The Glass Labyrinth

Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has a single path to the center, after which you turn around and follow it back out.  It is meant to be a slow meditative journey.  Robert Morris has constructed  a labyrinth of glass on the grounds of the Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City, MO. 

I entered the labyrinth close to twilight, there was no one else around.  I walked intentionally, searching for calm.  After a few steps, I saw the imprint of a face on the glass directly in front of me.  After that, I walked with a hand extended.  I quickly learned to look for the edges of plate glass, (the height was over my head);  but the sense of uneasiness began to build.  I think the fact that I can see through the walls adds to the tension.  I walk, and I turn, and I reach dead ends, but they are not dead, I am following a path.  By the time I reach the center of the labyrinth, I actually have reached a dead end.  The panic starts to rise in my throat.  "Oh my god, I am trapped in a glass box in Kansas City!  I am trapped here forever. The death of a mime is mine!!!!!"

Okay.

But then I realize, I just need to turn around and follow the path out. Breathe, Breathe, Breathe.  I resisted the urge to walk quickly or run, because that ends in a face print on the wall.  After a few more turns in the path, a man and a woman entered the maze and smiled at me.  "Don't worry. your almost out,"  they said through the glass.  What did they know?  But I was friendly and chatted with them as we passed each other.  With my hand on the wall, I finally made it back out .  I don't know if I have ever had a sculpture unsettle me so much.  The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC has a strong emotional effect, but this was unnerving.  

Breathing deeply, I was so relieved to be out.  As I walked down the brick path running through the fresh spring grass, I began to relax.  I glanced back over my shoulder at the maze just in time to see the man bouncing off the wall with an audible "SMACK'.

I'm glad I got out of there without a bloody nose.

Fastest American You Don't Know

 Tommie Smith won a Gold medal for sprinting in the 1968 Olympics.  But what he is famous for is raising his fist on the Medal Podium in Mexico City.  The gesture was meant to show solidarity with  the Civil Rights Struggle as well as to protest human rights abuses around the world.  

But the press painted him as a radical black panther ungrateful to his country.  There was no Wheaties Box portrait for Tommie Smith.  There was no career as a commentator on Wide World of Sports.  

Almost 50 years later when artist Glenn Kaino met him, he felt that Tommie was stuck in that bubble of controversy from 1968.  Kaino spent several years collaborating with him on art projects: photographs were altered, sculpture was cast, prints were made.  

The resulting work is this exhibit at the High Museum With Drawn Arms.  The Healing power of art on display.

  

Is it art or is it fashion?

On a visit to the High museum of Art in Atlanta we pondered several questions. Approaching the museum there were pieces of sod patching in circular shapes.

We puzzled, was it an art installation or just repairs to the grass?

We moved on to the first exhibit, the work of Iris Van Herpen. She is an avant garde designer who works with traditional and non-traditional materials.

We were amazed and impressed with her work. Is it art? Yes. She shows vision, persistence and massive creativity. Is it fashion? That's a harder question. While she makes objects to wear, they are limited to customers who don't need to sit or use there arms. Who, besides Bjork, would wear these items?

We moved on to another exhibit about the Habsburgs, fashion and style from earlier centuries.

It made me wonder why we questioned the outrageous style of Iris Van Herpen.

Four Hour Vacation

One of the great things about living in Washington, DC is that on a Saturday you can say to your spouse, "Let's go downtown and look at some art", and you can, and it is free.  I wanted to check out the one million bones installation on the mall because I had worked with my students creating clay and paper mache bones for the display.  One Million Bones is an art installation created to raise awareness about human genocide.  My husband thought that this was a little grisly, but he is a good sport, so he came along.  This is what it looked like:

  Afterwards, he wanted to visit the Hirshhorn sculpture garden, which is a lovely and cool place to visit; it was getting rather hot.  That led to a visit inside the museum, where we saw an exhibit of mixed media art (my favorite kind of media!) from the collection.  It included Braque collages and Joseph Cornell boxes as well as more contemporary artists like Mark Bradford and unexpected works like print and paper collages by Louise Nevelson and stained glass assemblages by Josef Albers.  Then we puttered around the gift shop and bought interesting things that we didn't need.
On our way back to the metro we studied the plants in garden walkway next to the Arts and Industries building.   My husband looked at me and said, this was fun, we got to be tourists for a few hours, it was like a little vacation.  True, except we didn't have to figure out the public transportation, and neither of us wore fanny packs.