In May my husband and I headed off on a weekend away to celebrate our anniversary. He always surprises me and makes all the plans himself. This year he very generously planned our trip around a huge craft show and art show that happen simultaneously in East Lansing. I should mention that of the two of us I am the one with interest in art. He doesn't really share it but like a good spouse he'll share the experience of it with me. So like I said, very generous.
Besides the weekend event, there is a new(ish) art museum on the campus of Michigan State University that I have been talking about seeing for a year or so now. So that, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, was actually our first stop. The architecture alone is worth a visit. It is awesome and angular and so very foreign among the more traditional brick buildings. I loved it!
The interior gallery space reminds me a lot of Grand Rapids' own UICA – odd shaped, cement walls, an interesting challenge to any artist showing site-specific works there.
I do want to point you to this article (with pics) on artist Imran Qureshi. His work was very interesting and somewhat disturbing but from a marketing standpoint it was kind of neat to come across it painted on sidewalks throughout town.
My very favorite piece was Border Unseen by Mithu Sen. It is made of fake teeth and something pink that looks like your gums. It stretched through a long narrow space like a dinosaur's spine. The walls were painted the same shade of pink. And if you looked carefully there were tiny little figurines perched amongst the teeth. Was it strange? Absolutely! Disturbing? Absolutely! Awesome? Absolutely! I love weird modern art that looks absolutely nothing like anything I've ever seen before. What a challenge and an inspiration to my own visual dictionary.
There was also an exhibit of quilts from Pakistan and East India that I appreciated. The level of skill was astounding.
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