Wall to Wall
Cups of pretzels, beer, and masses of people were staples of the earliest exhibition openings at the MCA's original building.
I remember that our opening nights of exhibitions were cups of pretzels and maybe some beer that got donated. And you would have to buy it for a couple of dollars and people would literally be packed into what we called the Site Café at the time, and it was a little sliver of a café space down in the basement of the building, and then you went upstairs to see the exhibition. And it was like wall-to-wall people. And it felt really good. And oftentimes there were lines just because we didn't have the square footage to put the people that needed, you know, and that wanted to come and see the exhibition.
So that stuck with me. I think that that space at the old location was really unique and held artwork in a much different way than our current galleries do—a little quirkier, a little bit more eccentric, and it worked. But there was nothing like when we opened this building and the artwork got its kind of right place.