(Photo: If they have a tale to tell, the Art Institute’s not telling.)

The following is cross-posted on my Huffington Post Chicago byline.

Attempting to recover from the prancing and pawing of rooftop hooves, I decided to spend a post-Christmas morning at the Art Institute of Chicago. Even before I checked my coat, I knew my visit would leave a mixed impression on me. As always, I expected to exit with an uplifted imagination but somewhat disappointed expectations.

I’ve been a member of the Art Institute since I moved into downtown Chicago almost four years ago. A visit there is one of my favorite things to do as a neighborhood resident, not in the least because I can walk to the place anytime I want to (read: numerous, hour-long visits that end whenever I feel over-out-of-towner-touristed).

While overall I’ve been suitably blown away by the breadth and depth of the permanent collection and temporary exhibits at the place, at the same time, I’ve also frequently felt let down by a lack of appropriate storytelling to give the average museumgoer a true impression of the wonderfulness of the objects on view.

An educated art connoisseur might have no problem navigating around a room full of French art, American period furniture, or Hindu iconography, but the Art Institute’s ongoing lack of useful, plain-English explanations on text walls and wall cards unnecessarily leaves average visitors scratching their heads–or hurrying through gallery after gallery with the puzzling feeling that they should be getting more out of their Art Institute visit than they unfortunately are.

Throwing poorly labeled exhibits before Chicago audiences seems to be an epidemic among Windy City museums. Pick a museum–art, science, history–it doesn’t matter. For years I’ve groused about bad wall cards at several of them.

In 2006, I found unhelpfully dry and wooden wall text displayed throughout the Art Institute’s otherwise awe-inspiring Casas Grandes ancient American pottery exhibition. The following year, I found inaccurate wall cards at the Museum of Contemporary Art, out-dated signage at the Chicago History Museum, and frozen-in-time explications at the Adler Planetarium. This year I hit the Trifecta, finding broken, aged, anachronistic exhibits and matching wall cards at the Museum of Science and Industry.

With the Art Institute’s ongoing thoughtful, thorough re-hanging of almost its entire collection due to the construction of the soon-to-open Modern Wing, I hoped updated walls of artwork would be graced with updated wall cards–or even wall cards at all.

I’ve lived in Chicago long enough to know the local definition of success includes a comfortingly healthy component of shoot-self-in-foot-itis. Unfortunately, this qualified type of success remains on display at the Art Institute.

There’s a lot going on inside that lion-guarded entrance that’s good. Newly reopened Impressionism galleries are in completely new spaces with art much more thoughtfully arranged, giving a terrific idea of the breadth and sweep of the movement. The unexpected placement of Seurat’s pointillist masterpiece, La Grande Jatte, framed in breathtaking fashion by the walls of a connector hallway behind Caillebotte’s equally iconic Paris Street, Rainy Day literally stopped me in my tracks.

The new (deep breath now) Alsdorf Galleries of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan, and Islamic Art are similarly stunning, with more fine statuary and sculptures of Eastern religious icons and figures than I’ve certainly ever seen displayed in one place before. Don’t miss the bird’s-eye view of this new take on Gunsaulus Hall from the east stairs down from Impressionism.

But don’t forget to take an art history book with you if you visit either new gallery. Because aside from the wall-card explanations that accompany only the most iconic artworks in each collection, the Art Institute otherwise remains mute about the items on view and the stories that they, their makers, and their movements have to tell about the meaning of art in the world we all share.

Considering the importance of the Impressionist collection, alone, why wouldn’t–or shouldn’t–there be wall texts giving visitors a capsule history of the works on view, the relationships between the artists, and the role the works and the schools that contain them played in the history of art? Or at least a brochure or handout? After all that re-hanging work, why leave the average museum patron to figure out the actual art for themselves?

Wall text would also be especially helpful in the new Alsdorf galleries where works from distinct religious traditions are sitting side-by-side in the same display cases, as if there were no differences between Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam.  (Can you imagine the outcry if the museum haphazardly jumbled together Christian and Jewish iconography with no good explanation?)

It isn’t as if the museum is ignorant of broader explications. They (and all museums) use that kind of deep storytelling to accompany temporary and traveling exhibitions. I’ve found at the Art Institute, though, that even in those instances the spirit of the story tends to be lost once words hit walls.

This season’s Divine Art tapestry exhibition is no exception. The show’s brochure gives a great idea of the background and importance of the ancient, oversized textiles. Little of that useful text, however, made it onto the actual walls, the museum opting instead for the same kind of dry, inscrutable, professor-ish language it used to equally flat effect during Casas Grandes in 2006.  And given that light levels are kept low in this show to protect old fabric, how hard would it have been to make larger wall cards with bigger fonts so people could actually read them, instead of (I kid you not, folks) handing out magnifying glasses?

Or how about the deliberate juxtaposition of similar photographs with key drawings and paintings in the current Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Art and Photography of Paris exhibition? For all the wordiness of the wall text that introduces this exhibit, nowhere is this thought-provoking placement noted. When I was there this morning, few visitors in the downstairs photography gallery even noticed the careful hanging. Would it have been a difficult thing simply to point it out in the wall text?

Giving some thought to telling the actual stories of the schools, genres, and works on display in any given museum seems like an obvious and useful way to present art to lay patrons–like me and probably like you–who make up the majority of museum visitors, doesn’t it?

For years I’ve wondered why Chicago museums (with the noted exception of the newly refurbished Chicago History Museum) refuse to actually do this sort of comprehensive storytelling. Simple blind spot about the hardly useful way things have traditionally been presented? Classist prejudice that museums should cater only to the better educated among us? (As if anyone could be suitably educated in everything to make useful wall cards obsolete.)

What I do know is Chicago museums are working very hard to update their collections and reposition themselves as popular destinations amid a dangerously declining economy. That’s why a place like the Art Institute asking twelve dollars a person from an occasionally visiting family of four for the privilege of leaving with a puzzled impression leaves me with one, too.

Someday I hope all our city’s exhibiting institutions decide to spend some time devising–and then telling–the compelling stories of their works on view instead of keeping them a secret. Whether that comes to pass, of course, is all in the cards.

The wall cards, that is.

(Photo: The light of illumination goes dark at Chicago’s Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.)

[Note: Late on Friday, the Chicago Tribune article I discuss in this post was heavily updated to include additional details about the "Imaginary Coordinates" exhibit and the criticisms that led to the Spertus Institute's decision to cancel it early. Primary among those criticisms: essentially, that merely thinking about the borders of the Holy Land is somehow "anti-Israel". So the moral of this story seems to be, as far as the Spertus Institute is concerned, it's OK for there to be only one side to a story...]

As reported in today’s Chicago Tribune, this week, downtown Chicago’s Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies bowed to pressure from Jewish United Fund (JUF)/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago president Steven Nasatir and closed its multimedia exhibition on Holy Land boundaries, “Imaginary Coordinates”, three months early.

The show, originally scheduled to run through September 17th, used maps and nontraditional media to examine the historical, cultural, and actual meaning of Holy Land borders for both the Israelis and the Palestinians who together live there.

What was the problem? According to Spertus trustee Philip Gordon, “significant criticism that ‘Imaginary Coordinates’ conveyed anti-Israel points of view”.

Gordon went on to say:

“Spertus was at risk of seriously alienating its core constituency…our fiduciary and mission-based responsibility to Spertus required us to direct the staff to close the exhibition.”

Spertus president Howard Sulkin was also riding the backtrack express today:

“[The trustees] came to realize that parts of the exhibition were not in keeping with aspects of our mission as a Jewish institution and did not belong at Spertus…This exhibition caused pain for members of our audience. That was never our intent and we apologize.”

Am I the only one who smells financial–and political–strong-arming here?

When probed by the Tribune to reveal the specific aspects of the exhibition that were deemed to be “anti-Israel”, or who else besides Nasatir had expressed such concerns, neither Gordon nor Sulkin had any response.

When I toured the Spertus during this year’s Chicago Great Places and Spaces, the senior Spertus official who led the tour seemed pretty confident in the exhibit’s ability to explain both sides of the issue of borders and residency in the Holy Land.

A review of the Spertus Institute’s own website reveals the grounding for such confidence. According to their About Us page, their mission is to be an educational institution that explores the “multi-faceted Jewish experience” and fosters “understanding for Jews and people of all faiths” through means including “thought-provoking exhibitions”.

As my Spertus tour guide took great pains to point out, the institute’s symbol, a flame above the Hebrew words for “let there be light” (yehi or), was carefully chosen to reflect such an enlightened perspective on the world.

That same website notes that the JUF/Jewish Fund is the Spertus Institute’s primary financial benefactor, so I guess whatever Steven Nasatir says, goes. But I can’t help thinking he probably should review the institute’s stated mission–and perhaps do some meditation on the reason for separation of church and state in the first place (and this, a fundamental principle both in the U.S. and in Israel).

Earlier this month, the June 5th issue of Time Out Chicago had this to say about the Imaginary Coordinates show, which it rated five out of six stars:

“…what’s really gutsy is the exhibition’s balanced look at Israel’s and Palestine’s competing claims for the Holy Land. At the risk of alienating part of its core audience, the Spertus presents a powerful and moving reflection on the meaning of borders, territory and home turf.”

Time Out Chicago seems to have been sadly prescient in this case (and maybe that’s where all parties got that insipid “alienating our core audience” phraseology). But I, for one, simply do not believe that rank-and-file Spertus scholars or Chicago’s Jewish community in general are closed-minded, much less closed-minded enough to demand this exhibit closed.

The Tribune said that the Spertus doesn’t think that closing a controversial art exhibit three months early amounts to censorship. As far as Gordon is concerned, the exhibit’s cancellation is nothing more than “…an institution saying, ‘We made a mistake, we’re sorry, and let’s move on.’”

Hmm. I don’t think I’m using the same equation to calculate censorship as Gordon. I’ve always relied on a conditional formula:

If Art Show, and Controversy, and Cancellation, then Censorship.

The formula is simple enough to stake one’s integrity on. But, like the Spertus, maybe I made a mistake.

(Photo: Sometimes art can really pull your chain. Credit: Looper.)

If you aren’t anal retentive, you shouldn’t be curating art exhibits. If the idea of dropped apostrophes, mis-attributed dates, and dog-eared inscriptions doesn’t keep you up at night, you shouldn’t be responsible for the hanging of museum shows in major metropolitan areas. I cannot stress this point strongly enough.

As aforementioned, I am an afternoon museum whore (well, perhaps john is a better term, seeing as who’s actually doing the paying for me to visit). I love nothing more than to be swept away by a well-thought-out exhibit or smartly managed museum–which is why I find myself overly miffed whenever those expectations aren’t met by institutions that really should know better. Especially when you’re asking your patrons 12 bucks to get in, as in the case of the Chicago History Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art.

For me, these two museums always represent the best and the worst of times. I love the Historical Society, always have. (Can’t find it in me to love calling it the “history museum” yet, the term calls to mind too many images of glaciers and fossils and lakeshores covered in wild onions.) Now there’s a populist institution aimed at making average Chicagoans feel welcomed, at making itself accessible to them.

But being the self-proclaimed standard-bearer of the city’s past, it’s especially important for its exhibit inscriptions to be correct. Or at least up-to-date. The centerpiece of the museum’s newly re-opened exhibit halls: a vintage “L” car from the 1890s. Admirable enough. But inside the “L” car? Exhibit cards, complete with photos, explaining how the vintage car differs from the CTA’s most modern cars…the 2600s.

And if it were still 1981, the year when the 2600s first went into service, instead of 26 years later, the inscription would be accurate. Admittedly an error only a railfan like me would catch, but don’t you think, of all places, that the (I’ll say it) History Museum should have its facts straight before it glues them to the wall of an exhibit?

That’s just what I thought about the Museum of Contemporary Art, prior to a visit there last week. Unlike the History Museum, I’ve never been a huge fan of the MCA. Any museum purposely built too small to show its permanent collection is starting at a disadvantage, in my book. But the MCA always seems to try to make up for that liability by copping a cooler-than-thou attitude in its regular stream of temporary shows. (Although, hands up those who think five-to-ten feet of blank wall between every two artworks is the proper definition of art-world hip?)

But I was game enough to give the MCA the benefit of the doubt when I took in their much-ballyhooed retrospective of contemporary photography, MCA Exposed. Silly me. Imagine my surprise, as a native New Yorker, to encounter an inscription halfway through the exhibit attributing a photograph’s provenance to “Staten Island, New Jersey”.

Now I realize that although New York City and many elements associated with it live in the national consciousness–things such as NYC’s Staten Island Ferry, for one–seeing that the island sits on the border between New York and New Jersey, I could perhaps understand someone not knowing to which state it properly belonged.

Maybe, just maybe I could also forgive a curator for not double-checking such a fact that they might be not entirely sure of. However.

However.

The place the photo was actually taken, “Staten Island, New York”, was…oh I really wish I had a drumroll for this…WRITTEN ON THE PHOTOGRAPH. Clearly. Plain as day. Big, cursive, artist-written inscription all the way across the bottom of the photo: “Staten Island, New York.”

I told museum staff about the error. Later in the week, I argued with Devyn over whether the artist maybe meant for there to be a disparity between what was written on the photo and what was written in the inscription. I was unconvinced.

I can understand why a museum, any museum, might blow a couple of descriptive facts here and there. Inscriptions are written by humans and we are not infallible. But when an inscription clearly shows that the curator of a self-aggrandized art “event” didn’t even bother to look at the artwork before hanging it, then there’s a big problem somewhere.

No wonder MCA head Robert Fitzpatrick wants out…

(Photo: Chicago’s Looper photoblog zooms into its second anniversary. Credit: Looper.)

Today, Devyn Caldwell’s Looper photoblog celebrates its second anniversary. For the past two years Looper has focused intently on downtown Chicago, featuring edgy, insightful, and often unexpected images of the city’s urban core for a loyal and growing audience. Browse Looper and see for yourself why I consider Devyn to be Chicago’s best urban photographer since the seminal work of the mid-20th century’s Charles Cushman.

For full disclosure, Devyn is my long-term boyfriend. But with photos like these, who wouldn’t want to be along for the ride? So, Devyn, happy second anniversary to Looper! May its third year be even more successful…and eye opening.

(Photo: Casas Grandes vessel. Credit: Yale University Press.)

From the way the Art Institute of Chicago talks about its latest temporary show, Casas Grandes, you might decide to give the exhibition of ancient North American pottery a pass. You’d miss out on some surprisingly modern fun–as, apparently, did the show’s curators.

Casas Grandes names a pre-Columbian native civilization that existed 500 to 700 years ago in the area that’s now the American southwest and northern Mexico. They existed on the land where in previous centuries flourished other great civilizations like the Hohokam and the Anasazi.

Don’t hit the snooze button yet, I swear this is way cooler than it sounds. All of these peoples had a pottery tradition so distinct each piece practically screamed the name of the tribes who made it. Very classic. Very ordered. Very nice–but, very pat.

And then came Casas Grandes. And like the (much-maligned) coming of the late-20th Century Post-Modern architecture trend, everything exploded. Every previous style became fodder for a design ethic that sought to riff off the past while grooving into the future. Images and icons and stylistic elements from all the previous peoples were used by Casas Grandes artisans in unexpected, swirly juxtaposed, breathless, and stunning new ways. In Casas Grandes pottery, you see the art that came before, but you’re aware these artisans have stepped into what, for them, must have been a helluva modern-art age.

Sadly, at every turn the Art Institute’s descriptions — on every wall and display case — miss this entirely. Instead, you get powdery dry treatises on the myriad possible meanings (sometimes saying “we don’t know” is a better option) of every dusty idea the curators think is behind each piece. And, surprise, as usual we think they’re all religious. Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, the shift into modernity that the art on display represents is never – even – recognized. The word, tradition, is used about 100 times. The word, art, however, almost never appears.

And that’s a shame. Because one walk into the Casas Grandes gallery, and you’d swear it was 1950s America and Charlie Parker was blowing mod jazz behind a giant Olla somewhere. Why is it that Western thought never conceives of any idea of the modern beyond its own?

Go see this exhibit. Read the pamphlet you’ll find at the door, it sets everything up. But to really appreciate the veritable hipness of the art on display, trust me on this. Read nothing else…

Well, actually, read the book