No numb legs this time
Remembering our awesome class trip to Chelsea to tour a number of galleries intriguing to our curating minds, I decide to pay the galleries another visit. Ambling around the area, I notice the couple of studios that we visited, but peering through the glass walls, they seem to be exhibiting the same displays. So I move on, eventually stopping myself at a quaint little entrance on the corner of W20th Street and 11th Avenue. What immediately draws my attention is its pink and red-brown colored building in a gray and desolate street. Upon exploring the venue, I find that it creates a very comfortable gallery to enjoy various canvas works and paintings.
Entering the rather empty studio, I am greeted by an old man in a suit who takes out an ebony stand for my dripping umbrella. The warmth of the place is instantly apparent. The lighting is a soothing yellow compared to the stark white laboratory-ness of the galleries we have been to and ceiling lamps are placed to cast light shade on parts of the empty spaces of the white walls. I slip between a small wall facing the window where three auto-portraits, or self-portraits, by Laurent Dauptain are displayed. Across from the giant heads is a wooden bench against the window on which I sit cross-legged to enjoy the view and the relief from being off my feet. Dauptain uses oil on canvas to create the blurred portraits of himself. They remind me of the things and people I see when I remove my glasses.
I regretfully drag myself from my comfortable seat to tour the rest of the gallery. However, I find an even cozier armchair to relax in as I take pleasure in observing other paintings. In my snug new seat I notice the sand-colored rug under the chair which complements the dusty red-brown tiles underneath the rug. The canvas I see in my seat completes the neutral color theme the gallery seems to have. It displays a Mediterranean or coast village that greatly resembles the houses in Disney’s Aladdin with soft green and orange-red buttresses over windows and doorways. The white-blue puddles on the dirt streets and the clear sky form a memory of a long gone storm leaving behind a fresh morning.
Venturing forth from my armchair, I survey the rest of the gallery which is bigger than it seems. A bricked archway leads away from the grand lounge to a smaller space branched by a couple of smaller rooms. In every room there are cushioned benches or armchairs available to guests surrounded by a collection of paintings ranging from bold green and yellow hill villages to charming families holding hands and playing in snow. The comfortable earth-like colors and soft jazz playing aloud are hypnotizing and relaxing. On our previous trip to Chelsea, numb unsteady legs detracted some attention away from thought-provoking displays. However, this gallery takes advantage of the simple luxuries of chairs and benches, and easy lighting making the entire gallery experience easier to enjoy.
October 31st, 2007 at 8:46 pm
yea, it’s amazing how you can see art in such a different way by just simply having the right sort of atmosphere. A lot of external factors definitely comes into play when viewing art, it’s not just the piece itself that can affect your opinions.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:23 am
I think it is so interesting the way they set up this particular gallery. Though it sound so banal – one’s state of mind and physical comfort seems to influence the perception of art a lot. When I am roaming through a museum or a gallery and I am feeling very tired, feeling my legs get heavier and heavier, i do not enjoy the art as much as maybe I normally would. I also think it’s cool that you went back to the Chelsea area to check out some other galleries. When we went there together it seemed to as though this was an area packed with art and creativity; it certainly seemed like there was much more to explore!
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 pm
It’s very interesting to see how, like Wendy said, external factors affect the viewers’ perception of the artwork. From your review then, I think museums should have lots of luxurious sitting spaces to facilitate the viewers’ interpretation of art.
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:08 am
This is one of the most sensory and narrative descriptions I have seen to date in the blog. I really enjoyed the format, which caught my attention perhaps more than the art itself. It’s almost as if you see the entire gallery as an enormous installation. I will definitely pay closer attention to this aspect of the experience in the future.
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:41 am
No doubt many people (myself included) appreciate having a comfortable place to sit and look at art. There are a few places in NYC where this can happen, my favorite being the Frick museum. But most galleries have no seating, and most museums have only very limited seating.
So my question is, what set of assumptions, or what values, do you think the museums and galleries WITHOUT seating are working from? In other words, these places must know that we would all appreciate a place to rest. So why don’t they give us that? Does anyone have any ideas?
November 4th, 2007 at 12:17 am
maybe the galleries we visited as a class were only temporary spaces for the artworks and it would be silly to change the furniture every time new works are displayed. axelle fine arts seemed more like a permanent place for the displayed works. or maybe they simply had very limited capital. i think it’s the latter.