Visiting a museum during spring break refreshed my soul.
The missus planned a trip to Dallas for spring break this year. Since the district gives us a week off for my birthday, and I had not yet seen my step-daughter and son-in-law's new house, it made sense to visit.
Part of my birthday present was visiting the Nasher Sculpture Center in downtown Dallas.
What a remarkable place! A beautiful building, airy, spacious and well lit, and on display inside and outside in a huge garden is sculptures of all types -- bronze, steel, and stone. One was even made of soap covered in wax!
The featured display is a multimedia exhibit called "The Bacchae" by Elliott Hundley. (Don't worry, I've never heard of him, either.)
Giant is the best way to describe his work. Each one is a kind-of 3D display, more like a enormous colorful collage, which uses photos of family members and friends on the bottom layer. Also on this layer is text which kind-of explains what's on his mind, I guess, and then hundreds or even thousands of pins, from which hang long threads with beads. You get one effect standing from afar, and then feel overwhelmed
standing up close as you try to look at each of the images and read the text. (Security guards would not let me photograph this art work.)
It would be easy to spend the day (or maybe a second day) looking closely at this exhibit, and this is before you'd see anything else!
On to the rest of the place.
Each gallery contains the personal collection of a couple, Raymond and Patsy Nasher, mixed with work from world-renowned sculptors, none of which I've heard of before, except Picasso. Raymond was the builder of NorthPark Center $hopping mall. Giant sculptures also adorn the mall, and our visit there will also become
a blog.
Inside other rooms are sculptures which the Nashers bought during their lifetimes, and which were displayed at their house. Mixed in with their personal collection are sculptures from other museums, which are there for a while before moving on.
A downstairs theater shows a never-ending video of the Nashers' lives and the whys of the museum.
Out back in a walled-in yard are more exhibits -- sculptures made of stone, steel, bronze and other material. The yard is adorned with trees coming alive after a warm winter, magnificent fountains and flowering plants to complete the effect of a quiet oasis in the middle of the pandemonium of a busy, major city. I could have stayed there the rest of the day.
You feel so good after your visit. Thinking and discussion helps you feel inspired. You're forced to reach inside you to explore feelings normally not a part of a normal day.
I think much of the mental stimulation is the "whys" of the art work: Why did the sculptor create this piece? What is he/she trying to communicate? What inspired the artist to do what he/she did? Why use this material? How did the work evolve? (Even, why does this thing I'm looking at seem like something my grandson/granddaughter made?)
In the end it's somebody with a rare gift who sees things differently from the rest of us, whose magic touch brings rock or metal to life.