Know Your Own Bone – Nonprofit Marketing & Online Engagement

Photo posted 11/08 by chicagotribune.com

Once a year when I was a child, and always in the Summertime, my mother would clear her schedule to spend a whole day with me in the city. She did this with each of my three siblings, and the day was appropriately called our Special Day. My Special Day was always at the Art Institute of Chicago, and my mother– a lover of art and art history– was my personal docent.

Last Thursday– fifteen years after my childhood Special Days were over– my mother and I returned to the Art Institute of Chicago to check out the new Modern Wing together.

We were in the same boat; we were curious and skeptical. Skepticism may be an interesting attitude when  you are about to see the well-received 300 million dollar expansion of a museum you adore, but the museum was fiercely personal to both of us; the filling of an entirely new wing meant a changing of context for our memory-heavy works of art.

Needless to say, we got over it. I’ll admit it was difficult at first. Monet’s Stacks of Wheat are now mounted where Paul Klee’s works were featured, and the whole museum is moved around. The Little Library of the Kraft Education Center is closed down, and the integrative exhibitions for children are limited to the space around the Touch Gallery and largely replaced by the Ryan Education Center in the Modern Wing. Aside from the trusty Coffin and Mummy of Paankhenamun (one of my all-time favorite engagement objects!) all of the items that I featured on my public tours for the Art Institute when I was in college were moved around– even Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte was moved to a different space, deeper within the galleries. Though some of the galleries that were previously home to the Modern Collection seem to be filled in with a bit of a hodge-podge of mediums (at least for the time being), the traffic flow with regard to the collections is much more lucid with all of the Contemporary and Modern Art in a single wing. Even to us old-timers, it was a whole new, wonderful museum. And– I think because it was essentially the same artwork, just rearranged– our ability to connect the museum with our past experiences was not jeopardized.

You don’t need to have ever worked in events to immediately recognize that the Modern Wing will provide millions of dollars worth of high-quality facility rental space for the institution. It’s its own incredible self-contained rental facility with a large entrance, monumental windows, attached restrooms, central open space, and a full catering kitchen (which we mistook for the restrooms and consequently discovered).  There’s no doubt that it’s every art-loving bride and event planner’s dream (As a side, here are some pictures of a wedding in this location).

Overall, I was impressed. And I consider myself a tough critic in this case.

The Art Institute, holding true to our relationship, found yet another way to inspire me upon my visit. The newly available space for showcasing works of contemporary art allows for more flexibility. Namely, the expanded space allowed for Robert Gober’s full scale installations to be displayed, which encompassed two full gallery rooms. I had never experienced Robert Gober’s work in person before, and I was immediately captivated by it.

Photo from twothingsatonce.typepad.com

Robert Gober’s Untitled, 1989-96 is the first of his installations that you come across when you enter the Contemporary galleries, and it strikes you immediately. Upon entering the space, you notice a free-standing white wedding dress in the center of the room, surrounded by pleasant-looking, pastel-colored wallpaper. It is only upon closer inspection that you notice the reality of the repeating images depicted on the walls, and several bags of kitty litter leaning against them. Unlike Ed Kienholz (another American installation artist with whom I am fascinated, who also created human-size installations, though generally depicting more grotesque “happenings”), Robert Gober explains the symbolism and leaves little room for (massive) visitor misinterpretation:

“The painful imagery depicted on the wallpaper in this 1989 installation was meant as a reminder of fact– the ugly and unforgettable reality of the United States’ history. By putting this image onto endlessly repeating wallpaper, I made an attempt to say, metaphorically, that this was not an isolated event and that in ways it has become our background.

Photo by drawingrooms.blogspot.com

The sculpture of the empty wedding dress is a vase waiting to be filled. It represents the supposed white purity that often triggered or justified the violence depicted on the walls. It also represents a vessel that is ready to be filled with all of the optimistic hopes and dreams of marriage. And to many Americans, Gay Americans (an estimated 10 percent of our population), it is a reminder of equality denied.

The sculptures of bags of cat litter are the link between the violent imagery and the wedding dress, the metaphorical fulcrum. Cat litter both absorbs the stench of excrement (the wallpaper) and it allows for domestic intimacy (think diapers). It is also a reminder of the sacred vows that whose who ear the dress profess– to care for the body of loved ones ‘in sickness and in health, til death do us part.’”

- Robert Gober.