Courbet insulted

The exhibition Courbet and the Modern Landscape will probably be on my year-end top-ten list. (I first saw it at the Getty.) It's painting-show-as-treasure-hunt: How did Courbet get that effect? What tool did he use to put oil paint there? And thanks probably in some measure to the show, it's been a good year for Courbet in the US: In the last few months both the FAMSF and the Wadsworth Atheneum have acquired superb Courbets. So I was delighted that Courbet and the Modern Landscape was coming near my home, to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Then I saw it. I was disappointed and stunned. It is probably the worst-installed show I've ever seen. The Walters and curator Eik Kahng should be embarrassed.

First, the show is installed with a soundtrack, a mix of orchestral accompaniment and, allegedly, sounds of wind and water. It sounds like one of those noise machines you can buy to help yourself sleep. 

Then Kahng and the Walters hired a "lighting and environmental arts studio" to design the exhibit. That 'studio' spot-lit each painting -- and attached each light to a dimmer. As a result, the light level on each painting goes up and down, from dim to BRIGHT and back to dim over the course of 15 seconds or so. The effect is nauseating; it forces the viewer on how his retinas adjust to the light changes instead of on the paintings. Kahng seems to believe that the paintings themselves aren't good enough to attract attention without a gimmick.

When I looked away from a painting, the bizarreness continued. Patterened light that would have been just more appropriate in the staging of a John Guare play bounced around the gallery. It too appeared to be on a dimmer. 

Finally I reached the gallery of Courbet's winterscapes. They were lit with super-intense halogen light, lumination so strong that it made the paintings look have a ridiculous glow. The high-powered halogens turn them into the equivalent of Thomas Kinkade posters in a tourist tchotchke shop. The lighting was an intrusion on the art.

The Walters' problem is simple: Kahng didn't trust the art. Kahng created a preposterous spectacle, an intervention that put the focus on the curator and the curator's 'innovation' instead of on the artist, his innovation, and his art. As for Kahng... this is the kind of train wreck that should force a curator into an obscure academic posting. Or maybe David Blaine needs another flunky.

Related: The Washington Post's Paul Richard was similarly flabbergasted.