What I Liked and Disliked

I think the piece I liked most at the Carnegie Museum of Art was the installation by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller entitled Opera for a Small Room. I know most groups didn’t visit the installation in their tours so I’ll describe a little bit about it. The installation was at the top of the wide steps and to the right and through the blackened doors. The lights were shut off and the room was empty except for a wooden framed room in the center of the floor and older speakers placed throughout the room. This smaller room was filled with at least 2,000 opera records bought at a record store bought at a second hand store, all with the name “R. Dennehy” on them, as well as other items like record players, lights, chairs and more speakers. The installation seems to come to life throughout the twenty minute loop as lights, sounds, and movements inside the room provide a glimpse into what life might have been like for someone like Mister Dennehy.

I didn’t even get to catch the whole twenty minute loop. When I walked in the room, a soundtrack piece of a train was playing on what seemed like a giant surround sound theater. The lights inside the smaller room were blue and the light fixtures themselves moved as if the room was on a train. As that part ended, a voice came on as a kind of announcement into the next section. That happened each time. The other two parts like this were filled with opera music and heavy guitar sounds that played on the record players that were synchronized with the lights. The entire piece was an experience that first got me to think about how the artists did some of the things they did. The shaking lights during the train sequence must have been an ordeal in itself to synchronize to the music, let alone the lights and colors and the robotic arms that played the record players; then even considering the music as some portions were made up altogether. The lights and sounds gave you different feelings throughout the loop and I kept wondering about how this looked and felt from inside the room.

The piece I disliked most was probably the Forum 62 gallery by Maria Grazia Rosin. This gallery was a collection of works on display as one installation in a smaller room just inside the lobby. Her glass works were set up in a way that visitors could come in and circle around the display. On the wall in the front of the room was a set of interlocking glass hooks. Then as you circle the room, dozens of these squid, jellyfish and octopi shaped chandeliers, as the website calls them, were suspended from the ceiling. Inside most were different colored LED lights that corresponded with the colors of the glass. On the opposite side of the previously mentioned wall was a projection of what looked like organisms that pulsated to sounds.

I think the reason I didn’t like this piece as much was because it reminded me of another artist – Dale Chihuly – and his glass works. Maybe this is just a case of previous knowledge interrupting my experience, but I couldn’t help but think to myself “this looks a lot like Chihuly’s stuff” in a kind of “Simpson’s did it” attitude. Even at that, Rosin’s work just didn’t seem to compare to Chihuly’s. Don’t get me wrong, they were amazing pieces of glass artwork and I fully understand how difficult the process is, I just felt like the presentation of Chihuly’s art is more powerful. Click the links above to compare the work of the two for yourselves.