locale.

i'm beginning with the obvious: things - whether inanimate as a massive sculpture of steel curling onto itself like ribbon or teeming with unpredictability like that four year old indian kid playing with his orange balls of sugar and artificial taste on the subway - change depending on the environment.

would the kid have continually dropped his candy if they didn't drum on the floor and roar and roll around like marbles? would richard serra's band be as impressive if the room was dark and one had to grope its cold sides, blind to the sculpture's height and overarching curves?

i've seen two exhibitions in new york that i saw back on the west coast - olafur eliasson (at sfmoma & moma) and takashi murakami (moca geffen contemporary & brooklyn museum of art). there were obvious differences.

for starters, the olafur eliasson exhibition was split between two of moma's spaces (the other being the ps 1 in queens). you don't quite gain the scope of his work when you don't see his paper models of geometric sculptures near his light installations. i also looked at the inventory of his works that they're showing and moma's not showing two of my favorite pieces from the sfmoma show. one is one-way color tunnel, which was the second piece you came across at sfmoma. i found out later that this was a site-specific sculpture (which is probably why it's not at moma). if you walk down the tunnel in one direction, it's mainly deep blues and violet hues. when you turn back, the colors are much sunnier - with orange and pink panels. when viewed from the side, you are struck by the light teal and baby blue contrasting against the white walls and ceiling of sfmoma.



it makes me wonder how this olafur eliasson exhibition will look at other museums. it was rather spectacular at sfmoma and he's not one of my favorite artists. i could have explored that show for hours. moma's version didn't hold my attention in the same way.

the murakami exhibition was different not necessarily due to the content, but because of the set-up. it was more broken up here in ny and spread between gallery spaces on two floors. it might have just been me but i was having issues noticing where the videos were playing this time around. on a side note, there were more videos this time - the second episode of kiki & kaikai played (which btw didn't make much sense at all. the first was better). the trailer of his live action film was longer than in LA, but inevitably still didn't make me want to see it. in the end, i almost appreciated the LA set up better, especially since I wasn't made to walk through the louis vuitton shop or the murakami gift shop while going through/exiting the exhibition. i think the only point that the brooklyn show wins would be over the installation wall work they did. kudos on that note.

i thought it was interesting, however, that when i spoke to one of the docents he actually said that murakami liked the brooklyn space better. if i remember correctly, it was due in large part to the fact that he could break up the show more since it wasn't just one big space, but rather a bunch of different rooms. i would have thought he would have liked the former better - i feel like there's more artistic flexible being able to construct your own walls and building your environment around your pieces. but i'm not him.

inevitably, location, of course, can change everything - how something is constructed, conceived, construed, etc. i've been noticing this more and more since i moved, in several unexpected places. but that's for another post.