For some, it seems, it’s not enough to inhabit an artwork in their imaginations. They want to enter it physically.
I’m embarrassed to own up to my own “living in a painting” experience: It occurred nine years ago, when I visited the Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ, for my WNYC radio report on sculpture gardens.
The brainchild of artist J. Seward Johnson, Grounds for Sculpture displayed not only original outdoor works by contemporary artists, but also kitschy sculptural tableaux mimicking Impressionist masterpieces. Doing my journalistic due diligence, I felt compelled to experience this, against my better judgment:
As it happens, the painting on which the above is based resides at the Art Institute of Chicago. That museum has now been co-opted by its advertising agency, Chicago-based Leo Burnett, into going along with the re-creation of van Gogh‘s bedroom as an Airbnb rental—a promotion for the museum’s much praised Van Gogh’s Bedrooms exhibition.
At least the price is right (bottom right corner of picture):
Here’s the sales pitch for the listing:
This room will make you feel like you’re living in a painting. It’s decorated in a Post-Impressionist style [!?!], reminiscent of Southern France and times gone by. Its furniture, bright colors, and artwork will give you the experience of a lifetime…
…or maybe not.
A museum spokesperson told me the idea for this came from Leo Burnett and added that the AIC isn’t actively pushing it: There’s nothing about it on the museum’s webpages for the exhibition itself or for accommodation packages related to it. Calling the Airbnb initiative a “complementary marketing piece,” the spokesperson noted that it has attracted lots of social-media attention.
Add this to the many foolish notions that have attracted social-media attention.
This for-rent bedroom is an offshoot of what AIC itself does on-site: As described in the van Gogh exhibition’s website: “A digitally enhanced reconstruction of his bedroom [part of the show] allows viewers the chance to experience his state of mind and the physical reality of the space that so inspired him.” In her Wall Street Journal review of the “Van Gogh’s Bedrooms,” Mary Tompkins Lewis called this “an enthralling, immersive and interactive experience.”
Similarly, the Kimbell Art Museum added an interactive component to the most famous work in its recent Caillebotte exhibition, tweeted below:
Bring friends and family this weekend for two great exhibitions at the Kimbell. pic.twitter.com/M1iypz0uuB
— Kimbell Art Museum (@KimbellArt) November 28, 2015
And, yes, the painting featured in this photo-op re-creation—“Paris Street, Rainy Day,” 1877—is also an AIC-owned artwork
Now comes news that Conceptual artist Joe Scanlan has jumped on the artist’s-bedroom bandwagon, offering a Marcel Broodthaers-inspired abode on Airbnb. This project coincides with the Museum of Modern Art’s Broodthaers Retrospective (to May 15). Mercifully, MoMA had nothing to do with it, according to a museum spokesperson.
All of this brings to mind an alarm sounded by the Metropolitan Museum’s former director, Philippe de Montebello, who repeatedly warned that the growing allure of lively digital images and interactives could set off a competition that mere artworks could never win: Most paintings and sculptures are static and silent, they aren’t brightly backlit, and “the eye doesn’t have a zoom lens,” he repeatedly noted.
Now Philippe’s former home is among the museums experimenting with a variety of technological enhancements that don’t merely elucidate the art but sabotage it. In addition to the digital prestidigitations that I described in this blog post, the Met recently presented digital performances of its Tullio Lombardo “Adam,” restored and returned to view after a shattering fall.
It’s time to stop assuming that art isn’t engrossing enough in its own right without clever interventions that trivialize it and reinvent it as something that the artist never intended.
Let art be art. Don’t turn it into a travesty.