Breaking News!
This is an Art Talk Chicago exclusive. It's come to the attention of our crackerjack staff that Olafur Eliasson, currently on exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, has signed a secret deal with the Kohl Children's Museum and is doing a nearly-identical exhibit that is clearly a breach of contract with the MCA.
Using the power of our massive staff, we sent a "journalist" immediately to the scene to document the scandal.
Compare the images. You be the judge
Just like the audience in "Room for one color" appears in black and white under the lights, so does this child, under the same yellow lights in the Color House.
left: Reimagine, 2002 at MCA, installation view
right: Look at the pretty colors!, 2009 at KCM, installation view
Buckminster Fuller at KCM, again proposing the absurd in Tiling a roof with bean bags.
UPDATES:
The scandal is bigger than the MCA, this is a city-wide art institution scandal.
"Potbelly Pretend-Sandwich Store - Potato Chips" at KCM, installation view
Dan Flavin at KCM
Ok, fine fine, you get the joke.
But I will say something in all seriousness. The way you feel about a piece of art can change based on other things you see. I still love the Olafur Eliasson exhibit, I wrote a glowing review . And Eliasson has young children and I know how that experience can be an influence - the kids play with the sprinkler in the sunlight and you suddenly see "Beauty" (the hose and spotlight installation).
Still, after seeing the kid's museum "Color Play" exhibit, I like the MCA exhibit less. Seeing the yellow lights - the rays that turns real life into greyscale - now it just seems like a page out of "101 Science Project for Kids".
When you work with everyday objects, I guess it comes with the territory.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: danflavin, humor, kohlchildrensmuseum, mca, museumofcontemporaryart, olafureliasson, robertgober, satire
You should take your kids to see the Olafur Eliasson exhibit. Would that make you like it more again?
No :) It would only get worse!
It's like the movie "The Matrix", when it came out.. the frozen motion, the spinning camera in the middle of the big battle scenes, it was breakthrough. Then all the movies started doing that same freeze-spin-camera effect, and by the time Matrix II came out, it was old hat.
The burden for Eliasson is that he's originality-based, he's a breakout dude, so he's got to always be three steps ahead of the crowd. So already, some of his work could be aging badly. And I say that out of love, it's my dream to see the big sunset piece someday, I've only seen pictures.
I'd like to see Eliasson do an interactive exhibit, I really believe that in a setting (like a grown up kid's museum) he could do a great body of work that you experience with all the senses.
an all-ages interactive show would be the best option, no?
In a perfect world, sure. But things designed for children are exactly that. But what's childlike and great, and make computers pale in comparison to human intelligence, is that we are interactive learners by nature.
Imagine an exhibit you could swim through,some weird liquid that would be awesome.
Kids aside, I confess I touched the moss at MCA and it was awesomely soft.
In book arts they get it, once you get to a certain rank in book arts, they let you touch stuff in the super special archives. It's the ultimate book arts status symbol - what you've touched.
How about the kids exhibits at AIC? They're all about touch!