On a gray Saturday morning in late January, no snow, we nevertheless feel it necessary to get out into the day. The plan is simple: drive down to the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge, where there might be some birds loitering in patches of open water, and at the very least, we can take a stroll without getting our shoes muddy; then swing north on 35 W to the Art Institute to take a look at a few of the "minor" exhibits. Very low-key.
There were a few birds down at the river. A flock of sixteen trumpeter swans flew by overhead, honking. (This is the kind of nature stuff we need right now.) They're big birds, pristine, shapely, and athletic, and their trumpeting is hardly less evocative than the hooting of a great-horned owl at midnight. Also louder.
We also came upon a flock of hooded mergansers when we got to the river channel.
It was nice wandering down the asphalt path alongside the rich orange grasses, with the myriad shades of gray ice and white cracks below. Groups of fat-tire bikers passed us on the reconstructed bridge, and five-year-olds on miniature bikes who had raced ahead of their parents were screaming wildly in the damp frigid air. It does feel good to get out.
But the cool, damp, almost Danish air also has a way of sinking in, and we enjoyed the warmth of the car as drove north on the freeway to the Institute, fifteen minutes away.
It's a handsome place. Also huge. Also free.
We lingered at the Cargill Gallery admiring the Root Collection of pottery, though we'd seen that exhibit before. As usual, we were drawn to the more functional work. Admiring a thin blue bowl with a mottled glaze, I was tempted to say to Hilary, "You've done stuff as fine as this," but I didn't, because making things isn't a quest to be as good or better than others; it's a personal need and a loving, exploratory process.
Looking at a piece by the Finnish-American potter Otto Heino, I was reminded of the visit we paid to his studio in Ojai, California, many years ago. We stopped in unannounced that day, and he entertained us with stories for an hour. He was a nice man, well beyond eighty, living alone. But he could still throw a nice pot with ease and remove it from the wheel, dry.
I had printed out a list of the exhibits I wanted to see, including room numbers. They all seemed to be on the third floor. The building is a labyrinth of rooms and halls arranged in no obvious pattern. We finally found "Networks of Care" but were not impressed.
I thought it might be fun to see the show in the Herberger Gallery devoted to art created by museum staff. Hilary had picked up an official map, but that gallery wasn't marked on it. Wandering through the remote southwest corner of the third floor, amid the Art Deco furniture and Moderne blown glass, we came upon a passing guard and asked him where the Herberger Gallery was.
"Oh, that's down on the first floor," he said cheerfully. "It's that long hallway going left just beyond the coffee shop."
"You mean the hallway where they display the cast iron piggy banks and the children's tempera paintings?"
"That's the one."
He looked like a friendly guy so I said, "Do you have anything in that show?"
"Me? No. I'm not an artist, though many of my colleagues are. I spent most of my career as a project manager for litigation projects. When I quit that, I wanted to work in a more inspiring environment. And here I am, surrounded by art."
"And you like it?" I said, slightly dumbfounded.
"Oh, yeah. And you meet interesting people almost every day. Yesterday I ran into a fellow rugby player. In an art gallery! What's the likelihood of that?"
"So you played rugby?" I said. "For the University?"
"Oh, no. It was club play. We were in tournaments all over the US and Europe, paid our own way."
"How are your knees holding out?" I said.
"My knees are great," he said. "I had them both replaced!"
On our way to the Herberger Gallery we passed through a special exhibit devoted to some documentary black-and-white photos by a young Gordon Parks of a cleaning woman in Washington, D.C. circa 1940—her work, her apartment, her little children. There were also photos of religious services and a dry goods store, Asian men working, large bags of rice sitting in piles. Sometimes chaotic, often dignified.
As we paused to take in these images, I began to hear the strains of a violin in the distance, as if it were being tuned. The sound of the instrument itself was deep and rich—something you often fail to take note of when you're focused on the music being played on it.
I was reminded of a morning years ago when Hilary and I drove up to a village in the hills above St. Tropez. Three middle-aged men who had biked to the top were standing in front of a café. The village was otherwise largely deserted, but someone was playing a violin in a second-floor room on one of the narrow streets, rehearsing the same lilting passage over and over again. It was a haunting experience, something out of a dream.
Then I remembered that an improvisatory concert had been scheduled for one of the galleries, to be performed in complete darkness. The show was called Black Box. It wasn't on my list, but I was hearing it. I walked around the corner from the Gordon Parks exhibit, pausing briefly to admire the foggy view downtown, and approached the entry to the Black Box, which was cordoned off. A sign requesting silence also mentioned the program and listed the starting times. A small basket of earplugs was lying in front of the door--a thoughtful touch.
As I listened, it dawned on me that I was standing in one of the galleries Hilary and I had been looking for: 369, Collage/Assemblage. I looked down at a few pages of Matisse's illustrated book JAZZ that were on display in a glass case against the wall nearby. I've seen them before; this time they didn't "draw" me. Then I noticed what appeared to be a fine collage hanging on the wall opposite. I walked over to take a look, all the while vaguely entranced by the snippets of music and scratching noises emerging from the gallery nearby. At one point I heard someone whistling. At another, it sounded like a flock of sandhill cranes was approaching overhead.
The collage, "Untitled (no. 708)," dates from 1953. Anne Ryan, an artist and sometime poet I'd never heard of, put it together, inspired by a German Dadaist named Kurt Schwitters; once again, no one I knew. The collage was maybe three feet long. It was described on the plaque as a "nonverbal poem, composed from a pictographic grammar of materials."
But isn't that what all art is? Some kind of compositional arrangement, some kind of poem? After all, the Parks photos may have been interesting because of their content—an era and a slice of life most of us aren't familiar with—but they were beautiful by virtue of the arrangement of shadows and highlights, the curve of a mirror frame, the careworn or perky expression on a human face.
"Oh, yes," she said. "It's a ticketed performance. It runs for ninety minutes. Everyone's sitting on the floor."
"Ninety minutes!?" I said. "I'm glad I'm out here." She smiled.
Philistine that I am, I added, "But I am enjoying it."
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