The Timeless art of creating

Yesterday I went with my Mom to see an exhibit at the Kimbell Art museum.  This is something we have been doing for awhile.  My first visit I was 5 and the building was brand new, probably less then a year old (google it if you must know how ancient I am).  I remember being as tall as the trees they planted in the back, the extraordinarily cool zero edge water falls on either side, the feel of the pea gravel beneath my keds.  And of course the art.  Some of it 4 times larger than I was, with ladies in grand dresses, pipes, guitars and mustaches peeking out of cubes.  Oh and my favorite, Portrait of a Matador. https://www.kimbellart.org/collection-object/portrait-matador-pedro-romero  I was completely smitten.  I still am.

It is for this reason that it feels more like going to visit an old friend who is an hour away rather than a building filled with art.  I am on a first name basis with these guys, I have grown up, they have watched me and thousands of other children.  Of course all friendships have their ups and downs.  We survived the scandal of finding out there was an impostor posing as an ancient temple.  And for years, the collection has been cramped and shuffled out of the way to make space for exhibits.  Not that I am complaining, the Kimball is that friend who has amazing connections and invites you to hobnob with the Impressionist, Expressionist, Post Modernists and great thinkers throughout history.  It was just getting a little tight, so while I hated to see the great expansive lawn disappear out the back, the new kid on the block is a pretty welcome addition.

They did an outstanding job.  The Piano Pavilion completely fits with the style of Louis Kahn's original building.  It feels like a natural extension of the original with today's gallery sensibilities applied.  Every piece has enough space to really see it; to really experience it.  And as Mr. Kandinsky explained to me so eloquently yesterday, art is created by the collaboration between the artist and the viewer.  The artist creates and the viewer experiences.  The artist can never control the experience.  It can be loved, hated, ignored, pondered, written about, forgotten but this part of the creative process is in the viewer's hands to mold.    

I love that idea.  Maybe it was Kandinsky cleverly marketing to the masses to get us into galleries and museums.  Maybe it was what my husband likes to refer to as art babble.  I don't care if it was.  It rings true.  Especially when I see people connecting to pieces of art.  You know what I am talking about, the tilted head and spaced out long stares at oil on canvas.  The amazement as someone walks around a 100lbs of bronze.  The giggles or disgust over Duchamp's Fountain (urinal).  The smile I get when I see the handsome matador staring at me just as he was in the 18th Century.  I love the idea that 200 years from now, with any luck, the Kimbell art museum will still stand, and possibly my great great grandchildren will walk through the pea gravel up the very wide yet impossibly short steps to the museum and continue the partnership.