This entry refers to a visit to Chicago in 1999. A slightly different version of it has previously appeared on my other blog.
I like Chicago much more than any other city I have been to in America. It was something that I realised very quickly on my first visit. In spite of the terrible weather (when it wasn’t raining it was foggy) I enjoyed every minute of my short stay in the city, from my visit to the Art Institute to my night watching Blues legend, Koko Taylor - 71 at the time- it was all good.
Even the architecture appeals. There is the same abundance of skyscrapers as Manhattan, each with a weird, wonderful and unmatched design, but unlike Manhattan they are spread out. The streets are wider and lighter and less crowded. People aren't in such a hurry to get to wherever it is they are going and the whole place generally feels spacious and relaxed.
As we strolled through downtown on the first afternoon one of fellow travellers, Vanessa who had an infallible eye for a photograph, who spotted the cow. Spotted the spotted cow in fact. The first bizarre thing about it was that its spots, against the brown of its hide were bright blue. As we approached I realised that in reality they weren't spots at all, they were holes through the body with the insides painted blue. And it was wearing spectacles.
Suddenly the whole world was filled with cows. It was like a magic eye picture where something interesting is lurking unseen but suddenly leaps out at you as your eyes take on the proper focus. There was a cow on roller blades wearing a walkman, a cow painted to resemble a milk float, a carousel cow and another whose hide had been sculpted into a relief map of the world. A red and green cow jumped over a crescent moon. They were everywhere.
It was, I discovered, the Chicago 'Cows on Parade' exhibition which businessman Peter Hanig had instigated after seeing something similar on a trip to Switzerland. Chicago had taken the idea on board with a vengeance. Scattered around the city were more than 300 of them decorated by local artists in every conceivable style. For a city which was burned down in 1871 by a conflagration allegedly started by a cow kicking over a lantern it was a remarkably appropriate theme. I loved it and added 'great sense of humour' to the things that I liked about the city, joining its general appearance and the numerous blues clubs at the top of the list.
Down in the art museum things just went on getting better. I can spend days wandering around art galleries and this one was one of the best I'd ever seen. Its collection is mixed by any standards. Any artist of note that you have ever heard of is likely to be represented somewhere among the 300,000 exhibits. Renoir rubs shoulders with Picasso, Warhol sits side by side with Monet. In keeping with the cow theme I was particularly taken with a plaster relief by Giovanni Caccini in which a king was having one of his enemies stuffed into the hinged back of a brass bull to be roasted alive.
Most interesting though was the contemporary art section. It occurred to me that this would be the ideal place for Damien Hirst to exhibit a cow sawn in half but no, there was nothing like that there. There were however a great variety of pieces, some of which I liked, some of which I disliked and some of which were so risible that they should be eligible for the Turner prize, a competition that regularly has me breaking down into fits of helpless laughter. One 'sculpture' consisted of a piece of electrical flex and some light bulbs - I mistook it for a piece of unfinished wiring until I noticed that it had a label with a title. By far the weirdest though was 'Clown Torture.' This was a large square white walled room with videos showing a clown rolling around screaming and the same clown sitting on the toilet with his trousers around his ankles. It was accompanied by a soundtrack of groans , screams and maniacal laughter. It wasn't clear if the clown was being tortured or the audience.
I went back to the comparatively less self indulgent works of Andy Warhol. As I was looking at them I chatted to Murray the huge security guard. In a London gallery the security staff usually sit solemnly on plastic chairs at the end of the room eyeing everyone with suspicion. I have never heard one of them speak and I've visited a lot of galleries. In America it's different. Wherever you go ten seconds after you enter the room and start looking at the paintings the guard is your lifelong pal. Murray had introduced himself as I stood looking at a painting by Gerhadt Richter that was a huge oil painting of an out of focus photograph of ablurred street scene, with the remark. The novelty of a good painting of a bad photograph appealed to me.
"Kinda messes with your eyes don't it?"
I had to agree that it did.
"You Australian?" he asked.
It was a mistake that I found all too common and totally inexplicable. My Wolverhampton accent sounds nothing like an Australian but everywhere I go in the United States people always ask the same question.
"English." I corrected.
At least Murray didn't go on insisting that I was from Down Under as so many of his countrymen have in the past.
He did shed some light on the mystery for me though by explaining that while Australians were usually happy to talk to him most English seemed less eager to respond to his friendliness. Presumably taken by the novelty of an Englishman prepared to listen he followed me around on my circuit of the room giving me his opinion of virtually every piece there. He told me he'd never liked modern art at all until he'd been transferred to this gallery. He'd always preferred pictures that were 'of something'. Here though, over the months, he'd spent so much time looking at the work that he'd started to find something good in most of it. His enthusiasm was as infectious as only that of an amateur can ever truly be as he showed me around some of his personal favourites. Intrigued by his insights I asked him what he thought about 'Clown Torture'. He scratched his head and pondered.
"I guess some things you gotta work at harder than others," he said "I'll be retired before I figure that one out.
I'm not sure if I've used this poem here before, though I suspect I might have, but if I have, here it is again - a poem I wrote after my visit to the Art Institute.
I like Chicago much more than any other city I have been to in America. It was something that I realised very quickly on my first visit. In spite of the terrible weather (when it wasn’t raining it was foggy) I enjoyed every minute of my short stay in the city, from my visit to the Art Institute to my night watching Blues legend, Koko Taylor - 71 at the time- it was all good.
Even the architecture appeals. There is the same abundance of skyscrapers as Manhattan, each with a weird, wonderful and unmatched design, but unlike Manhattan they are spread out. The streets are wider and lighter and less crowded. People aren't in such a hurry to get to wherever it is they are going and the whole place generally feels spacious and relaxed.
As we strolled through downtown on the first afternoon one of fellow travellers, Vanessa who had an infallible eye for a photograph, who spotted the cow. Spotted the spotted cow in fact. The first bizarre thing about it was that its spots, against the brown of its hide were bright blue. As we approached I realised that in reality they weren't spots at all, they were holes through the body with the insides painted blue. And it was wearing spectacles.
Suddenly the whole world was filled with cows. It was like a magic eye picture where something interesting is lurking unseen but suddenly leaps out at you as your eyes take on the proper focus. There was a cow on roller blades wearing a walkman, a cow painted to resemble a milk float, a carousel cow and another whose hide had been sculpted into a relief map of the world. A red and green cow jumped over a crescent moon. They were everywhere.
It was, I discovered, the Chicago 'Cows on Parade' exhibition which businessman Peter Hanig had instigated after seeing something similar on a trip to Switzerland. Chicago had taken the idea on board with a vengeance. Scattered around the city were more than 300 of them decorated by local artists in every conceivable style. For a city which was burned down in 1871 by a conflagration allegedly started by a cow kicking over a lantern it was a remarkably appropriate theme. I loved it and added 'great sense of humour' to the things that I liked about the city, joining its general appearance and the numerous blues clubs at the top of the list.
Down in the art museum things just went on getting better. I can spend days wandering around art galleries and this one was one of the best I'd ever seen. Its collection is mixed by any standards. Any artist of note that you have ever heard of is likely to be represented somewhere among the 300,000 exhibits. Renoir rubs shoulders with Picasso, Warhol sits side by side with Monet. In keeping with the cow theme I was particularly taken with a plaster relief by Giovanni Caccini in which a king was having one of his enemies stuffed into the hinged back of a brass bull to be roasted alive.
Most interesting though was the contemporary art section. It occurred to me that this would be the ideal place for Damien Hirst to exhibit a cow sawn in half but no, there was nothing like that there. There were however a great variety of pieces, some of which I liked, some of which I disliked and some of which were so risible that they should be eligible for the Turner prize, a competition that regularly has me breaking down into fits of helpless laughter. One 'sculpture' consisted of a piece of electrical flex and some light bulbs - I mistook it for a piece of unfinished wiring until I noticed that it had a label with a title. By far the weirdest though was 'Clown Torture.' This was a large square white walled room with videos showing a clown rolling around screaming and the same clown sitting on the toilet with his trousers around his ankles. It was accompanied by a soundtrack of groans , screams and maniacal laughter. It wasn't clear if the clown was being tortured or the audience.
I went back to the comparatively less self indulgent works of Andy Warhol. As I was looking at them I chatted to Murray the huge security guard. In a London gallery the security staff usually sit solemnly on plastic chairs at the end of the room eyeing everyone with suspicion. I have never heard one of them speak and I've visited a lot of galleries. In America it's different. Wherever you go ten seconds after you enter the room and start looking at the paintings the guard is your lifelong pal. Murray had introduced himself as I stood looking at a painting by Gerhadt Richter that was a huge oil painting of an out of focus photograph of ablurred street scene, with the remark. The novelty of a good painting of a bad photograph appealed to me.
"Kinda messes with your eyes don't it?"
I had to agree that it did.
"You Australian?" he asked.
It was a mistake that I found all too common and totally inexplicable. My Wolverhampton accent sounds nothing like an Australian but everywhere I go in the United States people always ask the same question.
"English." I corrected.
At least Murray didn't go on insisting that I was from Down Under as so many of his countrymen have in the past.
He did shed some light on the mystery for me though by explaining that while Australians were usually happy to talk to him most English seemed less eager to respond to his friendliness. Presumably taken by the novelty of an Englishman prepared to listen he followed me around on my circuit of the room giving me his opinion of virtually every piece there. He told me he'd never liked modern art at all until he'd been transferred to this gallery. He'd always preferred pictures that were 'of something'. Here though, over the months, he'd spent so much time looking at the work that he'd started to find something good in most of it. His enthusiasm was as infectious as only that of an amateur can ever truly be as he showed me around some of his personal favourites. Intrigued by his insights I asked him what he thought about 'Clown Torture'. He scratched his head and pondered.
"I guess some things you gotta work at harder than others," he said "I'll be retired before I figure that one out.
I'm not sure if I've used this poem here before, though I suspect I might have, but if I have, here it is again - a poem I wrote after my visit to the Art Institute.
Clown Torture
If I live to be a hundred, and see it all before I die
Some things I'll never figure out, I'll have to let them lie.
There is no such thing as justice and no such thing as truth
There is no such thing as contact - we can't share a point of view
There is a distance that's between us that is more than miles or years
I can no more laugh your humour than you can cry my tears
In a corner of the institute
In a room that's walled in white
There is a scream that lasts for ever
From a clown that no-one likes
I thought I didn't understand
But suddenly it's clear
The dichotomy of terror
Turning laughter into fear.
If I live to be a hundred and spend every minute searching
Some secrets I know I'll never find, some pains will still be hurting
But there's no such thing as sorrow and no such thing as love
And no such thing as failure when there is nothing left to prove.
There's a distance lies between us that is more than miles or days
I can no more chose your dreams than you can guide my way.
1 comment:
Isn't it cool when folks just strike up a conversation?
I like the poem.
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