The Crow Museum of Asian Art is sharing a sneak peek at a second location currently being built on the campus of The University of Texas at Dallas.

Called Cast: Molding a New Museum for UT Dallas, the exhibition will run November 3 to March 5, 2023, at the Crow Museum in the Dallas Arts District at 2010 Flora St.

The new museum spinoff will be part of the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum, a 12-acre cultural district on the UT Dallas Campus that will eventually house two art museums and a performance hall. The museum's groundbreaking was in May.

According to a release, Cast: Molding a New Museum for UT Dallas will feature:

• 3D models of the new museum structure
• renderings that show the design process
• introductions of the designers, architects, planners and leadership
• selections of works of art from the Crow Museum of Asian Art
• works from the Stevens, Beockman, and Horchow collections that have been gifted to The University of Texas at Dallas.

I mean, come on, 3D models, gotta see that.

The exhibition will also provide a behind-the-scenes look into the ideation and planning process for the Crow Museum, including writing and design by the late Dr. Richard C. Brettell, who initiated plans for the Athenaeum and was involved in the selection of Morphosis, the architectural firm doing the design.

The exhibition was co-created by the Crow Museum and Morphosis to show how ideas become spaces for engagement and learning. The curator is Amy Hofland, senior director of the Crow Museum.

“We are forging the northern expansion of the Crow Museum of Asian Art within the greater concept of the Athenaeum – one museum, two locations,” Hofland says in a statement. “This growth for the Crow Museum will allow us to be more accessible and relevant to the campus, which boasts a significant Asian American student population, but also the growingly diverse communities within the North Texas region.”

The Athenaeum complex
The Athenaeum began to take shape in 2019 when the Trammell and Margaret Crow family donated the entire collection of the Trammell and Margaret Crow Museum of Asian Art, together with $25.45 million of support funding for a new museum on the UT Dallas campus.

The project is supported by a $32 million gift from the O’Donnell Foundation, the single largest monetary gift from one of UT Dallas' most significant donors.

The complex will include three new buildings – the Crow Museum of Asian Art, a performance hall, and a planned museum for the traditional arts of the Americas.

In addition to the Crow Collection, the University has received gifts of three collections of Latin American folk art: the Roger Horchow Collection, the Laura and Dan Boeckman Collection of Latin American Folk Art, and the Bryan J. Stevens Collection of Masks of the Sierra de Puebla. These three will form the basis of the second museum, focused on the University’s growing collection of Mexican art and folk art of the Americas.

Phase I includes the Crow Museum, and is projected to debut spring 2024. The downtown location will remain open and continue to present a full exhibition and program calendar.

The Crow Museum’s collection demonstrates the diversity of Asian art, with more than 1,000 works from Cambodia, China (including Tibet), India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam, spanning from the ancient to the contemporary, as well as a library of more than 12,000 books, catalogs, and journals.