Eva and Franco Mattes, from "My Generation," in the Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition "I Was Raised on the Internet."
Do you talk in an art museum? It's not a library. When art speaks to you, maybe you should speak back.
At work, we needed a summer outing. So we took off for the Museum of Contemporary Art, which plays jazz on Tuesdays near the Water Tower. What could be more Chicago? And just to say we were really working, we took in the exhibit "I Was Raised on the Internet," in which artists in various media make points about media.
We really were working, though. After a round of budget-tightening at work, we needed to rebuild. The magazine most likely will be producing fewer issues with a new art director, while I'm leading a website redesign. So we're sorting out new ideas and bouncing them off co-workers. As a result, I found myself talking through what I was seeing in the art gallery. If you've done brainstorming, you know how liberating that can be. Wild ideas didn't have to wait someone ordered the second round.
The @ABAJournal newsroom took in @mcachicago after work. So, news and brews. In this thread I take notes. pic.twitter.com/hi6VlgpDcf
— Stephen Rynkiewicz (@rynk) July 18, 2018
We were scattered throughout the galleries together. I found myself drawn to find my co-workers and talk about what we was seeing. If you've done brainstorming, you know how liberating that can be. I could bring up wild ideas even before the bar opened.
We were scattered throughout the galleries together. I found myself drawn to find my co-workers and talk about what we was seeing. If you've done brainstorming, you know how liberating that can be. I could bring up wild ideas even before the bar opened.
It’s easy to forget that the web has been with us a long time, and it has changed how we view things. With a website redesign on my plate, I’ve been taking a close look at its underlying architecture. Artists have been exploring grid designs since Mondrian. They soak up centuries of influences and put them to use to explain their own time. That’s why you can see religious influences in very secular places— here a scred heart seems to be under interrogation.
We all make these connections without thinking about it. What are the colors of justice? Maybe bronze, what with so many statues of Lady Justice. On Pinterest I’m trying to draw that out from images of the Greek goddess Themis, statues of Lady Justice, Tarot cards, Zodiac signs, the Book of Hours and of course Wonder Woman. At the MCA, when I see “Bridal Shower” with animated rose petals circling a newlywed, my mind is back with Lady Justice. I’m definitely keeping red in my palette.
Sometimes frankly it’s the surface is all I’m interested in. The curator puts a router under glass, suggesting that once you connect to a Wi-Fi network you become part of the artwork. Maybe so, but I find reflections in the glass much more fascinating. If that means I’m taking things out of context, so be it. Media are concerned with transparency—not just the surface things but what lies beneath. A reinterpreted this shepherd boy statue for the modern age gives us a window to his heart.
In another performance piece, museum patrons pull things out of their pockets and onto a conveyor belt. They come out duplicated, with a manufactured image. I out my phone in the image factory, and duplicated the assembly line. “You get that,” the attendant said. “That’s very meta.” Nearby, a giant cell phone in the exhibit– or is it an aquarium? Either way, there’s always something new and inconsequential to stare at—the image or the headline feed. Headlines like “Trump is no longer leader of the free world.”
The artists seem to think we’re just passive consumers, and the museum provides seating to suit. But our role as patrons is not to read a plaque that explains everything. Better to process it all and talk about it. Out of that comes real communication. That’s why I’m here, and why we’re here together. We’re all curators. Let’s find meaning together. 🦄
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