Thinking about art

   This week we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. First stop was the restroom, where I found this flower arrangement in their very stylish facility. (Mr. Rududu reports that the mens room was without flowers. I would suggest that womens rooms should be furnished with more things of interest since we seem to spend so much time waiting in line in them. I digress. There was no line at the museum.)

 Both restrooms featured Louise Lawler’s Bird Calls, a sound recording of bird sounds. Most of them seemed to be of parrots saying or attempting to say words. It was a great addition to the room. Perhaps art should be installed in all museum restrooms.
   Most of the museum's current exhibits are about minimalist art and its heirs. I generally prefer art works that you don't need to read the info tag to begin to understand, but even with this cerebral approach to art, there were many pieces that I loved looking at. For example, there is something lovely and fascinating about the soil samples from below Chicago in Alan Sonfist's Earth Monument to Chicago, 1965-77.

The museum also has a solo exhibit of work by Ron Terada, a Vancouver-based artist. I found this wall-sized piece of advice thought provoking. Interestingly, by searching the internet I learned this sign (or one like it) was installed at one time on a building in a rather lonely looking place. In that location it looked considerably more sinister, more of a warning than friendly advice.

The nitty gritty: For those who wonder, the museum bans flash photography only and guards witnessed me taking photographs. If you visit the museum, I highly recommend its Wolfgang Puck restaurant.

A quick trip to a museum

   I can spend hours at a time in a museum but on a recent trip to Chicago, we arrived at the Art Institute just 45 minutes before closing. The good news? If you get there within an hour of closing, it's only half price. Yet is it worth spending $9 for just a 45 minute visit? I thought so because I had my heart set on seeing a temporary exhibit of a weaving from Madagascar. It is woven of the silk from Golden Orb spiders.

The silk is probably the most beautiful naturally gold-colored fiber in the world. The weaving is made up of millions of strands of spider silk which the artisans extracted from the spiders before releasing them back to the wild. Each plain weave thread is made up of 96 strands of spider silk. The brocade threads that make up the design are 960 strands each. The designs are traditional from the area, but this is the only known textile of its kind. You can find a video about the making of textile here.
   I next turned my attention to the rest of the new African gallery. This embroidered raffia weaving from the Kuba area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is wonderfully abstract and was created in the early 20th century.

The adjacent gallery has objects from the Americas including some wonderful Peruvian pottery that was hard to photograph. My favorites included a "Bowl depicting a swarm of mice"with a highly organized group of rather cute mice. I also liked the whimsical "Vessel depicting the Assault of Bean Warriors." Who knew that beans wore helmets and carried weapons? Even though my picture didn't come out well enough to post here, I found that the Art Institute has a very nice site for searching their collection and you can see a photo of the bean warriors here. Now that I've discovered how to browse the Art Institute of Chicago's site I'm sure I will devote hours to virtual trips to the museum.
   This bannerstone was found in Ohio and was created somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago. It's a wonderful miniature sculpture that was used to throw spears more efficiently.

Having such a short time really focused my museum visit. I visited just a few galleries and concentrated on a limited number of pieces. While I prefer longer visits, I highly enjoyed this one. Instead of Carpe diem, my motto for the day was "seize the minute."

Water watching: New York edition

   While I like to play with string, Mr. Rududu likes to play with paper. We just spent a few days in New York City while he attended a national origami convention put on by Origami USA. Over 600 paper folders attended: they were of all ages and of many countries.

   Meanwhile, I explored New York. I tested my endurance in museums: walking until my legs ached and looking at art until my brain was overloaded. As respite, I relished any opportunity for some peaceful water watching. Here is the 106 acres (43 ha) Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park with reflections of buildings to the west of the park.

I was amazed at how much cooler the air felt the second I stepped into the park and was surrounded by trees and greenery.
  Flowing and splashing water is very attractive in a noisy city short on nature. The fountain in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art happened to have a balloon in it.

The reflections in the waves looked a great deal like the water in this Manet painting detail.

 The charming Frick Collection has this frog in their fountain.

 This pocket park had a whole wall of rushing water.

Culture and cookies

Last weekend we went to Milwaukee on a day trip to visit the Milwaukee Art Museum. With a population of about 1,700,000 in the metropolitan area, Milwaukee is our state's largest city. The newest addition to the art museum was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and it beautifully fits its setting on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Calatrava said he was inspired by boats on the lake, among other things, but I think it's very birdlike. We happened to arrive at noon when they close and then reopen the movable sunscreen because people love to watch it move. (It also closes at night and in bad weather.)  Mr. Rududu, resident mathematician, pointed out that it's a good demonstration of a ruled surface. That is something that looks curved but is made up of straight lines.

 After a yummy and economical lunch at the museum cafe, we saw a quilt show and an exhibit of Raphael's  Lady with a Veil. We caught one of the last days of the Raphael exhibit. His beautiful lady will soon be back in the Pitti Palace in Rome after a three city tour in the US; we felt lucky to see her after just an hour and a half in the car. The quilt show will be up until September 6, 2010.

We also meandered around the museum for a while as it has a very interesting collection. I really liked this large glass sculpture by Beth Lipman. It's called Laid Table (Still Life with Metal Pitcher).

After our dose of culture, we headed to our other favorite place in Milwaukee, Brady Street. It's the home of Sciortino's Bakery, with its dizzying array of Italian cookies. Nearby is a fine Italian grocery store called Glorioso's. Could it be that our trips to the art museum are just an excuse for driving over to pick up Italian goodies?