The Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago is a very well known art museum in Grant park, and it is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. I found myself getting lost in it while looking at all the amazing pieces of art. Having never been there, I had a great experience while spending hours there and barely scratching the surface of the museum. I enjoyed a lot of the art and seeing some of the pieces that I had previously only seen in textbooks was amazing.

I had never been to an art exhibition to such scale before so going to this one was a little intimidating, but when I got there I realized that a lot of people just like me were just there to see some great art. For me, being in that environment, I found myself spending less time looking at each piece and more just seeing as many pieces as I could in the time I had there. While I saw a lot more pieces I spent less time to understand them. Knowing that it was my first time going there I knew I wanted to go back and spend more time looking at the many pieces kept there. Some of the more famous pieces there were hard to get a good look at because most of the people there flocked to those pieces to get a good look.

Woman with a Fan
Jean Metzinger
Oil on canvas 1913

Make No Mistake about This
Wolfgang Plager
2008

There were a lot of pieces that I really enjoyed but here are just a few. Woman with a Fan by Jean Metzinger is a great piece that caught my attention right away because of its cubist style. I immediately noticed the multiple perspectives of the woman and the atmosphere of the painting. I spent a little while trying to figure out what exactly was in the painting. I really enjoy this style of painting it grabs my attention and keeps it guessing what the subject in the painting is doing. Make No Mistake about This by Wolfgang Plager is a video piece being projected on the wall by a film reel. Wolfgang hand printed the final statement of a death-row inmate on to a film reel which he then uses pulleys to direct it through a projector which is then projected on the wall. While you can read the statement on the actual film, it is almost impossible to make out any words on the actual wall projection. This caused me to almost stare at it longer and longer to try and make out the words. It wasn't until I got extremely frustrated that I thought to look directly at the film. The final piece, Magnetic Mountain, by Kurt Seligmann is a surrealist oil painting of what seems to be a very geometric mountain broken into pieces with many animal and other figures all on top of it. This piece caught my eye not so much because of the content of the image but rather how it was painted on the canvas. The colors as well as the contrast between the sharp and flowing lines really creates depth.

Magnetic Mountain
Kurt Seligmann

The Art Institute had an amazing variety of artwork all throughout the museum they had work from impressionism all the way to modern contemporary. While I tried to see every section of the museum there wasn’t enough time or energy in me to do so. I will definitely go back the next chance I get.