Museum of Contemporary Art

Form, Balance, Joy

mandy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Chicago, Illinois

It is an irony of contemporary aesthetics that accessibility is not considered a virtue. A degree of alienation between the general audience and the creator is a given, and a work of universal appeal is suspect. Any creation that is an uninhibited celebration of color, shape, and motion would go begging in a world of minimalist forms or conceptual constructs. Humor as a quality is particularly suspect. Alexander Calder not only produced work based on these elements, he made the first mobiles as a young artist in Paris. However, Calder and other modernist sculptors are undergoing a rehabilitation, more frequently referenced and considered by younger artists as a source of inspiration. In this context, the current exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Form, Balance, Joy, is a delight, assembling a comprehensive collection of Calder’s work combined with an accompanying gallery of contemporary sculptors.

Standing in the middle of the Calder exhibit is an experience akin to suspension in a tank filled with Mondrian’s fish. The wholly organic stabiles are a bank of small reefs. Apparently Calder did credit a visit to Mondrian’s studio as “shocking” him into modernism. Some smaller works contain presentiments of the current importance of repurpose and recycling: a smiling face is contrived from bits of broken glass and wires; the sculpture Bird is an assemblage of unpainted scavenged cans.

Calder did once work as a toymaker and later joked that his fans were all under age six. An element of playfulness appears to be the most common element among the seven contemporary artists in the southern gallery. Kristi Lippire, the only female artist in the group, utilizes everyday objects to create with an overt humorous aspect: her droll balloon-like piece in the sculpture garden is the more successful of her included works.

Jason Middlebrook’s piece, "From the Forest to the Mill to the Home to the Store to the Home to the Street and Back Again," is a departure from the exhibit’s lightness in tone and form. The very stationary mobile is suspended yards over the heads of viewers, a massive conflagration of scrap wood collected from Chicago alleys—flooring, cabinets, drawers, and doors—counterbalanced by the trunk of a tree. As heavy as some of the Calder pieces are light, it provides a fitting contrast in the midst of homage.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, September 6th 2010

Xenogensesis II: Intergalactic Beings (4/30/2010)

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:02:00 +0000

Museum of Contemporary Art

Chicago, Illinois

I purchased a copy of Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild at a secondhand bookstore and let it rest on my shelf for years as next-to-read. Fortunately, it was in my bag when I was shuttled from the ER to a hospital for a week-long stay: I possessed a means of transport away from a battered attempt at sterility and the monotony of crisis to an intense, sparse yet beautifully rendered world. I was reading Octavia Butler. Therefore, when Nicole Mitchell’s jazz composition Xenogenesis II: Intergalactic Beings, a tribute to Octavia Butler, appeared on the program notice for Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, I jumped at the chance to see it.

Mitchell and the Black Earth Ensemble presented this nine-part composition, the second part of a three-part contemplation of the unexpected result of nuclear conflagration, on a barren stage without sets or elaborate effects. As Mitchell is a noted visionary, it is not surprising that she chose to produce work inspired by the speculative author, nor is it surprising that the aural reverberations transported me just as much as Butler’s description of altered societies and beings. What did make me pause was the complete engagement that evolved between an almost full theater and the extremely innovative and almost alien sounds alternately squeaking, screaming, swelling, and rolling from the stage.

The composer and musicians came on to the stage half-draped in sheets of papery, crumpled chiffon over black clothing. White robes are conventionally associated with angels, but the intergalactic beings of the title have a more ominous mission: they seek to save the human species through abducting subjects for seduction and interbreeding. The themes of conquest and exploitation clearly mirror aspects of American history. However, these topics are presented as evocative echoes, not didactic hammer falls. The nine-movement piece is subtly wrought and ultimately powerful, starting with the stealing of our species and ending with inescapable metamorphosis. Xenogenesis manifests a haunting reminder of Octavia Butler’s verse: “All that you touch/You Change./ All that you Change/Changes you./ The only lasting truth/ is Change./ God/is Change.”

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, June 21st 2010

Kaija Saariaho and the International Contemporary Ensemble (11/19/2009)

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Museum of Contemporary Art

Chicago, Illinois

In the LeGuin novel The Left Hand of Darkness a character notes the dearth of female composers. Thus, I was delighted to learn of the music of Kaija Saariaho. The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) performed four works by Finn composer Kaija Saariaho—Brad Lubman conducting—at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Chicago MCA’s stage is generally a sure bet for an engaging or entertaining evening. Earlier this year I enjoyed the Hypocrites’ enthusiastic (albeit not entirely coherent) interpretation of Frankenstein, and other events have included Butoh set to Elvis, an Italian woman painting on the side of a live mare, a synchronized British insult troupe, and exquisitely formed performers executing German philosophy as verbal jujitsu.

The opening selection was “Terrestre” (2002), a flute-intensive chamber piece further enlivened by energetic percussive elements characteristic of the composer. Claire Chase’s flute solo garnered sincere and sustained applause. The composition’s inspiration is the poems of Saint-John Perse, a collection entitled Oiseaux (Birds) in particular, and perhaps it is a risk of reading the program notes, but it seemed inevitable that the flute’s song echo some ornithological element, reeds weaving amidst the percussion. “Six Japanese Gardens” followed, a sole percussionist incorporating electronic waves, as well as sampled natural sounds, song, and percussion recorded in Japan.

Saariaho was in attendance and answered questions from the audience mid-show prior to the intermission. One listener inquired on how the various elements were interwoven in the immediately previous piece, speculating that it must have been quite demanding to combine so many technical elements. The conductor immediately diminished such concerns: “He has a foot petal.” Another audience member recollected that a visiting Finnish conductor once reminisced that he and Saariaho gave a concert to an audience of two, one member of which was his mother. The composer conceded that this was indeed the case, and that her zeal to bring experimental music to new audiences once led to a performance in a kindergarten, and that on another occasion an orchestra was engaged for an event that they entirely forgot to publicize. But the arts persist.

“Solar” was the final piece performed, but no less engaging than the three previous. A high volume set of notes quickly bifurcates and then trifurcates and then again. Subsequent layers of sound soothed, but come back to the main theme, departing to return in a way that seemed almost flirtatious, but more vital. I look forward to further discovery of Kaija Saariaho’s music as well as performances by ICE.

ICE appears with the John Jaspere Company in “Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful thinking, and Flat Out Lies” at the Museum of Contemporary Art April 9 – 11, 2010

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, January 30th 2010