If there is one thing you should do before going to an art
show at the
Minneapolis Institute of Art, it is this: Check their schedule for
kid events.
If there is an event for kids, such as Sunday’s Rock the
Cradle with 89.3 The Current, DO NOT GO. You can be sure that every 2 year old
in the metro area will be there.
You will find this out when you get to the museum after
backroading through south Minneapolis because
the GPS decides you need to visit every pothole in Minnesota on your way there. You will begin
a spiral shaped pattern of driving around the museum in ever widening circles and narrow streets as you search hopelessly for a parking space. “Surely this street will have
openings,” you think. “Parents wouldn’t want to walk their 2 year old in this
cold for half a mile.” But you would be wrong.
Finally, you find a spot seven blocks away in a neighborhood
that has several run-down apartment buildings daring the laws of gravity and
good taste.
You walk the seven blocks in dampness, each step screaming
“this better be worth it.”
Kids are everywhere as you get closer. Without wife along,
as she was feeling sick, you start to stick out as the only tall guy, wearing a black coat and hat, without a
kid hanging off a limb. You begin to feel as pedophiley and suspicious as a guy with a van and candy at a playground. But
dammit, you’d punt a kid if you weren’t surrounded and actually rather
terrified they might turn on you. And you have the lingering knowledge that if you have a sudden poop attack, there will be kids in each fucking stall in the place to make your life more miserable.
You begin to have conversations with these parents in your
head. One-sided conversations where you pretty much yell at them.
“What the hell do you think your kid is getting out of this?
Every kid here is about 2. Two! They don’t even understand the concept of
fucking TIME yet, but you think you can force culture on them and they’ll get
something useful out of it. Like the four cardboard tubes they tied together
with string that they are carrying around like a fucking badge of genius rather
than the worst craft project known to man? I can understand if your kids were 8
or so. At least then they can discern the concept that other people in the world
think different thoughts than them, and they might actually remember what they
saw today a month from now. You fucking liberal douchebag parents want to
cram your 2 year olds into the genius class and want to grab on to the fact
that your kid spent two seconds looking at a piece of art that they might just
be the next Picasso or some shit. I hate you. This much.”
That’s the conversation I had while walking behind a mother
who was letting her 2 year old walk up the stairs in front of me all by herself.
I had a lot of time to think. 2 year olds are shit at climbing stairs.
I got up the stairs and dodged and weaved my way to the More
Real show. I knew that there would be solace there, because tickets to get into
this exhibit are 14 bucks, unlike the free rest of the museum. 14 bucks is a
small price to pay to get away from munchkin land.
The full name of the exhibit is
MO/RE/AL: Art in the Age of Truthiness. They
already have a 300 or so page souvenir book about it you can buy for 40 bucks
at the gift shop. Ugh. Also the site just linked to has more annoying gifs than a geocities refugee center.
If you don’t know what truthiness is by now, here you go.
The idea of art as a lie that gets to the truth is an old
one. I’m a fan of unreliable narrators and metafiction, but the pieces here did
not impress like the collection at the Real Life show, which used a lot of the
same thematic organizing devices, yet managed to group the pieces in more
useful and digestible clusters.
Unlike the other shows I’ve been to at the MIA and the
Walker, I had a lot of trouble getting into this one. The first three rooms, in
fact, were a bit of a bummer and I was wondering if I could get my money back
if I left early enough. Compared to the Sports Show and the Until Now shows at
MIA and the Real Life show at the
Walker,
this exhibit was sparse. Most rooms had one or two artists, sometimes just one
or two works to examine. It makes you jealous of MoMA visitors who have a chance to see
Tilda Swinton in a box.
I turned around a bit on the experience when I got to the “Phantom
Truck” by Inigo Manglano-Oralle. This piece takes up the largest room in the
wing, so much so you wonder how they got it in there. The whole room is dark,
like photo-room dark, with little more than the exit sign illuminating anything.
Out of the darkness you can make out the vague massive shape of an open top
semi trailer with big, boxy and air-compressor shaped equipment loaded and
strapped down. It’s rather menacing, and for good reason, since it is based on
the idea of the chemical weapons trucks that were supposedly our reason to
invade
Iraq.
You wanna feel bad about your fellow social internet
surfers? Like, shit we are doomed bad? You can check out this piece called “
NoFun” Two artists decided to use Chat Roulette (You can go there anyway if you
need to feel like we’re doomed) and put up a hanged body. People laugh about
it, even though nothing about the scene looks fake. Out of the many people who saw the scene, one called the cops.
Another point of interest was Vik Muniz’ “
Verso” pieces. A
Rembrandt hangs on the wall, but around the room are other paintings, leaning up
against the wall so you can only see the backs. On the backs, there are mailing
labels to say what they are “Starry Night” or “American Gothic” and where they have
been. The idea here is to give the museum goer a look at the story of the life
of the painting, where it has been, which is typically only seen by the museum
staff. I think this is where I get a bit perturbed by this.
The act of recreation here is impressive, don't get me wrong. Obsession like that usually is. However, pointing out to me that there are other stories behind great
works, that they go to different museums, is about the least insightful thing
you could say about artwork. I know that they keep making commentary tracks for
movies, but I quit listening to them years ago after the point where they all
pretty much say the same damn things and you aren’t really going to learn
anything new about the movie business that you really cared to know. Exception:
Anchorman commentary – it’s like another hilarious movie. Back to the Verso
pieces, this insight isn’t even as good as a commentary track about how people
got along in the making of the movie or which scene was shot first. It’s the
intellectual equivalent of telling me that the book I’m reading was shipped to
a Barnes and Noble once.
Much more interesting, and in the same meta-fictional realm
of the backward paintings, was the nearby room showing a 10 minute film by Eve
Sussman called “89 Seconds at Alcazar.” The film is a recreation and behind the
scenes look at the minutes before and after the scene depicted in “Las Meninas”
by Diego Velazquez. Here’s that painting, which I’m sure you’ve seen:
What’s so interesting in this one shot scene is the constant
fluid motion of the people involved, the intricate costumes recreated from the
painting, the way everyone eventually lines up, and the fact that Peter fuckin
Dinklage is in a dress! And it’s way more interesting and says more about the
piece it’s commenting upon then the back of a painting. There’s also a bit with
a dog.
At the risk of apples to oranges comparisoning: here’s a
list of novels concerning nature of mixing fiction/art/life that you will get
more out of than spending time on the same subjects at this gallery:
Atonement
Lolita
The Neverending Story
The White Hotel
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
