On How Technology Encourages Wandering and Helped Me Find "Smitten"

I was watching "The Civil War" on PBS last night cause - well, cause it's really great TV (and it's a sesquicentennial). As is my habit, I researched some relevant war factoids on my iPad as I watched, and found myself clicking into the PBS app to get a preview of the next episode. My eye caught a glimpse of a sculpture by Viola Frey in a thumbnail for another show. Posing in from of the sculpture was Rene di Rosa; the preview was for a documentary about art collecting called "Smitten".

During the episode break, I checked out the preview. What a character! The preview follows an older fellow in a green trucker cap and a spectacularly loud dinner jacket wending through a gallery opening crowd - completely out of place among the dark suits, the hors d'oeuvres, and the high heeled set. But when he starts talking about art, and his drive to collect new art, you know this guy very serious and very real.

Of course, the Museum has a large Viola Frey, a seated, female nude, at our entrance - she watches you as you buy your tickets. The other piece that I glimpsed, while watching another clip that I tracked down on YouTube, from KQED's "Quest", was the cuckoo clocks by Paul Kos, which we also have here in the Museum (look for the hammer and sickles at about the 9:17 mark). diRosa's vision, like our own vision here at the Museum, is to give voice to those artist who are really pushing the definition of art, and investigating how those "pushes" give narrative to our Californian community.

It's very easy for the staff at the Museum to take the Frey nude for granted, we walk by this material everyday as we work, but it is an amazing assemblage of contrasts - simultaneously garish and serene. Once you start thinking on it, it's kind of hard to stop. Similarly, the new Michael McMillen show, "Train of Thought", elevates the seemingly low experience of sitting in a tin shack on a rainy night, and makes you wonder at our way of making the world. You got to try it to know what I mean. The staff is particularly curious about the eponymous piece which involves several hundred pounds of dry, alphabet pasta. The McMillen show open in two weeks, but most of it is visible and working now.

The moral of the story is that like good TV, stimulating art takes work to search out and find. You got to keep wandering.

According to KQED's web site, Smitten will air Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 7:30pm, and repeat on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 1:30am. Here are a couple of choice quotes to whet your appetite:

"It occurred to me that all of the art should be shown, and it should be shown to more than just weekend party people. It should be shown to a larger population."

"Artists are wildflowers. They enhance our landscapes and sometimes free us of them."

"To hell with wall labels."

Here's a little clip from the show.
Here are some more background vids.