first traveling exhibition will feature 45 landscapes on loan from the New York Historical Society.
