it's art time!

Today's post is going to tap into the art historian in me...sorry people!

First I want to mention that my dear friend Amelia interviewed an artist, Matt Greene, who currently has a show up in Berlin. Her awesome interview can be read at:

www.thefanzine.com

And now I'd like to recommend to anyone in Seattle that they should go and check out the Henry Art Gallery's current show featuring some of the works from their collection. The art itself that is on display isn't really all that spectacular (there are some great gems in the collections, but not every piece is an eye popping wonder)....the really excellent thing about this show is the way it was hung. Instead of the art hanging on walls as we are all used to seeing exhibit set-ups, this show is completely different. Each piece is mounted on iron bars bolted into the floor so that they stand alone. On the back of each frame is a plank of wood that has the date of the artwork in bold black paint, and below that in smaller lettering is the name of the artist and the title. When walking into the space, the first thing you see are rows upon irregular rows of wood planks with black dates. You can't see the any of the artwork, and so my very first impression was that I had walked into a cemetery, or some sort of memorial space. Above each artwork there is suspended a light, with black wires extending from the ceiling, so that above your head it looks like a black web. As I was walking through the space looking at the art, I found myself performing a sort of dance as I moved around each piece to see the next artwork, and turning circles to read the titles and artist names on the backs. The one really neat thing about the way this show was set-up was how you couldn't really see what art was coming up ahead since everything was turned facing away from you. This made easier to focus on each individual piece instead of seeing what was coming next and not really looking at what's in front of you. The other nice thing was that since there was so much art in this one large room, you were forced to stand really close to all the pieces, instead of in the more traditional setting where you aren't allowed to get anywhere within a foot of artwork for fear of your touching it. So basically, for the experience alone I would highly recommend this show. It's a completely atypical museum viewing method that I found to be quite fascinating.