Take your time -: Olafur Eliason, May1-September 13, 2009
I was very happy to see for real this artwork which I have always seen in books. It’s really poetic and beautiful. A must see!
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliason creates formally diverse works that are, to use his own words, “devices for the experience of reality”, provoking a heightened level of enjoyement and engagement that is profoundly felt.Materials found in the natural landscape-light, air, water, moss-are put to the service of artworks that are less objects than experiences. Nature merges with articife in scenarios that clearly expose the means by which they operate.In this way Eliasson’s art is in equal parts wondrous in impact and transparent in structure.
…To the degree that we actively engage with the work, we come to a heightened sense of perceiving and doing.”Seeing yourself seeing” is how Eliasson describes this state of self-awareness and reflection, and it is his art’s ultimate goal.It is a condition of creative involvement that the artist hopes may be subsequently carried by each of us out into the larger world so as to better act on our own lives and circumstances.In keeping with this idea, the exhibition title, Take your time, invites you to actively shape your experience of the show and assume greater responsability for your present and future role in personal and civic life.
-Madeleine Grynsztejn,MCA Pritzker Director
Armita Raafat (Iranian,B.The United States 1977) Untitled, 2009
Raafat creates installations that employ the distinguishing structures, patterns, and motifs of Islamic and Persian architecture and ornamentation. For this project, Raafat draws on the coloring of and inspiration for the elaborate blue tile work of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran-a masterpiece of Safavid Iranian architecture of the 1600S.
Artists in Depth: William Kentridge, May 10, 2008 – May 31, 2009 (South African, b 1955)
The First South African artist to gain international recognition in the post-apartheid era, Kendridge addresses the complex, troubled history and harsh social realities of his homeland.” I believe that in the inderterminacy of drawing, the contingent way that images arrive in the work, lies some kind of model of how we live our lives. The activity of drawing is a way of trying to understand who we are or how we operate in the world. It is in the strangeness of the activity itself that can be detected judgment, ethics, and morality.” “Here’s a person who’s in a coma because of the weight of what he see The question is, Is it going to kill him?”
Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, March 14 – June 21, 2009
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of the greatest American thinkers of the 20th century — and a visionary for the 21st. Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe is the first major US exhibition of Fuller’s work in 35 years and a testament to his fascinating mix of utopian vision and organic pragmatism. A combination of models, sketches, and other artifacts — many on view for the first time — represent six decades of the artist’s integrated approach to housing, transportation, communication, and cartography.
Alexander Calder in Focus, July 28, 2007 – February 14, 2010
View Calder’s mobiles, stabiles, drawings, and paintings in this small exhibition presented annually at the MCA. It’s a small exhibition but we can see that Calder’s work is very poetic as well, and really delicate. It’s always a pleasure for me.
View of Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago
A great museum which really impressioned me because of his clearness. In my opinion, for people who don’t like and do not have a clue what comtemporary art is about, this museum could change their minds.
A detail of a lamp, which I found more interesting for my Designers friends.
