Mattress Factory Field Trip

Despite this past week’s visit to the Mattress Factory being my second visit to the gallery, it was the first time that I got the chance to visit the permanent exhibits. I got the museum early to spend a little more time on those works and went to the third floor first to work my way back down to the first floor. I was able to go into the rooms by Yayoi Kusama by myself for at least fifteen minutes. I felt an unexpected awkwardness in Repetitive Vision, the room with the red polka dotted floor, mirrored walls and ceiling, and the mannequins with the same pattern on them. I think it was because of the small size of the maybe ten foot square room with three mannequins, and with the walls covered in mirrors, it expanded the view beyond the realm of what was thought possible. However, unlike that awkward feeling in Repetitive Vision, I felt a kind of calm peace about Infinity Dots Mirrored Room even despite it having those bright neon polka dots on the floor and black lights in the ceiling. Being alone, there was this feeling that where there might have been an endless series of different angles of me, it was still just me in the room. I even found myself drifting off in thought in the room. After a while, I started looking at the specific pattern of the floor and it seemed as though the dots started glowing in the negative space – similar to how a camera leaves your eyes with those little dots when you close your eyes – where dots weren’t at because of the black lights.

The second floor with the three works by James Turrell was probably my favorite. I still had time to kill before we all had to meet at 1:00, so I walked out off of the elevator on to the floor. I remember the disorienting feeling looking to the pitch black hallways and the old, thin floorboards creaking from above, letting all of the sounds of the work upstairs to bleed through. The hallways and the entire floor lent themselves to that feeling of haunted houses, and an ultimate feeling of not knowing what to expect around the corner, and, for that matter, with the actual piece of art itself. I knew of Turrell’s work because of previous art classes and I knew he worked specifically with light, and sometimes, the deception of it. The first piece I experienced was Catso, Red, followed by Danaë. For anyone that might not have been able to experience the pieces, I won’t go into details about them. However, I did know of Danaë before seeing the work, and, even then, I still could not believe the image it made. Even when walking back to where I first viewed the piece, it still had the same impression on me, as though the next time I walked up to it, it might actually change. Turrell’s use of light tricks the viewer into seeing something that is or isn’t there.

I also especially liked The Dark Side of Light by Jacob and Jessica Ciocci. It reminded me of a cross between every arcade and my basement throughout the ninety’s. The black painted walls complemented by the bright neon pinks, blues, greens, and yellows, creating a checkerboard pattern or pixel pattern on an opposite wall, like any arcade might think up. My basement used to be one of those neighborhood gathering places where ten of us might pile on to one old couch that was covered by similar crocheted blankets as in the piece, playing a Sega system that was hooked up by several different adaptors and connectors to the houses oldest TV. Things have come a long way since as our Wii is now connected by two cables to the main LCD TV in our living room. It is strange to think that the current “basement TV” is the one that used to be in my bedroom. I think it is interesting to trace technology in this way – in terms of where technology moves throughout someone’s house. The Ciocci’s piece was a reflection of the technology and fads of the 1980s, and it is an important way to look at how technology changes over such a short time.

Another one of my favorite works was Gretchen Skogerson’s Switch. I think I connected with it because of how the florescent light reminded me of Turrell’s works, in a kind of modern way, maybe because of the curve of the wall, and how we associate curved walls with modern architecture. When my group first entered into the space, the lights were glowing as a very bright purple, almost white color. The curator explained how Skogerson was fascinated with older films, where poorer film quality showed several broken looking strips, and the backless computer chair reminded me of black and white interviews. Not too long after we first arrived there, the colors started a frantic, pulsing strobe effect that, if the viewer looked directly in the middle of the curve, it made it looked as though the two sources of light were interfering with each other, mixing at that point. The genius of the work showed how light moves around a curve, just like how water can do the same thing.