The Art Institute of Chicago is, to say the very least, a unique place.

 

I’m not one to say the least, though.  The place is enormous.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t manage to get to certain areas, simply because I didn’t go down the right hallway, or whatever.  I was genuinely lost for approximately an hour, though not unhappily so.  How can a boy ravenous for culture be unhappy in a place like that?

 

Walking in, I instantly felt the atmospheric quality of creation bearing in on me, seemingly clearing my sinuses, and completely refreshing me.  After realizing it was the recycled air, I made my way in.  Even the sheer architecture of the place is impressive.  It’s reminiscent of a massive tomb; a fitting idea, for a place that holds the life works of the dead (how’s THAT for artistic?).

 

Navigating my way through the remarkably well-kept displays of ancient Chinese and Indian art and sculpture, I quickly realized that this was not going to be a short jaunt through the local museum.  After an hour and a half of walking and observing, taking doomed pictures (damn dim light to hell), I eventually found myself in the Impressionistic section, face to face with Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso originals.  At this point, I finally realized the fact that I was in Chicago, and you really can see some awesome things in the metropolitan areas of the world.

 

By this point, I’d been in the Art Institute for roughly two hours.  So much to cover, and so little time spent.  I slowly trudged my way on the hard tile and marble floor, through countless displays of gorgeous art, never seeing anything that wasn’t pleasing to the eye.  I saw Neoclassicism, Impressionism, Surrealism, traditional American art, traditional European art.  I saw suits of armor, and textiles that were used to make suits (of a sort, anyway) and display after display of history and culture and life and. . .

 

It really begins to wear you down, though.  The entire time I was in Chicago, I was able to keep moving, never really stopping, save to get lunch, and to write.  But in here, I found myself stopping every 25 minutes or so, just so I could sit down and contemplate what I was doing, as well as letting my feet not support my weight all the time.  After three hours, though, I made it to a section I had been anxiously anticipating all day: Modern Art.

 

To begin with, I was taken aback almost immediately by that which greeted me right inside:  a fifteen by fifteen foot painting of the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong by Andy Warhol, one of the most influential pop artists to ever pass through existence.  (Note: the picture to the left is not the right one; this is one of the same series, however).  Some of the stranger things lay further inside, however.  One sculpture that stood out was purely because it was so carelessly thrown on the floor: a string of lights.  Trying to prove the futility of things with a string of lights that will eventually burn out, it just sat there, on the side of the room.  Close by, a giant Kleenex box made a statement.  The further in one ventured, the more preposterous to the casual observer things became.  By the time I saw the display of paintings by Marlene Dumas, “documenting” the subject of death, I realized that I needed to leave this place.

 

So I quickly made my way back to the entrance.  Of course, since I was lost, quick turned out to be another 15 minutes.  But what do you leave a place like that with?  What do you take with you?

 

You don’t.  You’ll probably leave a bit of yourself and your sanity behind.

 

Back