A lovely day to go to the museum in Chicago. That used to mean a few hours at the Art Institute; now it means an intense hour at the Museum of Contemporary Art up on E. Chicago. Splendid today. First, we joined; it turns out to be cheaper for me to get an out-of-town membership than to buy entries for Kirstin and Paula. Then 4 great pieces outside on and around the steps by Mark Handforth; sculptures reminiscent of Claes van Oldenburg, including a work based on Cockney slang, "Phone/Bone." Inside, a large exhibition of works by Mark Bradford, an African-American "painter" who creates his canvasses without paint, using paper which he sands and processes to resemble a painted surface. A lot of the art is political in nature, which I don't so much care for, but so many of the works themselves are simply beautiful; his aesthetic is just fabulous, and the execution outstanding.
Then after seeing an absurd, self-important performance art/interactive installation based on deconstructing (literally) jeans to address the social issues around making them, we went up to the 4th floor for the exhibition drawn from the Museum's collection based around pieces by Joseph Cornell, whose work I know well from the Walker in Minneapolis. So many great pieces by so many "old friends," LeWitt, George Segal, Judd, even Magritte, Duchamp, Marisol, Koons, Sherman, Rauschenberg, Warhol, many, many more. Each room was devoted to a different aspect of Cornell's work. Extremely satisfying.
You must see new art, see how people view the recent world. Try not to criticize; accept what you see and open your mind to the possibilities of "expanded vision" (one of my definitions of art - "the manifestation of expanded vision"). Particularly the Americans over the past 60 years; this is something very important, the strongest period of American art, apart from the brilliance of Sargent, Homer and Whistler. Dive head first into this, well worth it, the abstract expressionists, the conceptualists, the pops. So much good stuff.
Back to Prokofiev; an incongruous but necessary segue.
MG
Then after seeing an absurd, self-important performance art/interactive installation based on deconstructing (literally) jeans to address the social issues around making them, we went up to the 4th floor for the exhibition drawn from the Museum's collection based around pieces by Joseph Cornell, whose work I know well from the Walker in Minneapolis. So many great pieces by so many "old friends," LeWitt, George Segal, Judd, even Magritte, Duchamp, Marisol, Koons, Sherman, Rauschenberg, Warhol, many, many more. Each room was devoted to a different aspect of Cornell's work. Extremely satisfying.
You must see new art, see how people view the recent world. Try not to criticize; accept what you see and open your mind to the possibilities of "expanded vision" (one of my definitions of art - "the manifestation of expanded vision"). Particularly the Americans over the past 60 years; this is something very important, the strongest period of American art, apart from the brilliance of Sargent, Homer and Whistler. Dive head first into this, well worth it, the abstract expressionists, the conceptualists, the pops. So much good stuff.
Back to Prokofiev; an incongruous but necessary segue.
MG
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