Let’s Go Inside and Outside Bentonville’s Crystal Bridges Museum
Next up from our visit to Bentonville is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a museum Hi-Fructose has been eager to visit for many years. It should be, if not already, a destination for anyone interested in contemporary art for its permanent collection as well as its roster of exciting temporary exhibitions. It is a thoroughly immersive art experience both inside and outside the museum walls which are set on a lush green landscape. The nature trails that weave through its grounds are peppered with unexpected outdoor sculptures by artists such as Dale Chihuly (see middle image below), Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois, James Turrell, and (a special favorite of mine) Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian house. It’s hard not to feel like a kid in a candy store inside the Crystal Bridges museum.
An overarching theme throughout the museum’s collection is the thoughtful attention to the placement of contemporary art next to classical. Also notable, the museum’s recognition of their own role as settlers and guests in the Northwest Arkansas region is evident throughout. An example are the didactics for the works in their Early American Art gallery, part of their permanent collection. The gallery is filled with incredible works frequently noted for their romanticized, spiritual, and nostalgic depictions of American landscapes. Crystal Bridges’ informative interpretations do not shy away from truth, privilege, and unacknowledged colonialism.
Crystal Bridges’ informative interpretations do not shy away from truth, privilege, and unacknowledged colonialism.
A half-hour walk from the museum is The Momentary, an extension of Crystal Bridges, which is housed within a decommissioned cheese factory and currently features two immersive exhibitions: Mystic Parallax by multidisciplinary artist Awol Erizku and Dark Waters by photographer Kristine Potter.
Mystic Parallax’s rich and exciting imagery blends Erikzu’s studio practice with the artists’ work, which was made as an in-demand editorial photographer. It features his conceptual portraits of leading Black cultural figures, such as Amanda Gorman, Michael B. Jordan, Pharrell Williams, and Solange. As Erizku has said, “It’s important for me to create confident, powerful, downright regal images of Black people.”
Kristine Potter’s haunting Dark Waters series reflects on the “’Southern Gothic’ landscape as evoked in the popular imagination of “murder ballads” from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”
Aside from certain special exhibitions, Crystal Bridges entry is always free and their walking and biking trails and grounds are open from sunup to sunset which means that you can visit James Turrell’s Skyspace as it was meant to be viewed, either at dawn or sunset.
Below: Image gallery from Awol Erikzu’s ‘Mystic Parallax’ exhibition at The Momentary, followed by works found inside the Crystal Bridges Museum.
Fans of Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama need no introduction to the Kusama pumpkin- her dotted signature motif and yes, alter ego. Her pumpkins have been famously recreated from hotel rooms to textiles and designer hand bags by Louis Vuitton. She's even taken us inside of their surreal, organic structure, as in her Selfridges London pop-up store this time last year. So the story goes, Kusama's family once owned a storehouse full of pumpkins during World War II, and she developed a fondness for them. Ever since, she has continually used them throughout her career as a symbol of growth and fertility. Just in time for Halloween, Victoria Miro in London is showing a new body of bronze sculptures and paintings 2 years in the making, simply titled "Pumpkins".
Last weekend, Thinkspace Gallery debuted "New Works" by Tran Nguyen and Erik Jones, who both treat the classic human form with abstract elements. Although separated by choice of color and medium, this exhibition seamlessly merges their illustrative styles. The new work of Brooklyn-based Erik Jones clothes his nudes in highly saturated patterns and geometrical shapes. The happy, bright colors of the foreground seem to mask a melancholy expressed by Jones’s subjects. This tension is intentional; Jones offers the idea of opposing visual relationships by merging beautifully rendered portraits with mixed media “fashions." With fashion serving as an inspiration, his “models” convey the indifference of one caught off guard or a moment in time. In some cases, the figure disappears completely. Read more after the jump.