Cleveland Public Art

Hi everyone. How's the 50 drawings going? Last night I refined my drawings from the week, and overworked one...today I'm starting the new project. I'm excited to see what all will come out when I start playing with the form.

I'm sharing a link found in notcot.org, at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Mark Reigelman was selected by the Musuem to construct a temporary work for the outside entrance of the greco style museum. According to the gallery statement, this was a "risky" piece.

The piece - called 'White Cloud' - is close to a hundred 8 foot weather balloons, tied to steel poles, situated on either side of the grand entrance.

I'm not sure if the museum calls it risky simply because it has dynamic elements or because it is not classical and condescending enough to stand alongside the outer walls of the building...

Whatever the case, the piece was installed a week prior to the Summer Solstice event being held at the museum. Those involved in the project were dismayed by strong winds that, er...unsettled the balloons and even bent one of the steel poles. Apparently, thunderstorms and wind got so bad the night before the solstice that it was decided to have the project dismantled the morning of the event. No one that attended the actual solstice party on Saturday saw Reigelman's piece.

The museum is calling this decision one that inspires artists to take creative risks, even if the work can only be experienced for a short time. This is a nice, tidy way of concluding what sounds like must have been a challenging installation to keep up.

Still, I'm more interested in why the balloons were not allowed to stay where they were. Aesthetics beat performance in this case. If two or three of the balloons were missing, another stuck in a tree, a different idea would be reached.

let the work be...

The curators chose a dynamic piece for display, so they must have wanted something to break up the symmetry and static building front. But the choice to dismantle the piece was made before it could become TOO dynamic.

http://www.clevelandpublicart.org/projects/completed/white-cloud


-Seth