Monday, January 16, 2012

Chicago Visit: Museum of Contemporary Art

Sonic Arboretum  Sonic Arboretum

While I was in Chicago I had the chance to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art. One of the main reasons I wanted to visit was to see Andrew Bird and Ian Schneller's Sonic Arboretum, on display during December. Tickets for the actual performance I'm sure were sold out long before I even knew about this exhibit, but I'm glad I got to see the hall of "specimen horn speakers." They filled the atrium space on three long plinths, and played violins & whistles.  It was neat how hard it was to identify where specific sounds were coming from, it had a kind of choral effect. Well, there was one time we co identify the source, when I posed for this picture it happened to be very noisy...but that was the exception.

Earth Monument to Chicago, 1975-67 Carol Bove

The other major exhibit was The Language of Less (Then and Now) which is still on display in its entirety until March 25th. It's a really great collection of work from major minimalist artists, like Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Christo and Gordon Matta Clark, and new works from contemporary artists. One of my favorites from the "Then" portion of the exhibit is pictured above on the left, a carefully arranged collection of core samples from around Chicago by Alan Sonfist. My favorite from the "Now" section of the is above on the right, works by Carol Bove. Much of the work in that room was a bit difficult to photograph, like the beaded curtain here. If you look closely at the picture in that link you can make out the triangles which were much more visible in person.

Shade

We managed to get through the rest of the museum, but it was at a quicker pace. I've already posted a favorite image from the Ron Terada Exhibit (which ended yesterday) in my new years' eve post. Another favorite work was the colorful light box by Spencer Finch, with the title "Shade (on the grave of Walt Whitman October 19, 2006 10:15am)" Great title for a piece I would've liked anyway, but the title makes it even better. 

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