Our visit to the Cincinnati Art Museum a couple weekends ago was to see the Yayoi Kusama pumpkins exhibit. It was a timed exhibit. We were allowed to view the pumpkins for 90 seconds and then leave in order for the next two people to have their turn.
We then strolled through the museum marveling first at the Great Hall and Main Lobby with its sweeping staircase and then to the Cincinnati Wing, which has the nation's first permanent museum display dedicated exclusively to the artistic heritage of a single American city. This wing features Cincinnati artists and the famous Rookwood pottery collection. We spent a lot of time here because of our familiarity of the area and its history. We then walked through the Near East and Ancient Art collections with wonder and awe of the age of the pieces in this gallery. There’s something humbling about standing in front of an object that has survived for centuries, or even millennia.
We ended our visit in the Special Exhibition/Feature Spaces that is a rotating gallery. This work, Untitled (Fondly, to Helen), by Dan Flavin caught my eye because it's a bright fluorescent light tucked into a corner where two walls meet the floor. What the heck is a fluorescent light doing in a museum instead of an office or a basement or a classroom? For me it was difficult to get past its everyday function and see it as art. But perhaps that’s the point. Flavin is teaching us that no object is inherently mundane and boring. It just waits for a visionary person to see it in a new way and then share it.
So...any visionaries out there?
Sometimes we need the artist to give us a hint, to tell us what it represents. The yellow of the sun, the green of the meadow, the cold blue of the office light. I hated the overhead fluorescent lights in my office, I brought in lamps - went out and bought additional ones, and the first thing I did when I entered the office was turn off the overhead lights.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking along the same lines as you - the dark night, the yellow sun, the green grass and then the dirt beneath. I agree with you. Fluorescent lighting is too harsh for a work environment.
DeleteYou probably know that I love art in all shapes and forms but I will say I do struggle with things like this. However, your photos of this piece are very artistic indeed. You have brought the beauty out of this simple installation.
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