On the train to Chicago from Springfield, Mass. Obviously, I have not mastered a selfie. I did manage to 'smile,' but my eyes are not closed -- I am looking at the button I must press to take the picture.
Yup, there's plenty of room on a train. That's my trash on the left. For a time, I did not have a seat mate. Those are my comfy sneakers.
There was also a free ipad, but neither Maria nor I could figure out how to use it. Yes, that's the toilet on the right, behind the shower's glass wall. There was a gold curtain on the bed side that you could close. That was a good thing because you could see right outside to the apartments across the way on the next block. We were on the 15th floor and nobody in those apartments felt the need for curtains or blinds. Although one intrepid soul did make their window into a closet by hanging their clothes there. I don't think it was their living room.
See what I mean? Sitting in there, having closed the curtain, I looked over into the shower and saw the apartments across the way. I hadn't realized that there was a four or five inch gap in the curtain because I hadn't completely closed it. I could see someone across the way. It occurred to me that they could see me ...
View from the fifteenth floor.
There were lots of these dogs all decorated differently by different civic groups. The one above was PAWS.
The street plantings were amazing and the restaurants with cafe style seating on the street often mirrored the plantings with flower boxes on railings.
Still strolling down the street.
And then we stumbled upon the Museum of Contemporary Art. The excerpted review below is from their web site:
click to enlarge
Takashi Murakami in front of Dragon in Clouds—Indigo Blue, 2010
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"Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg"
Through 9/24: Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Sun 10 AM-5 PM
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E. Chicago
312-280-2660
mcachicago.org
$12, $7 students and seniors, free kids 12 and under and members of the military, free for Illinois residents on Tuesdays
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E. Chicago
312-280-2660
mcachicago.org
$12, $7 students and seniors, free kids 12 and under and members of the military, free for Illinois residents on Tuesdays
In 2008 I was lucky enough to see "© Murakami," a significant retrospective of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami's work, at the Brooklyn Museum (the show had opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which organized it). The exhibit was very much of that moment in time, visualizing and addressing the symptoms and aesthetics of mid- to late-2000s capitalism, right before the housing market was about to collapse the global economy. So when the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago announced "Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg," which opened last week, my first question was how that artwork would appear now, a decade later, after Obama's election, the recession, Kimye, drones, advances in smartphone technology, Trump's election, et cetera.
The MCA's approach to this question is shrewd: it has bookended the moment in time. "The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg" contains some of the same pieces that appeared in "© Murakami," but they make up a little less than half of the exhibit. One room is dedicated to some of Murakami's earliest paintings, which hardly ever appear in major exhibitions of his work, and the rest is devoted to what Murakami has produced since 2008, some of which was made specifically for "The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg" and none of which has been seen in the United States before. "The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg" is just as revelatory and insightful as "© Murakami," the former saying as much about our own present moment as the latter did in its era.
"© Murakami" arrived when the artist was arguably at the peak of his fame. Part of this celebrity was due to his association with Kanye West—Murakami had created the cover for the 2007 album Graduation as well as the iconic "Kanye bear" that's featured on the cover. Another factor was Murakami's work for Louis Vuitton, especially the "Multicolore Monogram" design, a rainbow-on-white pattern that became a trademark of luxury wear during the mid-2000s. Murakami's collaborations with West and Louis Vuitton manifested aesthetic and cultural trends of the mid-2000s: bright colors, gaudy accessories, and a nonsensical kind of conviviality. Despite the Iraq war, Afghanistan, the fallout from 9/11, and an impending financial disaster, the mood in the United States was weirdly upbeat, even celebratory. Graduation is remembered now as West's brightest and most jubilant album, full of zapping major-key synths and lyrics that were more self-assured and optimistic than on any of West's albums before or since.
If you were really attuned to the times, however—Children of Men, The Wire, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Burial, M.I.A., Roberto Bolaño—things seemed very grim. Part of what made "© Murakami" such a timely and brilliant show was the wink of irony that infused every piece (after all, the title of the exhibition has a copyright tag in it). The most memorable portion of "© Murakami" was a fully operational Louis Vuitton shop that was located in the museum. The store resembled a Louis Vuitton outpost in Beverly Hills or Manhattan and had a staff that worked temporarily for the shop—they weren't artist's assistants or Brooklyn Museum employees. Was this a tongue-in-cheek commentary on contemporary capitalism, or a blatant act of commerce masquerading as "fine art"?
To Murakami, there really isn't all that much of a difference. He's most famous for pioneering Superflat, a Japanese art movement predicated on the idea that the boundaries that separate artistic and commercial production have been flattened. Murakami has said in many places that he sees no distinction between something like Flower Ball 2, a circular acrylic work that resembles a ball of cartoon daisies with open-mouthed smiley faces at the center of each flower, and a mass-produced key chain of one of those daisies. But the morbid humor of some of his artworks and his deep knowledge of art history mean that Murakami's lack of differentiation between art and commerce is just as much of a punch line as a theory, a grand joke on the art world. How else to look at My Lonesome Cowboy, a statue that was part of "© Murakami"? It's an eight-foot-tall naked male manga character with spiky blonde hair, holding his ejaculating erect penis with one hand and with the other wrangling the ejaculate like a lasso. In 2008, Sotheby's sold it for $15.1 million.
Visitors to "The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg" who also viewed "© Murakami" will recognize the multiple artworks featuring Mr. Dob, a cartoon mouse that was the subject of many of Murakami's pieces during the 90s and early 2000s. A maniacal take on Mickey Mouse, Mr. Dob appears in simpler form in early works such as ZuZaZaZaZaZa (1994), a five-foot-tall painting in which he is depicted leaping in midair against a red backdrop, a stream of white liquid trailing beneath him. But by 2002's Tan Tan Bo Puking—aka Gero Tan, Mr. Dob is a grotesque monstrosity, painted onto four nearly 12-foot-tall panels and filled with fluorescent whorls and stains, looking like Godzilla seen through the eyes of someone who just ingested an unhealthy amount of psilocybin mushrooms.
Most of the pieces from this time period are heavily informed by manga, which Murakami acknowledges as a major influence, along with otaku, a term commonly associated with diehard anime fandom. Murakami in fact first wanted to be an animator, but the manga elements of his work belie his impressive art- history background. He attended the Tokyo University of the Arts and received a PhD in Nihonga, a traditional style of Japanese painting that's created with specific techniques and materials. But Murakami was more excited about contemporary art, especially Anselm Kiefer, the German neo-Expressionist painter who often uses substances other than paint in his pieces.
(From now on, these are my photos.)
I did not care for his depiction of arhats. I considered them to be ugly. Maria disagreed wholeheartedly.
I did, however, really enjoy the detail in his robe!
Maria, taking her own pictures
It's a chicken!
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO -- "GAUGUIN: ARTIST AS ALCHEMIST"
Above is from the Art Institute's original press release for the exhibit.
I love me a still life!
Did you know Gauguin created many forms of sculpture?
Below: A totally fabricated scene. The plantains were inedible unless cooked; there would never be liquid as in soup in that bowl, etc. I got these tidbits from the audio tour that we rented
Which brings me to our upsetting revelation: most of Gauguin's lush Tahitian beauties were completely fabricated. By the time he arrived at the islands, the missionaries had been there and women were wearing "Mother Hubbards." That was a dress which covered them from neck to ankles in (basically) a sack. What a disservice to women! It not only made them ashamed of their bodies, it must have been a bear to wash and keep those dresses clean.
We strolled around the Art Institute and enjoyed the batik exhibit.
I had known that the creation of batik involved a wax resist -- you put wax everywhere you do not want color and then dip the fabric in dye. But I had never seen so complicated designs.
The piece below is one solid piece of fabric even though at first glance, one think it's pieced. Every square had a different pattern and there were red and blue dyes used.
Flowers at Night
Both Maria and I hit the wall at 4 hours in the Museum. Then it was off to Union Station to return to our homes.
I had a wonderful time with Maria and I was thrilled that my friend Alain (who lives in LaGrange) took the commuter train in and met me at Union Station. We gossiped over a couple of drinks while I waited for my 9:30 p.m. departure. All in all, it was a wonderful mini vacation. I cannot, however, recommend taking the train. On the way back, we were an hour and half late, making the trip 19 hours. After a while, I was convinced that is what hell is -- a never-ending train ride!
It's a chicken!
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