MCA Visit

Yesterday, I finally had time to walk slowly through the MCA's current exhibitions -- it's free until mid November. They have collection highlights, where I spent the most time, and Sympathy for the Devil, an attempt to catalog(?) the intersection between art and rock since 1967, focused predominantly on New York and LA and tossing in some of the Midwest/remainder of the country.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about rock -- there's music I like to listen to and music I don't like to listen to, but I generally have never followed music/ musicians / the music scene or the trends and don't know the ins and outs of rock history or movements; I'm not the best audience for Sympathy for the Devil. I walked away with an overwhelming feeling of over-the-top sameness. Perhaps the sameness came from the series of wall paintings spread throughout the exhibition (meant to tie the show together?); for me, these felt unduly staged like banners substituting for large wall text I've sometimes seen vying for equal attention with the art in major museum exhibitions. I did appreciate time to look at Longo's graphite and charcoal drawings; the richness of these highlighted the general weakness of the pure graphic silk-screened (or digitally printed?) black and white grid of canvases chosen to earmark the exhibit in the long hall between the main exhibition rooms.

The collection highlights proved more of a draw for me -- Bontecou (my favorite exhibition at the MCA), Irwin (okay, this piece is up alot), Ryman,... How is it I can be absorbed by Ryman's white on white paintings (or Still's work at the Art Institute) and yet not be particularly minimal in my own artwork? Their work is not precisely minimal -- lots of built up paint -- but the result tends toward minimal aesthetic. Calder's always there ... always appreciated.

I found the MCA's archives of the last 40 years surprisingly absorbing, the highlight of my visit -- fascinating to read correspondence between curator and artist surrounding the development of a show, nostalgic to see records of exhibitions I've seen at the MCA even just a few years ago, and interesting to make new discoveries in a glimpse at exhibitions that preceded me (Made from Paper show, Chris Burden, etc..) Christo's (preparatory?) drawings with wrapped elements were a treat. Of course, when I visit the British Museum, I tend to spend a fair bit of my time in the document room.