It is summer time for the Contemporary. Which means we get to start on projects that we normally can’t because it is too disruptive for our visitors or simply we don’t have the time or the person power to do so. A great example of a summer project is painting.  We normally repaint our interior walls for each and every exhibition but the outside areas, we do once a year.  So please excuse the drop cloths and “wet paint” signs when you arrive at the museum. And oh, don’t lean on anything that looks shiny.

   Last year at about this time I wrote about all of the places that Contemporary staff members were headed to for the holidays and then followed up by filling you in on any art related activities they got to do on their trips. Well this year, Kathryn, our Director of Education, went on trip to Taipei right before the holidays and is back now to tell us all about it. While there, she visited many cultural landmarks including Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taipei Fine Arts Museum , and Taipei 101.   

She also told us about how many people don’t really celebrate Christmas there, but they still have Christmas cards and décor all over the city. And she is not sure exactly why, but on some of the cards and signs there is the phrase “Happy Moo Year” (she is thinking maybe it has to do with language confusion or possibly that upcoming year, beginning in February, is the year of the ox). It is incredible to hear all about her trip there and what different cultures are like, especially around the holidays.

Happy Holidays to everyone from the Contemporary and from Taipei!

The artist-inspired ice cream by Spencer Finch that the Contemporary was giving away as part of The Light Project has been over for a little while now. But the other day, the solar panels which were powering the free standing ice cream stand were taken down… signaling the official completion of the project. There were 6,285 people who visited the Contemporary just to check out this project and get a free cone. 

The Contemporary has a squirrel friend! He has been spotted sitting on the top of the concrete wall in our courtyard on more than one occasion. It took us a while to figure out how he climbed up there and how he was going to get down, until we realized he must of used the mesh on the other side. He was recently on his wall enjoying the bottom part of a Spencer Finch ice cream cone! There is only one day left for the public to get a free artist-inspired ice cream cone, the squirrel must have known this and decided to indulge, just like some of our staffers have decided to do this week.

Mr. Andy Rooney of “60 Minutes” gives his take on modern art.

Rooney: When Did This Become Art 

He makes reference to Richard Serra, the creator of Joe, a sculpture in the courtyard of The Pulitzer and in my view from my office window. If I had to choose to look at Joe or a giant empty space full of gravel…I choose Joe!

 To most of you Google Earth is probably old news. It is to me. But when I first found out about it I spent lots of time “driving” along local streets, stopping at places I normally go and searching for my bright yellow car (I found it, it was great!). After receiving an email with a photo of the Contemporary from the sky from our Exhibitions Manager, Shane (the one with the 2 year old who rocks out in his car seat…check out the music section on our MySpace page for more on that), I realized that it’s been too long since I have searched for the bird’s eye view of landmarks throughout the world.

If you haven’t yet “played with” Google Earth, check it out! And if you have, but forgot all about, I suggest another visit. Thanks, Shane, for reminding me of this addicting “fly anywhere” fun.

This Friday is the Grand Center Gallery Walk – I believe it’s our 3rd or 4th one now. I’m proud to say that Rachel at the Pulitzer and I planted the seed that has now grown to be quite the event. More than 12 galleries in Grand Center will be open on Friday afternoon and evening, along with a few restaurants offering discounts and some activity on the streets. What I’m excited about (and still in the middle of planning) is a little behind-the-scenes gallery hop with our Director Paul Ha. He’s agreed to lead a small group of ArtLinkers (our Young Friends group) through the contemporary art galleries to meet their directors. We’re starting with ours – and highlighting our Flat Files programs (the educational piece is to show that you can start collecting now) and then we’ll make our way to the art galleries to speak to gallerists about the work they sell, how to talk to a gallerist and what options are available for those who wish to purchase art. Then we’ll end at the new Pace Framing shop, which just moved to Grand Center and talk about how art work is framed. It’s kind of the second-half of the ‘creation story’ – what to do with art after it’s made and offered for sale. Then, in July, we’ll get a glimpse at the first-half of this story – when we host Open Studios and we can visit with artists and hear them talk about how they work, while we see where they do what they do. It’ll be a great way to demystify the contemporary art world.

Ah, and did anyone happen to go to Hartford Coffee Company to see Free Candy last night? The talk show is witty, comical, and informative. Paul was on to speak about contemporary art, our mission, and our current exhibtion. He was also joined by the owner of the soon-to-be open grocery store featuring local products opening near Tower Grove Park, and a fabulous mind that has organized free movies to be shown outdoors in various venues – meant to construct community, conversation and a good reason to enjoy popcorn outside.

With our new blog site, we’re incorporating our Flickr accounts into serving as an photo album. The Pulitzer set up one quite awhile ago, and I’ve had the duty of setting one up on my to-do list for longer than I care to admit. So, some say the first step is the hardest; however, Flickr really demolishes this notion by providing a fairly easy way of uploading photos to their site. Some of our architectural photos have been added, which you can view here, and I hope to sneak a few minutes away from my other tasks and upload some more. I’m doing all this work to a background hum of sanding machines which are working on the wall which housed Hodges’ mural piece. It’s been a pretty noisy place during install and it’s almost all I can do to keep from sneaking over to the Pulitzer to enjoy some peaceful meditation time in their gallery space.

During lunch we hosted our weekly yoga class in the performance space. It’s such a wonderful experience to be surrounded by such beauty while balancing, stretching, and preparing for the week ahead. It sort of allows you to get in the right frame of mind to tackle the week’s tasks and appreciate all that is happening. Today, I found myself in such a position that I had a perfect view of a patched up portion of our ceiling. Of course, this particular view led me to reflect on when we cut a hole in the ceiling to install a piece for the performance that opened Larry Krone: Artist/Entertainer last fall. It’s strange to have a permanent reminder staring so pointedly at you — especially in a non-collecting institution such as ours. I allowed my mind to wander and consider what we would need to do to erase the markings that were left behind after the exhibition came down. I imagine we’d need to replace a good portion of the ceiling completely. Or maybe it just needs a new paint job. The options available to cover up such wrinkles are sort of in line with choosing anti-age defying make-up or plastic surgery. I then considered all the permanent alterations we’ve made to the building for art. We’ve cut ceilings. We’ve built walls. We’ve torn down walls. We’ve drilled a lot of holes. Our building, only a few years old, already bears the wrinkles of having lived life and having lived art. It’s sort of a graceful aging. And I think, these laugh lines are good and will be a welcome memory to those who notice them.