2017-18 Art History Lecture Series at Gage

2017-18 Art History Lecture Series at Gage, will start in October and run through May, we are now in our 3rd year of this fantastic lecture series!
 
Featuring Gage teaching artists as well as art historians from the Seattle art community, these lectures feature an intimate look inside the artists and movements that helped shape art from the Renaissance through the 20th Century.
 

Register online for a single lecture, a quarterly series or the entire 2017-18 program, and delve into the techniques, ideologies and personalities that define art in our world. This year's series is really interesting and will rang from a variety of topics from Medieval through Modern.  The series will start off with a look at Giotto and end with an overview of Op Art.  There is more information on each along with info on the artist or art historian below.



Lamentation of Christ, Giotto, c-1305, fresco, Arena Chapel, Padua    
Oct 18 – Rob Prufer – Giotto and the Arena Chapel

Local art historian Rob Prufer will discuss this important work of early Italian Renaissance Art. Prufer is well known for his popular Loggia Lecture series on art and art history at the Bellevue Arts Museum.



The Arena Chapel’s frescoed interior transports you with its ultramarine vault of heaven and its earthy embrace of human experience. Giotto’s use of gestures, glances and fleshy postures infuses the Christian story with a gravity and a levity that were astounding 700 years ago—and still resonate today.

 

    The Chess Game, Sofonisba Anguissola, 1555, Museum Navrodwe, Poznan, Poland
     
Oct 25 – Carol Hendricks – Italian Renaissance Women Painters

In addition to my art history blog and working at Gage Academy of Art I also enjoy lecturing on a variety of art history topics and am looking forward to this topic.

The Renaissance provided new opportunities for women in the arts, though they remain less well known.  Several talented painters such as Sofonisba Anguissola, Marietta Robusti, Lavinia Fontana and Fede Galizia made important contributions to painting in the 16th century.


    David, Michelangelo, marble, 1501-1504, Accademia Gallery, Florence

    photo- © Rico Heil / public domain, via Wikimedia Commons  
Nov 1 – Gary Faigin - Michelangelo’s David


Join painter, arts writer and art history Gary Faigin to learn more about this masterpiece. One of the world’s most famous works of art, Michelangelo’s David is not as straightforward as it might seem.  We’ll learn about the fascinating and surprising backstory of this monumental masterpiece – why it was commissioned, how it was carved, and its complicated life after its completion.
 
    
    The Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo da Vinci, 1483, Louvre
     
Nov 8 – Jim Phalen – Chaos vs. Control throughout Art


Jim Phalen is a painter who says this about his work-

"I am committed to the practice of working from life. I seek to capture the integrity of experience through seeing. Without nature there is no conversation. For me painting is a physical manifestation of the act of seeing- a manifestation capable of deep emotion."

 Phalen will be discussing an overview of painting with a really interesting viewpoint-

Through the history of painting there has been an ongoing tension between the desire to control the process and a willingness to let go and allow the material to fully express itself. From da Vinci to Titan, from Ingres to Gericault and from Chuck Close to Lucien Freud, the back and forth continues. 
 
      The Last Supper, Tintoretto, San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1592-94
Jan 17 – Charles Emerson - Renaissance Painting and the Roots of Abstract Expression
 
Popular Modernist painting and instructor Charles Emerson wants to explore how the Italian Renaissance had a direct influence on Abstract Expression in the 20th century.

An artist’s personal expression and passion is sometimes revealed more clearly when we have caught up aesthetically with them, now able to appreciate the often surprising results that perhaps hold more resonance for our time than theirs; often anticipating future developments while still being relevant and exciting.
Jan 24 – Larine Chung – Henri Fantin-Latour

The most celebrated 19th-century French painter of flower, still life and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers, Fantin-Latour was among the first artists who started the art movement of Impressionism.


Join painter and art instructor Larine Chung for her insight into this famous painter.

      Larine Chung, Aqua, 2016, oil on canvas
Jan 31- Terry Furchgott – Gustav Klimt
 

Terry Furchgott, On The Other Side, 2014, acrylic on paper

Terry is known for her large scale work with pastel and acrylic, she has had a number of important public art commissions and is represented by Harris Harvey Gallery in Seattle.  Gustav Klimt is one of her favorite painters.


Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-08


Gustav Klimt, Austrian Symbolist painter and founding member of the Viennese Secession, is known for the decorative opulence of his surfaces, rich use of color, and sensual beauty of his women.  We will explore the elegant portraits, intricate landscapes, and vibrant eroticism of this most unique artist.   

    
    Poussin, Arcadian Shepherds, 1650
      








Feb 7 – Kimberly Trowbridge- Search for Arcadia: Poussin, Delacroix, Cezanne

In this lecture we will explore how Cezanne was influenced by the works of Poussin and Delacroix in his rigorous attempt to unite form with color. We will consider how each of these artists sought a new unity, a new visual paradise, to express the truth of their experience. 
 
Kimberly Trowbridge, Arcadia Wheel, Oil on Canvas, 64" x 60," 2013



Kimberly Trowbridge is a painter, a musician, an instructor and an art historian. 
She  writes-
"Painting is how I stay awake. It is how I cultivate and arrange my thoughts. It is how I come to understand the relationships between things, through rhythm and color.
I gather information from the visual realm and compose the parts into an articulate expression of my experience. This is the practice I have developed through painting. I use this method both on and off of the canvas: I paint images, construct theatric installations, layer video footage, compose music, and perform my body through space all through the language of painting."


Emperor Justinian and his Attendants, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, 547 AD, mosaic

    April 11 – Kathleen Moore – The Enigma of Byzantine Art

    The Byzantine empire started in antiquity and lasted for a thousand years. Best known for their glittering mosaics in Ravenna and Istanbul, their art continues to fascinate contemporary audiences.



    What secrets are those wide-eyed Byzantine figures keeping from us? Come with painter, instructor and art historian Kathleen Moore on a journey into the ancient world to find out!

     

      Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, c-1660

    April 18 – Tenaya Sims – Vermeer’s Milkmaid

    Come here painter and Atelier instructor Tenaya Sims talk on Vermeer's Milkmaid and the Camera Obscura controversy.

    Vermeer's compositions are legendary, and the painting, 'The Milkmaid' is a hallmark example of his expertise. Does it matter if he used optical technology? If so, was he limited artistically by these tools?


      Käthe Kollwitz, Die Mütter (The Mothers), Plate VI from the series Krieg (War), 1922-1923,
      Woodcut printed in black on Japan paper
       

    April 25 – Rebecca Albiani – Käthe Kollwitz

     



    A graphic artist in the tradition of Goya and Daumier, Kollwitz worked in Berlin through two world wars, depicting starving children and grieving mothers.  Through her powerful imagery she had hopes of promoting social change. 
     
    Jeffrey Simmons, Strength of Strings, 2016
    May 2 – Jeffrey Simmons – The Op Art movement
    Abstract painter Simmons will discuss this key 20th century painting movement.  Jeffrey is represented by the Greg Kucera Gallery and started teaching abstract painting at Gage this past summer.




    The Op Art movement, typified by the works of Bridget Riley, Jesus Rafael Soto, and New York-born Seattle resident Francis Celentano, had its fascinatingly brief moment during the 1960's, when it influenced fashion and contributed to the popular perception of what "modern" painting looked like. Well received by the public but occasionally derided by critics as mere gimmickry, the movement has been the subject of an ongoing historical reevaluation and has become a source of inspiration for recent generations of artists.


         

      On this Date in History, September 5: Birth of de la Tour and Friedrich

      What happened on this date in art history?  September 5 brings us two birthdays of painters born in the 18th century, French Rococo painter Maurice Quentin de la Tour and German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich.



      Maurice Quentin de la Tour, Self-Portrait, 1751, Amiens, Musée de Picardie


      Maurice Quentin de La Tour (September 5, 1704 – February 17, 788) was a French Rococo painter best known for his pastel portraits.


      Pastels were a new art media in the 18th century, they solidified pigments into portable sticks and were useful for quick sketches that could be translated into larger paintings later as well as landscapes and portraits that would allow for shorter lengths of time for the subject to sit.

      De la Tour's own self-portrait is one of his best known works, the artist was able to portray a variety of textures quite beautifully from fabrics such as his velvet coat to hair and skin.

      He was a popular artist in France and painted portraits of the King, the royal family, the King's mistress, Voltaire and other distinguished people in France.

      The Metropolitan Museum of Art writes of de la Tour on their website-

      "In the age of Enlightenment when the medium of pastel gained immense popularity, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour was perhaps its most gifted practitioner. He was distinguished from his peers by his ability to capture the inner spirit and intellect of his sitters."

      Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1817-1818), Hamburg Art Museum


      Caspar David Friedrich (September 5, 1774 – May 7, 1840) was a German Romantic painter known for his landscapes.  Friedrich spent much of his life and career in Dresden.  He began his painting career in 1807, but had been drawing for several years beforehand.

      Unlike the work of de la Tour during the time of the Enlightenment, a period known for its reason, the era of Romanticism focused on mood and emotion, theatricality, passion and dramatic settings.

      There was a new interest in and reverence for nature which is why elements of landscape frequently appear in Romantic art, particularly in the work of Friedrich. Friedrich often combined figures in his landscape work in interesting compositions (he painted himself into the work below on the right). 



      Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1825-30), Metropolitan Museum of Art

       

      Wyeth and more Wyeth this fall in the Pacific Northwest

      Everyone in the Pacific Northwest who is a fan of Andrew Wyeth and the rest of the talented Wyeth family is in for a treat this fall with a big exhibit at both the Portland Art Museum and the Seattle Art Museum which will be running concurrently starting in October 2017.

      The PAM show, The Wyeths: Three Generations, runs from Oct 7, 2017 – Jan 28, 2018 and the SAM show, Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, runs from Oct 19 2017 – Jan 15 2018.  More information from the website of each museum is listed below.  This will provide an excellent opportunity to view some of the most influential representational painting from the 20th century.  I can't wait to attend both exhibits later this fall!


      
      Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917-2009), On the Edge, 2001, Tempera on panel, Bank of America Collection.



      Portland Art Museum
      The Wyeths:Three Generations


      Works from the Bank of America Collection


      OCT 7, 2017 – JAN 28, 2018
      The Wyeths are one of America’s foremost artistic families. Their work has captured the admiration of audiences for three generations, spanning the golden age of illustration to mid-century portraiture. Drawing from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection, The Wyeths: Three Generations includes more than eighty paintings and drawings by N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), his son Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) and his grandson Jamie Wyeth (born in 1946). All showcase a commitment to realism, technical brilliance, and narrative sensibility.

       Patriarch N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) was one of the country’s foremost illustrators at the turn of the twentieth century. His ability to beautifully traverse fantasy and realism made him one of the most versatile American artists of his time. N.C.’s son Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) became known for his detailed realism and haunting scenes of American life inspired by the history and beauty of the American northeast.

       Although not as well-known as her brother, Henriette Wyeth (1907-1997) painted striking portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. She is also represented in the exhibition, as is her husband Peter Hurd (1904-1984), who chronicled the landscape of the American West. Lastly, Andrew’s son Jamie (b. 1946) represents the family’s third generation of artists. Jamie, too, utilizes a realistic style, but adds his own twist of magic and mystery to his subjects.


      This exhibition is provided by Bank of America’s Art in our Communities®.

      MAJOR SPONSORS: Bank of America, Joanne Lilley in memory of Pete Mark

      SPONSORS: The Flowerree Foundation, Laura S. Meier in memory of Pete Mark

      

      Andrew Wyeth, Winter 1946, 1946, Tempera on hardboard panel, 31 3/8 x 48 in., North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, © 2017 Andrew Wyeth/Artists Rights Society (ARS).



      Seattle Art Museum

      Andrew Wyeth:In Retrospect

      Simonyi Special Exhibition Galleries

      Thu Oct 19 2017 – Mon Jan 15 2018

      Enter Andrew Wyeth’s reality. On the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth, Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect examines the American master’s 75-year career and offers unexpected perspectives on his art and legacy. Organized in partnership with the Brandywine River Museum, this major exhibition presents over 100 of the artist’s paintings and drawings. It looks back on a century in America when Wyeth confounded critics and deviated from the American art mainstream, but continued to figure prominently in much of the country’s artistic discourse.

       Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect follows the evolution of one of America’s most famous painters by bringing together well-known and rarely seen works. From depictions of his life in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, to the coastal villages of Maine, Wyeth created timeless images of places, people, and things—layered with acute observation and a boundless imagination—all imbued with the artist’s mysterious temperament. Often out of synch with the time, Wyeth’s art challenged the norms of realism and abstraction.

       The exhibition begins in the late 1930s with Wyeth’s breakthrough works of brilliantly colored, boldly gestural, transparent watercolors of the Maine coast. These were soon set aside for the somber-toned and tightly rendered tempera paintings often associated with the artist. They include some of the artist’s most famous paintings, such as portraits of Christina Olson of Maine and Karl Kuerner, his neighbor in Chadds Ford.

       Also on view are the artist’s little known portraits of African Americans, a major focus of Wyeth’s work in the 1950s and ‘60s, followed by work from the 1970s and ‘80s, including the eroticism of the once-secret Helga paintings, and other deeply psychological but lesser known paintings from the Helga years. Finally, the exhibition reflects on images of his later life as he closed the book on his earlier subjects and looked for new ones. It brings to Seattle Wyeth’s last painting, Goodbye, which has not been seen since it was briefly shown to those who attended the artist’s memorial service in 2009.

       Andrew Wyeth investigated the possibilities of the portrait, the figure, and the places we inhabit—shunning narrative and rising above cliché—to convey the very emotions that make us human.

       The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue co-published by Yale University Press.

      Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect is co-organized by the Brandywine River Museum of Art and Seattle Art Museum.


      Gage Georgetown Calling: Art Lecture Series with Emily Pothast

      Gage Academy of Art has a new location in Georgetown that opened last fall and starting in 2017 there is a new art history lecture series taught by visual artist, musician, arts writer and curator, Emily Pothast.  Emily will lecture on a wide variety of subjects from Hilma Af Klint to Marcel Duchamp to Albrecht Dürer.  Each hour long lecture will be followed by an hour long art workshop tying in to the subject matter.

      Hilma af Klint, The Ten Largest, 1907

      Gage Georgetown Calling: Art Lecture Series with Emily Pothast

      Lecturer: Emily Pothast
      Third Thursdays
      Lecture: 7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M.
      Studio Workshop: 8:15 P.M. – 9:15 P.M.

      September 21 | Hilma Af Klint and the Birth of Abstraction
      Historians once believed that Kandinsky was the first European artist to paint truly abstract works. We now know that he was preceded by at least two female artists: the Swedish mystic Hilma af Klint and the even earlier Victorian spiritualist Georgiana Houghton. This lecture introduces the work of these and other often overlooked artists in the context of early 20th century cultural movements.

      October 19 | The Secret History of Feminist Self-Portraiture
      In the 1980s, the Guerilla Girls asked, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met?” noting that fewer than 5% of the artists in the museum’s collection were women, but 85% of the nudes were female. Art historians have, however, speculated that the proportions of the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf suggest that she might be a self-portrait. Using this possibility as a point of departure, this class will delve into the history of the body in feminist and women’s art, examining how our experience of the gaze shifts when women are in command of their own images.

      Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, 1434, National Gallery, London


      November 16 | Sacred Geometry for Artists
      In addition to their anatomical study of the human form, artists like Jan Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albrecht Dürer have also studied geometry in an attempt to determine how the mind interprets certain arrangements of shape and form as beautiful. This class starts with the natural world as the basis for proportion, exploring how the underlying ratios of nature have given rise to the field of sacred geometry, with exercises you can use to explore visual mathematics on your own.
       
      December 21 | Marcel Duchamp: Étant Donnés and The Large Glass
      A household name for his readymades and meta-art antics, Marcel Duchamp’s most complex works—The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass) and the mysterious, posthumously-installed Étant Donnés are far more enigmatic than the one-liners he is best known for. Using Duchamp’s historical context and the detailed diagrams the artist created for both works, this lecture will shed some light on the fascinating relationship between these two extraordinary works of art.
       
      January 18 | The Graphic Works of Albrecht Dürer
      Once considered the greatest painter in Northern Europe, Albrecht Dürer also wrote the first textbooks in mathematics in the German language. Dürer’s woodcuts and etchings on religious and secular themes reflect the transformative politics of the Protestant Reformation, as well as an interest in science and mathematics that would soon come to eclipse religious thought in Europe. This lecture will serve as an introduction to the graphic art of Albrecht Dürer in its historical context.

      February  15 | Eternity in an Hour: An Introduction to the Art of William Blake
      Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, the English Romantic painter, printmaker, and poet William Blake created a highly distinctive visual language that delights and confounds viewers to this day. This lecture will serve as an introduction to the visual works of William Blake in the context of his spiritual and poetic writings.

      
      Michelangelo, David, 1501-04, Galleria dell'Accademia (Florence)


       March 15 | The Male Nude
      Female nudes may be ubiquitous in the history of art, but a sizable number of male nudes are out there, too, both idealized and unglamorous. This class will serve as an introduction to the history of the male nude in sculpture, painting, and photography.

       April 19 | A Survey of Female Surrealists
      Some female surrealists, like Frida Kahlo, are household names. Others, like Leonora Carrington, Kay Sage, and Maria Martins, should be. This class will serve as an introduction to themes of surrealism through the work of a diverse group of women artists.

      May 17 | Powerful Void: The Life and Work of Lee Bontecou
      In the 1960s, Lee Bontecou rose to prominence with her distinctive welded steel and canvas sculptures. Then, in the 1980s, she all but disappeared from the New York art scene, retreating to the Pennsylvania countryside. This class will explore Bontecou’s category-defying life, career, and body of work.

       
       

      On this Date in History, August 21: Mona Lisa stolen, birth of Greuze and Beardsley

      On August 21, 2017 most of North America will be watching the skies for the total solar eclipse.  What events in art history happened on August 21?  In 1911 the Mona Lisa was famously stolen from the Louvre, in 1725 the French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze was born and in 1872 English artist Aubrey Beardsley was born.

      Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, Greuze, 1777, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia


      Jean-Baptiste Greuze was born on this day in 1725, (21 August 1725 – 4 March 1805). He was a French Neoclassical painter famous for his portraits and genre scenes.  He painted the portraits of dozens of sitters and his genre scenes often had a moralizing message imbedded in the subject matter.

      I thought it was fitting to show Greuze's portrait of Benjamin Franklin since the last time a total solar eclipse had a path of totality solely visible in the United States before 2017 was in 1776.  1776 of course being the year that the United States Declaration of Independence was written and Benjamin Franklin was one of the signers of that document, and the oldest of the signers at 70 years old.


      The Peacock Skirt, Aubrey Beardsley, illustration for Oscar Wilde's play Salomé (1892)


      1872- Aubrey Beardsley (August 21, 1872 – March 16, 1898), the English Art Noveau artist was born.  Beardsley only lived to be 21 years old, he is best remembered for his fantastical illustrations for Oscar Wilde's play Salomé.

      Mona Lisa, (La Gioconda), Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-06, The Louvre

      On August 21, 1911 the Mona Lisa was famously stolen from The Louvre in Paris.  Leonardo lived and worked in France for the French king and died outside of Paris in 1519.  Due to this the Louvre has at least six paintings as well as dozens of drawings.

      A man named Vincenzo Peruggia who worked at the Louvre was Italian and felt that the Mona Lisa should be returned to Italy.  As an employee he was able to take it from the frame and sneak it out of the building. When word got out about the theft the public was shocked. It was said that more people came to the Louvre to see the empty frame in the month after it was stolen than visited the museum the previous year.

      It was recovered two years later and today hangs behind glass and a rope and is usually surrounded by a large crowd.  

      September 2017 Art Talks Lecture Series

      The Gates of Paradise, Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1425-52, Baptistery Doors, Florence, Italy

      I will be lecturing at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art on one of my very favorite works of art this September, The Gates of Paradise.  After our workshop in Florence I am newly inspired to discuss Lorenzo Ghiberti's masterpiece that I just saw in person.  I am happy to be part of this series which also includes Gage Academy of Art Artistic Director, Gary Faigin and Rebecca Albiani who has for years given the very popular art history lectures at the Frye Art Museum.  My lecture is Saturday, September 9 at 10:00am, for anyone who lives locally I hope to see you there!
       


      Kitsap Regional Library’s LibraryU and Bainbridge Island Museum of Art are thrilled to host Carol Hendricks, Rebecca Albiani and Gary Faigin for the September ART Talks lecture Series. With decades of experience between them, each speaker has uniquely invested their time, skills and passion toward deepening their understanding of art methodologies and ideologies.  Join us as we explore three distinct and riveting topics!
      Free with $5 Suggested Donation at the door
      Doors open at 9:45
      Lecture from 10:00am–11:30am
      BIMA Auditorium
      REGISTER HERE

      Carol Hendricks
      The Gates of Paradise
      Saturday, September 9th
      Lorenzo Ghiberti’s seminal work, the east set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery, was dubbed “The Gates of Paradise” by Michelangelo for its unparalleled beauty and innovative approach to the subject matter.  In 1401 a competition for an earlier set of doors started a rivalry between Brunelleschi and Ghiberti which ignited the beginning of the Renaissance.  As a direct result the Cathedral’s dome was built, one-point perspective was invented, the first nude life-sized figures since antiquity were sculpted and a new way of thinking about art was born.

      Rebecca Albiani
      Documenting the Dust Bowl:  Dorothea Lange and Marion Post
      Saturday, September 16th
      During the New Deal response to the Depression, Dorothea Lange and Marion Post Wolcott were part of the team of talented photographers dispatched by the Farm Security Administration to record conditions in the rural US.  The two women produced a vast and impressive body of work under challenging circumstances; Lange’s Migrant Mother and Post's Tenant Farmer's Children, Rickets have become icons of the hardscrabble thirties.  

      Gary Faigin
      How Does an Artist Become a Legend? The Epic Journey of Giorgio Morandi 
      Saturday, September 23rd
      The life of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi is indeed the stuff of legends.  Never married, sharing a small apartment with his three sisters, and painting the same collection of pots, pans, and cups for almost 50 years, Morandi created a body of work unmatched in its intense exploration of the mystery of perception and the shifting nature of reality.  Gary Faigin, himself a painter of still lives for 30 years, will share his insights into the surprisingly adventurous and lively work of this eccentric and beloved master. 









      Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors

      Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is currently having an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, runs through September 10, 2017.  This exhibit is hugely popular, online tickets sold out quickly and hours were extended.  While they have tickets available each day for those who walk in, they regularly sell out by late morning.  I am a SAM member and got my ticket back in May for July 30, the last weekend spot available online at that time.

      I really loved the exhibit, in my opinion it is worth the lines and the wait.  Kusama is 88 years old and this is a result of decades of her creativity.  There are paintings, sculpture and the mirrored Infinity Rooms which are what is drawing the public to this exhibit in droves.
      
      Infinity Mirror Room–Phalli’s Field, Yayoi Kusama, 1965


      The first room I entered was the Infinity Mirror Room–Phalli’s Field.  When I stepped in the Infinity Room titled Phalli's Field I gasped and said "Oh wow, look at this!" the effect of mirrors upon mirrors in every direction and the fun and colorful sculptures on the floor transported me to an otherworldly place.  This room had a twenty second time limit and oddly twenty seconds didn't feel too short.  In twenty seconds I saw myself, the other two visitors and the little spotted sculptures replicated hundreds of times, bouncing around from mirror to mirror and back again.  If The Obliteration Room I would visit later felt like stepping into a painting, Phalli's Field felt like stepping into a fairy tale.

      Something odd happened when the museum attendant knocked on the door and opened it, I saw everyone in line ahead of me I knew when they knocked and opened the door you were meant to walk out, I was too disoriented to walk right out.  I went to the door confused and I had only been in there 20 seconds.  I had to sit down afterwards, I felt completely disoriented and I hadn't expected to.


      
      The Obliteration Room, Yayoi Kusama, 2002-present, installed 2017

      For the mirrored infinity rooms there is a very short time limit to how long you can stay in the room.  However The Obliteration Room (pictured above and below) have no such time limit and the visitors are part of the art experience.  The room started out as an all white room the day the exhibit opened and every visitor is handed five stickers which must be used in the room (I added mine all to the sofas).  After thousands of visitors the room is a dizzying blur of color, it is hard to make out any of the objects.  Visitors are encouraged to sit on sofas and chairs.  There are a wide variety of objects: shelves, a bicycle, furniture, etc. and with each newly added sticker the objects begin to become indistinguishable from one another.  The visitors become artists and also part of the art, it is like walking into the middle of a painting, perhaps an Op Art painting, perhaps a Pointillist painting or an Australian Aboriginal painting.  It was a fun experience, but also disorienting to the viewer. 

      Blog author Carol Hendricks in The Obliteration Room, Yayoi Kusama, 2002-present, installed 2017


      Actually each of the four Infinity Rooms that can be entered constitutes a disorienting experience.  There is a wait to enter each of the rooms (Infinity Rooms only, not The Obliteration Room), for me it was between 5-15 minutes per room and then visitors are only permitted to stay in each room for 30 seconds.

      Hearing that may dissuade someone from visiting, why spend 30-40 minutes standing in lines for 30 seconds in each room?  I will say that standing in line was actually part of the experience, while no one loves lines, it does build up a feeling of anticipation that for me added to the actual experience of being in the rooms.

      

      Dots Obsession–Love Transformed into Dots, Yayoi Kusama, 2007

      The second Infinity Room I went into was designed in 2016 and called Infinity Mirrored Room–All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins.  I was talking to the woman behind me in line and it was nice to interact with strangers who were all experiencing the same thing, wondering what we would see next, talking about the different sort of art viewing experience at this exhibit and which was your favorite. There was no photography in that room and a museum attendant went in the room with you to enforce that (follow the link and scroll down for a view of it). I had taken a photo in the first room and having that rule just let me spend the time in there taking it all in, mirrors and a black floor and glowing pumpkin sculptures covered in black dots.  It was another visit to a fairy tale or perhaps the inside of a kaleidoscope.  We asked the attendant if she got tired of being in the room and she said no but they switched after 30 minutes.  I can imagine you would really start to feel dizzy.  Again I felt completely disoriented as I left.

      The room for Dots Obsession–Love Transformed into Dots was bigger and the time limit a bit longer, this time I only had a 5 minute wait in line as opposed to a 10 minute wait for the first room and a 15 minute wait for the second.  I felt less disoriented that time but took a break and looked at sculpture and painting before I went on.

      Life (Repetitive Vision), Yayoi Kusama, 1998

      Kusama's paintings and sculptures make you want to reach out and touch them.  They were done earlier and her ideas of surface and repetition are seen here.  I found them really compelling and all her work to be incredibly creative.  There were two more Infinity Rooms that a visitor could just look into rather than stepping into, both filled with dazzling lights and mirrors reflecting images again and again until you didn't know what you were looking at.

      My favorite room was the one I went into last, the Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity. This featured dim lighting with small flickering lanterns.  I didn't want to leave, but again 30 seconds felt like a longer span of time.  I started with a quick photo and then put my camera away so I could take in my surroundings and try and remember it, but I don't think I really could remember it as it was both so brief and so overwhelming.

      Infinity Mirrored Room–Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity, 2016, Yayoi Kusama

      I work with a local arts writer who got a first look at the show during the press viewing.  During this viewing there were no lines (and The Obliteration Room was all white) and another co-worker who accompanied them said while she really enjoyed seeing it, she understood why the visits were limited to being such short experiences after she went in multiple times.  Not because of the crowds or the lines, but as part of the artist's vision to create a beautiful illusion which leaves the visitor wanting more.  I would say every visitor does leave wanting more, more of the crazily creative and overwhelming sensations; the dizzying, disorienting and utterly magical experiences that the Infinity Mirrors provides.



      Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors 2017-2018 exhibition tour

      Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, February 23 to May 14, 2017

      Seattle Art Museum, June 29 to September 10, 2017

      Broad Museumfrom October 21, 2017 to January 1, 2018

      Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto from March 3 to May 27, 2018

      Cleveland Museum of Art from July 7 to September 30, 2018
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