I’ve been lagging again on posting. But! I’ve been absorbed with life so I consider that a better use of my time, really. Haha! But to play a little catch-up now, here’s a bit about my trip to Chicago two weeks ago with the art department.

It was the usual trip to The Art Institute of Chicago, which in the past 2-3 years I’ve been to at least half a dozen times. I have the layout of the museum memorized for the most part. I feel like I could give tours and even speak on a few art pieces I know well. Nevertheless, it was a whole new experience for me this time because I had not seen the new, recently completed Modern Wing. Which was awesome. A whole new wing to explore, and whole new collections of recent art of this century to see, and current artists.

One current artist being Cy Twombly. First thing, how awesome is that name? It’s just so fun to say! Cy Twombly. Hehehe! There was also a photography exhibit under works, an audio/visual room for movies and sound pieces. Plus the architecture was just stunning. I highly recommend checking it out if you ever go to Chicago.

Anywho, the other stop on the art department Chicago trips is the Museum of Contemporary Art, a straight shot down Michigan Avenue from the AIC, next to Water Tower Place. We went specifically to see an exhibit that was leaving soon. The main exhibit was by artist Olafur Eliasson.

Olafur Eliasson is from Copenhagen, Denmark and is a very contemporary artist and deals with interactivity with the viewer, one of my favorite things in art. This guy makes you think about his art, without needing much explanation. I was struck with the simplistic beauty of his pieces, but then wondered at the complexity of making them. It was completely spectacular.

One piece, above left, is one of my favorite, a 360º Room of Color. It was a bare, round room, with slowly changing colors of light. It was another sabotage to my eyes, especially from blue to red, or pink to green. But again, it was so beautiful I wanted to stay. Even within the plain circular area, there were different ways to view this. You could stand in the middle and watch other people, and see the changes of color and their faces and follow the rotating colors around the room. Or, you could step in closely to a wall, and erase all trace of people so your vision was filled with pure color. Both were like entering a new world and took time to adjust to.

My other favorite piece, not pictured, is called Room for One Color where the hall of the Museum for Contemporary Art was bathed completely in yellow light. I loved the shock to your eyes as all colors left your vision and they strained to cope. And I loved that as my eyed adjusted while walking down the hall, I began to see that people in the hall looked monotone, yellow and greyscale. It was like looking at a beautiful photograph. I lingered for a while to look at my own clothing composition in greyscale, though I was originally trying to get out of the room as soon as possible to rest my eyes.

The name of Olafur Eliasson’s exhibit is Take Your Time. Basically a request from the artist to slow down and examine the different possibilities of the art around you. And I certainly took my time. I admittedly rushed a bit, but I went around the gallery two or three times, marveling more and more with the many new discoveries that kept coming out of such simple installations. Olafur Elisson is definitely a new favorite artist of mine.

So my art department went on its semesterly trip to Chicago last Tuesday. We went to the Art Institute of Chicago and to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and of course I brought my camera and took many photographs. So I thought I’d give a narrated tour of my trip to Chicago in pictures.

Part One – Art Institute

We took three charter buses at about 8am Eastern Time and left Grand Rapids to get to the Art Institute fifteen minutes before opening at 10:30am Central Time.

Art Institute Lobby

Now, I’ve been to the Art Institute half a dozen times in the last 18 months, I have the place memorized forwards and backwards, and since we weren’t on any sort of tour, I hit up all my favorite rooms. I oogled my favorite painting in the impressionists wing again and looked at all the Miniature Thorn Rooms that I have a fascinating book on at home. There was some spectacular photography by Yousuf Karsh in the basement as well.

Part Two – Park

Cloud Gate "The Bean"

Once I had skipped through all the exhibits I wanted, me and a small group of people walked through Millennium Park in 20ºF winter weather. It’s my policy, that any chance you have to see “the bean” in Chicago, do it. So, we went to the bean!

And as is tradition for most people with the bean, you always take fun self portraits. Here is one of mine.

Self Portrait in the Bean

After that, we made our way into the nearby Giordano’s Pizzeria for lunch. My four friends split a large deep dish pizza. But I’m a sucker for pasta so I ordered a delicious plate of cheese ravioli. I don’t regret it, though I’ve still never had deep dish pizza. Hahaha!

Part Three – Cultural Center

Fat Pigeons

So we backtrack a little bit and go to the Cultural Center which I still, to this day, don’t quite understand it’s purpose. But we saw some enormously fat pigeons and two more small art exhibits which were not that fascinating.

Cultural Center

Though one thing I love about the Cultural Center is the fact that it used to be the public library and they have amazing tiled ceilings with famous author’s names and quotes about books and reading and several glass domes inside.

Part Four – Hike

Frozen Chicago River

After that, it was a journey across the city to the Museum of Contemporary Art.  Along the way we crossed the Chicago River which I had never seen frozen. It was cool. (Haha! Get it? “Cool?”)

Me and the Silver Moose

Then we walked past on of the coolest scupltures ever. I just call it the silver moose. I got my picture taken with it because meese (yes, meese) are one of my favorite animals and it’s just full of bad assery.

Then, I made sure we stopped into the Apple store. I had to update my Twitter,  of course! Apple Stores are always fun though. And they’re a safe bet when you’re a broke college student because you know you can’t walk out with any purchases because it’s all too expensive. Yay!

Part Five – MCA

We finally made it to the Museum of Contemporary Art which had really awesome exhibits but they were dumb and didn’t allow photography. Still, there were these awesome light exhibits by Jenny Holzer that would have been awesomely fun to photograph but their security guards watched like hawks and were rude. But here are two videos of the different installations on the MCA website.

Orange Floor Installation

Purple

I also got a picture of the underside of their staircase which is really cool and sculptural, if not oddly uncomfortable to walk up.

MCA Staircase

And that was the end of the trip! Other than the bus ride back home where I got bored and started taking long exposure shots of car and street lights going by. Go here to see a map of the full route I walked and buildings I visited.

“What is your favorite painting?”

I was asked this by sleepingpoet on Twitter today and I immediately knew what I was going to respond with and I thought it would make a good blog post.

Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877 by Gustave Caillebotte

I don’t know why I love this painting so much. It just seemed to strike the right chords in me and I fell in love with it right away. I had never seen it before, and mind you, this painting is approxamately 7ft tall and 9ft wide mounted on a single wall in the middle of a vaulted room in The Art Institute of Chicago with a glass ceiling. I came at it from the wrong side, but when I turned around and saw this giant painting in the impressionism wing, I literally gasped and stood there with my jaw open.

It was probably pretty funny, but I loved it for some reason. I soaked up as much info as I could about it form the tour guide and the facts about this are just so interesting! What I remember most, is this painting was made only about four years after the invention of the umbrella so they were all very fashionable at the time. Also, this is at some famous five-street intersection in Paris which still exists today, but if you look in the background of the painting, partially obscured by fog is scaffolding because at these time these buildings are still being built. It’s just amazing the amount of history Caillebotte captured in this painting.

Me and my parents reflected in Could Gate, a.k.a. "The Bean" on a rainy day in Chicago, April 2008.