Exhibits

Salvador Dali Exhibit – The Art Institute of Chicago – March 2, 2023

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Salvador Dali’s paranoiac-critical method is described as the “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena.” It sounds like drugs were involved.

I understand the definition about as well as I do the paintings themselves, like that his William Tell is really Vladimir Lenin. And his melting clocks are the “camembert of time”, “symbols for the lack of meaning and fluidity of time in the dream world.” Sounds like Einstein meets Freud meets Nietzsche and results in a Julia Child four-dimensional soufflé with an Oedipus complex.

Cheese is a common theme at the exhibit, as the Venus de Milo in Drawers (not in the sense of pants) is accompanied by the story of Dali’s first meeting Harpo Marx, who at the time was naked in a garden feeding a statue of the Venus de Milo made of cheese (don’t know if it was camembert) to a swan. Sounds like more drugs were involved.

But the painting that grabbed my attention was Mae West’s Face Which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment, and not just for the missing comma after Face.

The Supreme Court is about decide a case appealed from a 2021 judgement declaring that Andy Warhol had no right to appropriate Lynn Goldsmith’s photo of Prince. If the Andy Warhol Foundation loses, the Mae West painting, which was based on a film ad, may, if permission was not granted at the time, be one of many museum pieces of art to fall like dominos if considered derivative, rather than transformative, a legal distinction unrelated to robots that can change their shapes.

Haunted Dolls & History’s Horrors – Chicago History Museum – September 27, 2022

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This is a disjointed temporary exhibit within the boundaries of the permanent Chicago: Crossroads of America exhibit, framed in terms of a scavenger hunt to find 13 hiding spots of 16 dolls (a trio of carolers and the so-called terror twins accounting for the numerical discrepancy), whose origins range from 1862 to 1933, with a few stops at “no date available.”

Chucky was not among the dolls, but “a beheaded beauty” was, according to the brochure I was given at the check-in counter. I’ll never know, as I ran out of interest before finding it. Maybe I headed in the wrong direction.

I also made the mistake of accepting the pamphlet for the adult version, unaware at the time that there was a kid-friendly version, which might have provided more clues and required less attention span, in addition to scrubbing “mentions of violence, disasters, and the supernatural.” Don’t the curators know what kids watch on TV?

Fortunately, I didn’t compound my mistake by putting any effort into my search. Instead, I created my own, simpler, version of the contest. So, although I accidentally found 10 of the not-so-covert nooks and crannies containing the artifacts before my energy petered out, I also awarded myself points for finding the elevator, a bench to sit on, the bathroom, a security guard to pester with stupid questions, and, most importantly, the exit.

A Show of Hands: Handwriting in the Age of Print – The Newberry – September 14, 2022

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My handwriting is terrible. If I were a referee tossing a homemade coin to start a football game, we’d never get to the kickoff, because no one can make heads or tails of my penmanship.

Fortunately, commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, well before I started school. Unfortunately, no one ever taught me how to type. But, on the computer, I’m a whiz with two fingers – no trouble reading this piece.

All that aside, here’s the thing. According to The Productive Engineer website, printing is, perhaps surprisingly to some, faster than cursive writing, and, at least in my case, far more legible. On the other hand, the site suggests, cursive is better at improving one’s motor skills.

I’m a pretty good driver, but I don’t think that’s what they mean. What I did decide, however, is that if my cursive were better, I could play the piano better. Huh?

Well, cursive writing, not lifting the pen between letters, is like playing notes legato, Italian for tied together.

And, the Newberry exhibit (we finally got to it) includes mention of 1814 lectures on the art of writing that promoted “forearm” or “muscular” movement, using the arms and shoulders, rather than the hands and fingers, which is akin to the notion of using arm weight when playing the piano.

So, there it is. Schools that have discontinued teaching cursive writing might incorporate it into their music curriculum, except, oh wait, budget cuts have killed those programs too.

Handmaidens for Travelers: The Pullman Company Maids – The Newberry – June 8, 2022

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After admiring the interesting photos, the first thing you read at this new exhibit is that the maids were overshadowed by the porters in the public’s imagination of the time, focused mostly on the 1920s. Even now, if you look up the union formed by the railroad employees in 1925, it’s often referred to as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and only occasionally adds to the title “and Maids”, of which there were approximately 350 at the time per a letter on display.

Other interesting facts presented were:

The existence of 17 rules the handmaidens had to follow, only a mundane five of which were displayed – too bad, the other 12 might have been ripe for snarky attack.

The concerns of the time regarding tuberculosis, which led to the institution of medical exams for applicants; and maybe the box to be checked on the application regarding an unnamed vaccination, although something for small pox might have been a more likely possibility in the 1920s.

A list of 28 names of people who had risen through the railroad ranks from low level positions, such as rodman (apparently a surveyor’s assistant who holds the leveling rod, duh) to leadership of their companies, because there’s “Always Room at the Top for Steady Climbers”. None of the first jobs listed were porter or handmaiden, which came as no surprise given the times, but which made me wonder why the item was included.

A number of the documents, including some employee cards, not like baseball cards, though that might have been amusing, noting things like career records for most manicures given to passengers, but rather records of service that were related to one specific maid who, though otherwise an exemplary employee, received a reprimand for not reporting an unidentified uniform infraction of another employee, perhaps a Rodman with a capital R.

Vivian Maier: In Color – Chicago History Museum – February 26, 2022

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Because I had failed to notice the full name of the exhibit before entering, it took me about 15 minutes before I realized why I wasn’t seeing any of Maier’s thousands of black and white photos. Shoot me.

The display is separated into seven parts – looking through (which could have been divided into looking out and looking in), straight on, from behind, up close, from afar, up, and down. Add strange and charm and you’ve got a raft of quarks.

The first shot that stood out for me was Canoes in the Chicago River (@1965-1974), a time before gentrification resulted in kayaks displacing the canoes.

Two Socks on a Clothesline made me wonder what Maier, rather than some curator, might have named it had she commercialized her work. How about something more profound, like Line Interrupted? And what about the fact that the socks don’t match? I’ll have nightmares about that.

I would have liked to grab Hippies in the Loop (April 1970) and take it home with me, as I’m sure I could find someone in the large crowd who I knew if I had more time and a magnifying glass.

Crossings: Mapping American Journeys – The Newberry – February 25, 2022

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If you like staring at old maps, this new exhibit is for you.

My favorite section included short descriptions about the journeys from the south of the Blues Travelers who created Chicago Blues, namely Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Koko Taylor, and, surprisingly, in my mind, the Staple Singers (who, as wonderful as they were, were more known for other categories of music), while Willie Dixon was egregiously omitted.

Although I grant that Mavis Staples was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2017, Dixon, who wrote hit songs for Waters, Wolf, and Taylor, among many others, was one of the original inductees in 1980.

I thought about correcting the library’s error in judgment, but, perhaps fortunately, didn’t have a pen, as staff was already eyeing me suspiciously.

So I moved on to the poster promoting the opening of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, featuring Alice (whom Lewis Carroll introduced to the world seven years earlier) telling us about her adventures in this new wonderland. Still no pen, so couldn’t draw a mustache on her.

And don’t miss the “fun map” (its original designation, not mine) of US 40, promoting tourist attractions, and, I swear, telling the story of the Donner Party through a series of cartoons. Too soon?

Ray Johnson c/o – The Art Institute of Chicago – February 11, 2022

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Unbeknownst to me, before email took over my life, I apparently was a leading practitioner of mail art, which as far as I can tell, is just a pretentious way to refer to hybrid chain letters, and I easily could have been the icon that Johnson became had I had the foresight to tell people to forward my letters, rather than just throw them out, often without opening.

But maybe it’s not too late to establish my legacy. According to Wikipedia, “The Correspondence School was a network of individuals who were artists by virtue of their willingness to play along and appreciate Johnson’s sense of humor.” I’m not sure how that makes Johnson an artist, though a lot of the art I see does require, often unintentionally, a sense of humor to appreciate. In any event, if my readers would like to consider themselves artists, and elevate me to one, perhaps they could start The Blog School in appreciation of my efforts.

My favorite part of the Johnson exhibit was the stack of boxes, containing who knows what, though I think not Lilibet Snellings, author of Box Girl: My Part Time Job As An Art Installation, as they were too small. Still, I think it would have been more interesting if presented as performance art, with someone unpacking and then repacking the boxes on an Old Faithful-type schedule.

The Chicago Reader at 50: A Half-Century of Revolutionary Storytelling – Newberry Library

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I’m the guy who made it through The Louvre in less than an hour, so it should come as no surprise that I finished my tour of Newberry Library’s Chicago Reader exhibit (on display through January 22, 2022) in under five minutes, or maybe it should, as the Reader had a much greater effect on my life than a bunch of old art work, although even I have to admit that the Winged Victory at the top of the Daru staircase is a sight one doesn’t easily forget.

I wish the Reader exhibit were larger. One small hallway, though nicely curated, really isn’t enough for a publication that helped shape a generation of Chicagoans, though kudos for mentioning the Missed Connections section that I once eagerly scoured in the hope that the young lady on the elevated platform really was checking me out.

And whose idea was it to have a constantly running broadcast of a couple of their podcasts interrupting your concentration while you’re trying to read the displays. It’s like studying with the television on. Oh, wait, that is how I studied. But I was younger then. It doesn’t count.

City on Fire: Chicago 1871 – Chicago History Museum – October 13, 2021

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I strolled into the Members’ Opening Commemoration to the strains of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire playing in the background, just as I imagine it does at every meeting of AA (Arsonists Anonymous).

I wasn’t there for the exhibit (which is interesting and well done – though not as well done as the city was following the historical event), as I had already seen it a few days earlier on the actual 150th anniversary of the conflagration, but rather to partake of the refreshments in order to practice chewing with a mask on in public in anticipation of a couple upcoming dinner events on my calendar.

Though the mask wants to slip down off one’s nose, it’s definitely doable with controlled mastication. And perhaps it will even help me slow down my notoriously fast-eating habit, along with my habit of eating when I’m supposed to be fasting.

The other thing that I wanted to research was whether the inside of my mask would act as a garbage disposal of sorts, but, upon inspection after the fact, there were no noticeable remnants of the barbecue chips that the museum offered as gourmet fire-related food. So, bring on the ribs and Sloppy Joes.

Stay Tuned: Rock on TV – Museum of Broadcast Communications – November 14, 2019

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Straight from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rock on TV exhibit is a trip down memory lane, with video from shows like Shindig, Hullaballoo, Soul Train, and American Bandstand; and artifacts, like one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, a Paul Shaffer keyboard, and costumes worn by Cher and Michael Jackson (not the same ones by both).

I wrote a two-page paper on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and its politics for my college freshman rhetoric class (how do I remember that?), so I was happy to see that show well-represented in the exhibit, especially because of two famous incidents it references.

One was Pete Seeger singing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy for a second time, after his first rendition was deleted by the network from an earlier show because of the song’s anti-war message. The other was Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, going a little overboard when blowing up his drum set on stage, apparently causing some permanent hearing loss for Pete Townsend.

Darlene Love appears in several of the videos, commenting on various shows, including, of course, both Late Night and Late Show with David Letterman, which forever etched her name in TV music history for the 28 times she performed Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on them.

Letterman is lauded as someone who brought a lot of rock acts onto his show. Apparently, other hosts, like Johnny Carson, and Ed Sullivan, who famously had The Beatles and Elvis Presley, among other rock acts, on his show, only did so kicking and screaming.

It’s a stretch to call all the music highlighted in the exhibit “rock”, but my only real complaint is the varying, overlapping sound levels that sometimes make it hard to hear at a few of the stations, even if you’re not Pete Townsend.