Happy Friday, everyone. You made it! The goal is to meet here at the end of each week to say hi and check in on each other with a little discussion.
After nearly two years of quarantine, my mind has been wistfully casting back to some of my most memorable art experiences. So, I’m dying to know: what are yours?
It doesn’t matter if it’s a major museum show, an artist talk, a piece of public art you stumbled on, a small gathering in someone’s backyard, or an intimate studio visit. What makes it stand out to you? Why has it stuck in your memory?
Hit the big pink comment button belowand tell us about one of your most memorable art viewing experiences. Let’s all live vicariously.
Janet Cardiff's The Forty Part Motet when it was shown at Tacoma Art Museum in 2008. Such a visceral and sensorial experience, nothing has ever compared to it, before or since.
while in graduate school my husband and i would visit MOCA (in LA) often. it felt like sacred space that also awakened my "psychologist brain" in completely new ways. later, when we had children, we took monthly trips to the portland art museum with sketch books and pencils and we'd spend a whole day there. for me, these "thematic" memories are as powerful and the individual shows that speak to me. thank you for encouraging me to remember this.
I think because it was so soon before the pandemic, and it was so immersive and without any documentation I can look back on, but I think often about Alfredo Jaar's lecture in December 2019. The way that he crafted the lecture and the slides to build and circle and take us on a journey was amazing. I keep wondering if that's possible in still / non-time-based work.
There are so very many. Janet Cardiff did a sound piece in Central Park that one listened to on headphones while walking that just took you out of a regular park walk. There used to be a Pipilotti Rist video in a small hole in the floor at PS1 that was amazing just for unlikeliest location. An Ana Mendieta retrospective that had a lot of old videos. (Maybe they are more available now, but it was super hard to find older art videos to watch after seeing stills in books). Jenny Saville paintings in person for the scale is a totally different experience.
I'm late to your discussion today. I will look forward to these! We went to the Van Gogh exhibition this September in Vancouver Canada. It was a very neat experience. First one of these immersive art exhibits I've been to. Would go see Picasso and Dali, if they ever come near: https://www.imagine-vangogh.com/
I visited the Magic Gardens in Philadelphia last year. It was amazing. Every crevice was covered with tile, a broken plate, bicycle spokes… just about anything one would pick up on a sidewalk. It made me wonder how it would be to create your own wonderland. We never draw on the wall or mar our apartments, but what if there was a playground to set ourselves free? I decided to take it in instead of write about it. Definitely a memorable experience.
Marina Abromovic, The Artist is Present. I don't know a whole lot about, or generally "get" art. Especially performance art. But she made me THINK. And that kind of clicked.
Also, The Tim Burton exhibit. Cause well, it's Tim Burton.
Janet Cardiff's The Forty Part Motet when it was shown at Tacoma Art Museum in 2008. Such a visceral and sensorial experience, nothing has ever compared to it, before or since.
while in graduate school my husband and i would visit MOCA (in LA) often. it felt like sacred space that also awakened my "psychologist brain" in completely new ways. later, when we had children, we took monthly trips to the portland art museum with sketch books and pencils and we'd spend a whole day there. for me, these "thematic" memories are as powerful and the individual shows that speak to me. thank you for encouraging me to remember this.
I think because it was so soon before the pandemic, and it was so immersive and without any documentation I can look back on, but I think often about Alfredo Jaar's lecture in December 2019. The way that he crafted the lecture and the slides to build and circle and take us on a journey was amazing. I keep wondering if that's possible in still / non-time-based work.
There are so very many. Janet Cardiff did a sound piece in Central Park that one listened to on headphones while walking that just took you out of a regular park walk. There used to be a Pipilotti Rist video in a small hole in the floor at PS1 that was amazing just for unlikeliest location. An Ana Mendieta retrospective that had a lot of old videos. (Maybe they are more available now, but it was super hard to find older art videos to watch after seeing stills in books). Jenny Saville paintings in person for the scale is a totally different experience.
I'm late to your discussion today. I will look forward to these! We went to the Van Gogh exhibition this September in Vancouver Canada. It was a very neat experience. First one of these immersive art exhibits I've been to. Would go see Picasso and Dali, if they ever come near: https://www.imagine-vangogh.com/
This may be fun for art(?) lovers: https://pau1.substack.com/p/paintings-books
Have a good weekend everyone.
Anne Hamilton’s the event of a thread at park ave. armory broke me open in only the way art can.
I visited the Magic Gardens in Philadelphia last year. It was amazing. Every crevice was covered with tile, a broken plate, bicycle spokes… just about anything one would pick up on a sidewalk. It made me wonder how it would be to create your own wonderland. We never draw on the wall or mar our apartments, but what if there was a playground to set ourselves free? I decided to take it in instead of write about it. Definitely a memorable experience.
Marina Abromovic, The Artist is Present. I don't know a whole lot about, or generally "get" art. Especially performance art. But she made me THINK. And that kind of clicked.
Also, The Tim Burton exhibit. Cause well, it's Tim Burton.