Installation Piece- A trip to the MIA

The Period Rooms at the Minneapolis Institute of Art are an interesting gateway into the past. The Northumberland Room, for example, is an uptight sitting room filled with knickknacks and material objects that make up the owners possessions; chairs bought out of necessity, gifts received out of thoughtfulness, and portraits painted to show the grandeur of the family name. Chairs are placed puzzlingly far away from each. Portraits paint a picture of a rigid and uptight lifestyle. It’s as if everything in the Northumberland Room is for show. There is nothing comfortable about this room. You get no emotion from it except an inexplicable sadness. You might wonder how anyone could stand living in such a lackluster place. It is a room that exemplifies the time but favors material objects more than anything else. One is left to wonder about the feelings behind the material objects. Did the chair mean anything to them? Is it comfortable? Have the books on the shelves been read? What do you do in a room like this but sit and stare?

(Photo is of the Northumberland Room)

It’s an interesting shift, then, to look at “The Studio” by Larry Rivers. This modern painting is vibrant and full of life. It shows the lapsing of time and the emotions that come with it. Four figures are shown and each one is copied and replaced on top of itself in a slightly different position. There are facial expressions, movement of limbs, and shapes that give the painting an emotive quality. It is extremely expressive. In line with the theory of Modernism, this piece puts a spotlight on the why’s and how’s of life at the time. It confronts social problems (there is an image of a black woman holding a sign that says “liberty”) and focuses on a room that is not filled with material possessions but instead with a lifetime worth of emotive and self-made work.


(Photo is of a portion of "The Studio" by Larry Rivers)



I would love to create an installation peice that takes the Northumberland Room but adds elements from "The Studio" to it, as well. I would rearrange the chairs in strange ways. One chair might be placed on top of the other. Or, two identical chairs could be cut and and fused together to give the idea that over time the chair has been moved just a little. The art on the walls would be much the same but I would take the elegant paintings, copy the person depicted, and place it on top of the image only moved slightly. I might place the teacups on the table but set them up in a way that someone would look at it and ask, "Why would you use it like that?" I would like to fuse the Northumberland Room and The Studio together because they are two very different rooms and yet they both show important aspects of a persons life (i.e. things that belong to them and define the time). I think that with the two fused together you'll get a really interesting perspective.

- m