on michigan ave

To be crossposted at Grammar.police when Moveable Type lets me in

Todd snuck away to the Art Institute this past week and has a report on the new installation of the American galleries.  He asks, "No Ab Ex work? How can that be? Did I just miss that gallery somehow?"  The answer is, quite possibly.  I haven't been to the AI in a couple of years, and it's be a decade since I was a regular visitor, but my recollection is that de Kooning's Excavation, a Rothko, and other Ab Ex-type stuff I can't recall is generally hung in a long room way at the end of the modern art galleries - number 249 on the map of the building, I believe.  They may have rearranged things as part of the new installation, or works may be down for loans or what-have-you; but it sounds like Todd was in the American galleries off and above the sculpture court.  To tell the truth, those were never completely open in all the time I spent in Chicago, so I envy Todd his chance to see them as a whole.

The Art Institute was the place where I first saw a painting by Balthus, though.  A memorable experience.  The collection of modern and contemporary work there is so much better than anything we have in New England.  On the other hand, their antiquities are basically displayed in a hallway corner.  Which doesn't equal things out in many people's way of thinking, but I would always try to keep it in mind.

Todd also wonders why the AI doesn't have more American Regionalist painting.  I can't answer that, but I would point out that the Smart Museum in Hyde Park does have a few on display, or they did when I would prowl its galleries keeping order.  But real site to see down that way is the Oriental Institute.  I'd have to say that the only things I miss about Hyde Park are the great Assyrian sculptures there.  And the Seminary Co-op.  And Harold's Chicken Shack.

UPDATE: Hit the trackback below for more at Grammar.police.

Comments

[Dan]

I haven't yet read Todd's post, but the new American galleries are a new installation in the Rice Building (163-179, 262-273) featuring several works on permanent loan from the Terra Foundation (in the wake of the closing of their Michigan Ave. museum last fall).

However, the presentation ends at midcentury. As far as I know, the Ab-Ex stuff (including a pair of Stills that always knock me cold) is still where it's always been (239, if I'm not mistaken).

With the upcoming Renzo Piano expansion, there may be plans to reunite the museum's (somewhat meager, if a recent mini-exhibition is any indication) medieval holdings, now separated between at least four different departments, into a single collection.

[JL]

owever, the presentation ends at midcentury. As far as I know, the Ab-Ex stuff (including a pair of Stills that always knock me cold) is still where it's always been (239, if I'm not mistaken).

Ah, I see. That clears it up - and you're right, 239, not 249 - I was looking at the map along the wrong axis. I suppose part of what they're doing is connecting the Ab Ex stuff to the history of European modernism - it's not accident that you see the surrealists before heading into that room. It also probably gives those works a more conclusive location, if it is a bit out of the way.

I can hardly think of any of the medieval collections there (though the early Renaissance paintings rock.)

[Dan]

> I can hardly think of any of the medieval collections there

I have a feeling it's mostly to be found in Decorative Arts.

Here's the mini-exhibition I mentioned above. It was actually very nice, if tiny (as long as we're looking at the map, galleries 141 and 142—often utilized for small supplemental displays related to larger shows). The massive head from Notre Dame pictured at the link above, some lovely ivory pieces, a book of hours (or two?) and a superb cross/panel painting.

Checking back on the draft of a post I never finished, the exhibition brochure said this about the collection:

Today, the museum's medieval collection is divided between four curatorial departments: European decorative arts and sculpture, European painting, prints and drawings, and textiles... A new interdepartmental reinstallation of the Art Institute's medieval and Renaissance art, which would once again reunite these diverse holdings, is currently under consideration.

So this potential reinstallation would include all of that great Renaissance stuff, including, I hope, those incredible six panels of scenes from the life of John the Baptist (if you know the work I'm talking about).

[Dan]

I'm talking about this work by Giovanni di Paolo, but not that panel in particular. The decapitation panel is the money shot.

[JL]

those incredible six panels of scenes from the life of John the Baptist (if you know the work I'm talking about).

These hang at the back wall of the gallery they're in, right? Fantastic stuff, if I am thinking of the same works. I can't quite picture them all, but I have a strong memory of golden rays of (holy) light emanating from a figure in at least one panel.

In the same room, I believe, is a small painting of Christ carrying the cross while being mocked by Roman soldiers and a crowd of onlookers. He is thoroughly oppressed-looking. It's perhaps the most German painting I've ever seen - one figure is virtually goose-stepping.

[Dan]

In the work I mentioned, panel #4 shows John in prison pre-exceution. Panel #5 is an identical setting, post-decapitation, with John's stump of a neck sticking out the window and squirting one serious fountain of blood.

> In the same room, I believe, is a small painting of Christ carrying the cross while being mocked by Roman soldiers and a crowd of onlookers. He is thoroughly oppressed-looking. It's perhaps the most German painting I've ever seen - one figure is virtually goose-stepping.

We're probably not thinking about the same image (how much does AIC's image search suck?), but there's a very German crucifiction panel in the same or an adjoining gallery—with a couple mourning Marys (or maybe Apostles?) and featuring heavy, hatched shading and expressive but cartoonish figuration—that I've always thought belongs on a heavy metal or hobbit rock album cover.

[JL]

We may be talking about the same painting, we may not. It's hard to tell. But this

how much does AIC's image search suck?

is the real question. For it sucks mightily. And with their resources, and the amount of work that has apparently gone into in, judging from what's there, that is suckage of not only a great, but mighty kind. It's almost a model of what not to do.

[Dan]

Compare the Art Institute to the Terra Foundation, who have put their complete collection online, fully browsable and searchable.

(I think maybe three or four works are missing images online, such as this)

Note also the recent grant Terra awarded to the Smithsonian to scan that venerable institution's vast collection of art world documents and ephemera for free and open access online.

The Terra Foundation ought to serve as a model to museums and cultural institutions everywhere. In the internet age, such access can and really should become a part of every museum's mandate.

[JL]

I'm making a post out of this at G.p., if you want to add one of your own or comments.

[Jason]

I recently assigned this topic as a take-home assignment for my students! Partly, I asked them to consider why the collection culminates with American AbEx after going through so much European Modernism. These kids are so internet savvy; I will probably be grading Dan and JL's thoughts as turned in by said students. oy...

[Cynthia]

Mmmmm.... chicken.....

[JL]

Don't make me hungry, Cynthia, it's lunch time. And yesterday I stood on the steps of this place and realized I didn't have any cash and so couldn't get myself some of the finest seafood New England has to offer.

Sorry about that Jason! I swear, half the traffic around here comes from google hits from undergrads looking for material on Richard Wilbur's "The Death of a Toad", which I wrote about way back in the beginning of the site. I always hated it as a TA when papers would come in with material obviously swiped from the web, so I get bothered when I think the same thing is happening with MK.

[Todd]

Yup, that would explain it. I didn't make it to 239. But it would have made more sense to close the new American galleries with some Ab Ex work. That's where it all ended, right?