Detroit Disassembled

Julie and I were casting about for an outing one day last month when she was in town. We are always talking about re-visiting the Akron Art Museum, so I checked their current exhibitions. You probably can't imagine my excitement when I found that the Detroit photographs of Andrew Moore are there right now in a fantastic exhibition entitled "Detroit Disassembled".

I was already aware of these photos, actually, because Ben had shown them to me some months earlier when he found them online. We marveled over the images of massive structures abandoned to the elements. I knew Julie would love the photographs, and I couldn't wait to see them displayed on such a grand scale, so off we went to the museum.

I was blown away by what I saw. The photographs in the exhibition are so beautiful and evocative that, well, really, words fail me. I offer you instead the catalog's description:

"Moore’s images, printed on the scale of epic history paintings, belong to an artistic tradition that began in the 17th century. Numerous artists have used ruins to remind their viewers of the fall of past great civilizations and to warn that contemporary empires risk the same fate. Moore’s soaring scenes of rusting factory halls and crumbling theaters share the monumentality of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s 18th century engravings of the fallen civic monuments of ancient Rome and Greece. His photographs of skeletal houses and collapsed churches carry forward the Romantic tone and rich hues of Caspar David Friedrich’s 19th century paintings of fallen medieval cathedrals and castles."

If you live anywhere in Northeast Ohio, I encourage you to see this exhibition while it is here. See it to contemplate what has become of a once-great city in our contemporary throw-away society. See it as social commentary. See it as a warning. Or just see it for the haunting beauty and grandeur of an abandoned train station, or the hollow emptiness of a once-bustling automotive complex. Just go and see it. You'll thank me.

Here is a link to the museum website: http://www.akronartmuseum.org/

And you can read here about Detroit Disassembled specifically: http://akronartmuseum.org/exhibitions/details.php?unid=1499

Or view additional photos from Andrew Moore's Detroit series:
http://www.andrewlmoore.com/view_project.php?project_id=13

feed your head

So, I was on vacation last week in Maryland, and I am heading to Chicago next week for a long weekend. Although I kind of hate that my kids live so far away, I am glad that they don't live in, I don't know, Houston and Tallahassee, for example.

Julie lives just north of Baltimore, and she and Andrew explore the city every weekend. Every time I am there, they have new areas and neighborhoods for me to visit. We also drove to College Park and took the Metro down to D.C. We spent an entire day in the museums along the National Mall. It really is a national treasure to have so much free and available to us. I can't describe how invigorating it is to wander from gallery to gallery, drinking in the works of so much genius and creativity.

That is, of course, what one expects to find in museums of this caliber. The real surprise came the following day when Julie and I visited the American Visionary Art Museum. (http://www.avam.org/index.html) I saw the building on my last trip to Baltimore, and thought it looked intriguing. Julie and Andrew had never been there, so we made it part of our itinerary for this year. We had no idea what to expect when we got there, and honestly, words fail me when I try to describe what we saw. The works on exhibit are those of untrained and unknown artists. Many of them spent time in and out of mental hospitals. They could not hold down steady jobs. Most of these people did not think of themselves as artists. They were simply compelled to create what they did. It is an absolutely fascinating glimpse into the workings of the human mind.

The one idea I took away from AVAM, as it is called, is the absolute knowledge that humans must express themselves. And, by and large, we will use whatever materials we find at hand to help make sense of the world as we see it. I don't know where to begin to describe it all. There were things like the huge model of the Lusitania made from toothpicks, of course, but much more interesting were the more non-traditional works. The hundreds of hand-lettered signs made over a period of years that express one man's frustration and isolation. The notebooks full of collages made of pictures cut from magazines and catalogs, interspersed with hand-drawn images and captions that form a shut-in woman's entire world. The entire elaborate country created by a lonely boy where the man he grew into preferred to spend his life. I could go on and on. Check out their website to learn more.

I love to eat Maryland crab cakes by the Chesapeake Bay, as we did the night I arrived, but I am equally thrilled to fill my brain with new concepts and ideas. Now that's a trip.

The Butler Institute of American Art

Did you know that I live within an hour's drive of the first museum built solely to showcase American art and artists? Well, I am embarrassed to say, neither did I. (That question is not for you, Joany. I'm sure you knew about it, but never told me!) Once I found out about The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, however, it took us less than a week to drive out there and see it.

I actually learned about the museum in an interesting way. Saturday afternoon I was working on Julie's second scarf, trying to get it finished before she had to go back to Maryland. I like to have the tv on while I knit, but I really listen to it more than I actually watch it. I was clicking around, looking for something to watch when I found Bob Ross just beginning a painting. Perfect, I thought, and began to knit. I quickly realized, however, that I didn't want to look away from Bob's painting to knit. I might miss something. Well, it was only a half-hour show, so I laid my knitting aside, and watched Bob work. I love the sound his brush makes as he taps the canvas with spring green paint, and his soothing voice assures me that there are no mistakes, just happy accidents. My eyes glazed over, and I never even realized when I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Bob was gone, and someone else was talking to me about the collection at The Butler Institute. I had heard the name before, and I guess I thought it was probably in Pittsburgh. I was totally surprised to learn that it was actually in Youngstown, a place I have never been, despite living within 50 miles of it for the last seven years. I sat down at my computer and googled the museum. You can see what I found here: http://www.butlerart.com/ Well, we love museums, and since Ben has this week off, the two of us headed out there on Wednesday, mapquest maps in hand.

We only got lost once, and within an hour of leaving home, we turned into the parking lot of the beaux-arts building designed in 1917 by architects, McKim, Mead and White. After a quick lunch in the small (and very cold) museum café, Ben and I set out to explore the collection. What a pleasant surprise this little museum was! It had works by all the big names in American art, of course, Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper and Grant Wood, to name a few, but it also had a lot of works by lesser-known (to us, unknown) artists, as well. I love to have a good mix of familiar and new art to look at, and that is exactly what we found.

A large new wing of the museum is "dedicated solely to new media and electronic art. The facility regularly displays works of art that utilize computers, holography, lasers and other digital media." The exhibits there were fascinating and fun, especially the interactive Ronald Amstutz installation.

Several hours passed before we knew it, then we headed for home. Although it took us a long time to learn about The Butler Institute, it won't take us long to return there. This was a One-Tank Trip well worth taking.