Walk down the fifth avenue from the "Twilight" museum to the south. I saw a couple of museums from the street, then it showed up. The building of the distinguishing feature, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City designed by Frank Lloyd Wright(1867 -1959). I love his way of thinking in design works and the details that he designed. When I was a student I've visited Yodoko Guest House 旧山邑邸 in Ashiya, Japan. I loved it. The museum was designed in a different style from it but some things are common.
Just enter the building soon after taking the picture briefly. At the security gate, security officers check people's baggage. A black security officer checks my backpack, my half-eaten roll sandwich that fell off as soon as he opened the backpack gets him significantly. The officer came back to his duty after the short-time laughing and gave me permission to enter. In the hall at the ground level, some people are doing something like radio broadcasting. That seems to be related to the feature exhibition "On Kawara – Silence". They say that it is the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of a Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara(1932 - 2014), conceived by the artist himself before his death on 10th July 2014 – my birthday last year. When I designed this journey, I looked into the museums and their locations but not the exhibitions. I unexpectedly encountered a compatriot in this foreign country. It is said that the artist born in Japan settled in the city of New York in 1965 after he experienced the life in Mexico, travels through Europe.
His art works are not something I am familiar with. This kind of art is not so common in Japan. The exhibition makes full use of the spiral ramp of the building and leads the audience to his world ingeniously. To see his conceptual art works along with the spiral ramp sequence makes the boundaries of the concept of time or space ambiguous. Physically it's hard to define which level we are in, but also it feels as if the sequence leads us to somewhere everything is made of numbers yet ambiguous. Suddenly I felt someone's eyes on me. I looked at the direction when I was about to leave some section probably located on the third level, then she was there. A French girl in black suits. She is French because she substantially resembles the French actress Léa Seydoux. After the transient meeting of eyes, the French / French-American museum staff dropped her eyes and had gone into behind a wall. Before I comprehend what just happened, I was carried away by the flow of the crowd.
They hold the other exhibitions at the same time. I found the section of Kandinsky, and it's titled "Kandinsky – His Romantic Tendency". This should be the best line of the day. It means "His romantic tendency before he shifts to abstraction" It repeatedly comes to my mind, and I can't do anything about it. Maybe my slightly unusual features in Japan is also unusual in the U.S., I noticed people's attention. Not from everyone, but began to feel uncomfortable. Now I can't tell whether I am watching the exhibition or I am the exhibition to be watched. I love the reading room at the second level, it's a cosy little room. I want to stay that room for a while. But I have to go now. I have to prepare for tonight.
I found myself searching the French museum-staff girl everywhere I go since that time. However, I never saw her again. Perhaps that was a trick of the senses. Perhaps she was my imagination. Perhaps she was an illusion created by this mysterious building, the Guggenheim Museum.
——A sketch from 'New York of Mirage' 11th Feb 2015
※This post was created at 23:50 31st July 2017 (AoE standard time)
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