An emergent museum seeks to lure patrons with technological artistry.
Opening at 500 Washington Street, the WNDR museum, pronounced as “wonder,” promises a unique, sensory experience for visitors, with its over 20 art exhibits.
President of WNDR Global Chris Freeman said that, since initiating ticket purchases to the public in early December and all of their neighborhood engagement, he is positively ecstatic about the museum’s opening on February 1.
“A lot of the time people let wonder abate,” Freeman remarked. “We want people to walk out a little different than when they walked in.”
Exhibits
at the WNDR museum will range from a mirrored chamber filled with
hanging silver globes to a room whose walls are lined with notepads,
free for museumgoers to inscribe their innermost thoughts.
Freeman
voiced that the WNDR museum will host the artistic likes of the highly
conceptual Yayoi Kusama, who was previously featured by Boston’s
Institute of Contemporary Art in 2019. “We have some of the most nascent
artists at our museum, like Kusama,” Freeman claimed. “When we’re able
to touch all five senses, that will be a success.”
Despite
its clear appeal to fans of abstract art, Freeman asserted that the
WNDR museum will be a place friendly toward families as well as veterans
and people with disabilities.
General admission prices start at $32.
Active
service members and veterans with ID will have to pay $26, and parents
will have to pay $22 for their children aged 3 to 12. Children under 2
get in for free.
“We really do want to be approachable,” Freeman said.
Freeman,
who is based in Chicago, expressed gratitude for Boston museum scene’s
welcoming attitude considering WNDR’s interloper status.
“The
art community there is so real,” Freeman declared. “It’s such a
privilege to be there.” He added that he doesn’t want WNDR to compete
with the existing art museums in Boston, like the Fenway’s Isabella
Gardner Museum and Museum of Fine Arts or Seaport’s ICA.
Compounding
this sentiment is the WNDR museum’s location, where it will be one of
the only art museums in the Downtown neighborhood, with most Downtown
museums being historical.
“We want to be additive to Boston,” Freeman affirmed. “We’re not out to replace anyone here.”