"I am the Walrus" by Enrique Gomez de Molina
After going to the press conference for the Hometown Tourist initiative put on by the Louisville Visitors Center, I decided to sign up for a Saturday afternoon tour of 21c’s Museum Hotel. Five people gathered at five o’clock to hear our docent, Chelsea, explain the meanings behind some of the artworks displayed throughout the Museum Hotel. She did such a phenomenal job that I had to tell her afterward how grateful I was, since contemporary art has never meant much to me, and her explanations really gave the artworks meaning.
One piece, in the lobby, looked to me like a pile of glass arranged around two upright wooden rectangular boxes. Our docent explained that the boxes represent the human body (and the duality of the body with two sets of most things) and were the height of the artist (Chris Radtke) with her hands stretched up. The glass surrounding the boxes was the exact same mass as her body. This explanation is obviously a whole lot more interesting than my observation of two wood boxes and some glass.
Another cool artist whose work was exhibited was Chuck Close. Two displays in the lobby had what (to my untrained eye) looked like a large cylindrical magnet surrounded by magnetic dust particles creating a really neat pattern. NOT quite the case – it turns out that if you look at the reflection on the cylinder you see that the pattern makes a portrait visible only in the reflection. That, and the cylinder is not a magnet, just a shiny surface. See why you should take a tour with a docent?!?
After our tour finished we wandered into the bar to reflect over a toast of Woodford Reserve Bourbon, a wonderful bonus given by 21c Hotel as part of the Hometown Tourist initiative.
