I was 9 or 10 years old when my mom took me to the Detroit Institute of Arts. If I recall, we were killing time while my dad ran an errand and it was my first museum, unless you count visiting the Hiram Walker Historical Museum—they made Canadian Club whiskey down river from me. Perhaps, that is another story.
Anyway, I don’t remember much, but I do remember getting the bejesus scared out of me by a painting called The Nightmare by John Henry Fuseli. Seeing it, holding my mom’s hand tightly I’m sure, I didn’t know what to think; I’m sure I looked away in horror, but peered back to take in its somewhat titillating content—a prone woman. One way or another, the painting moved me.
I remember a room covered in murals too, only to later realize they were the infamous Detroit Industry Murals by Diego Rivera. Visiting DIA on a school field trip later, I earned brownie points with my teachers knowing a thing or two.
In my teens, to probably show my more-than-just-a-jock personality depth, I took a prospect to a local art museum. I made my first artistic purchase that afternoon—three contemporary Inuit prints that caught my eye and were seemingly within my gas-station-jockey means. I still have those prints, somewhere.
And so began my lifelong love of going to museums and art.
I visit as many as I can, but strictly speaking, I prefer museums that cater to the visual arts in a traditional sense: drawing, painting, printmaking, sculptures, ceramics & pottery, photography, illustrations, collage, textile, large installation art, computer/digital art (NFTs), and lately, more and more street art/graffiti. So mainstream general museums and galleries are my go to’s to see the superstars of the art world. But do love to visit weird little specialty museums too, like the: Iceland Phallological Museum, Washington DC’s International Spy Museum, Vienna’s House of Music and The Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia. I am also keen on sharing natural history and anthropological museums with my kids.
Marcel Duchamp, a provocative French artist, declared that anything can be art. True enough, anything made by humans—elephants too I might add—can be art. Human creative expressions can be astonishing; one of our better talents. Yet, to me, anything is not always art, as I have certain tastes. I am not moved by a lot of contemporary art and cold abstractions, like monochromatic canvases, soup cans, or bananas taped to a wall, nor religious icon art. I get it, it is art, but it does not appeal to me (no pun intended). I much prefer portraits/figures, landscapes and still-life—probably the photographer in me.
Art that moves us typically reveals profound beauty, grandeur, wonder; it shocks us or challenges our traditions provocatively, and sometimes it is just its utter simplicity or raw eroticism. Always subjective and in the eye of the beholder, but pieces that move me, inexplicably draw me in, transport me and immerse me mysteriously. There is an attraction, like love at first sight. I often stare in awe, transfixed by sincere pieces: the light, colors, forms, and originality; the distress or ecstasy. But mostly by the palpable beauty of the piece. I love to touch sculptures, feel them, although one or two museum attendants have not been happy with my PDAs.
In 1978, while in Southern California, a few college friends and I bought tickets to see the Treasures of Tutankhamun (King Tut) at the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA). SNL and Steve Martin made the exhibit very popular. While there, I talked my crew into seeing the other great pieces at the museum and fell in love with Flower Day (Dĩa de Flores) by Diego Rivera. Yep, him again. Later that year, someone took me to the great Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena where I saw my first Little Dancer bronze by Edgar Degas—there are many repetitions of it scattered around the world, 28 I think, wearing varying tutus. I may have seen them all by now.*
There is a lot of art in LA because there is a lot of wealth in LA. I remember walking the beach in Malibu on many nights peering longingly at the art lining the walls of vacant beachfront homes. Honestly, it made me wonder: Could artistic larceny be a career path? I guess that’s why I have always enjoyed a good art heist caper movie, like How to Steal a Million, or The Thomas Crown Affair—both were good. In fact, as a part of my 90s mandatory zip code requirements, I toiled on a screenplay entitled Anatomy of an Art Theft about four amateur women friends in Boston who pull off an art grand heist…for all the right reasons of course.
I have exposed my kids to museums, like my mom did me, a lot of museums too. My general rule being limited expectations; short one-hour bursts in and out, attempting only to visit a handful of interesting pieces as a focus. Hoping then that some of the periphery rubs off on them while briefly stopping whenever something catches their curious eye, with delicious treats always awaiting them at the end. I was thrilled when my daughter, then about 7 or 8, loved Van Gogh’s Irises at the Getty. My son prefers natural history over art galleries, so far, his favorite being Paris’s National Museum of Natural History.
But I seem to have done something right, as both my kids have already started collecting artistic pieces that catch their eye and are within their budgets, just like my wife and I. And I am pleased to say that on more than one occasion I have seen a book or two laying open in their rooms taken from the shelves of our library devoted to heavy museum collection books from around the world. Happy dad.
My wife too loves art. She was an art history major in college, with a focus on stuffy 17th century Dutch Masters, and the details and illusions of still life’s. But I am happy to say her tastes have progressed. But every time we are in Vienna, she must take a few moments to visit with Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (Lovers).
Together over the last few decades, we have curated a fun collection of art pieces from our travels. Sadly today, either our house is too small, or our collection has grown too big, because we can’t show all our art. Yet scores do, and they make me smile every day, still captivating me. I’m still in love with them.
We have been fortunate to have traveled the world and being able to visit most of the great museums and galleries of the world. The sheer volume of amazing art we’ve personally seen is a great privilege. We are culture vultures when we travel, whether we are in an art rich nation or an art poor nation. Putting together our annual around the world travel adventure event, we regularly make cultural scavenges out of famous museums. If you’re in Paris, you really ought to visit d’Orsay—even for just 30 minutes. But you must go! However, it is odd to us at least, that some people who have participated in our event on numerous occasions wouldn’t be caught dead in a museum, any museum. Yet it is one of the things I personally love about traveling, seeing what beauty I can see, making quick trips—60-minutes max—inside local museums between other activities.
Over the last couple decades, museums have gotten very busy, rightfully so…but sometimes too busy! Museums have become the nexus of art and commerce in the 21st century. And museum gift shops have become big business too. Street artist Banksy’s 2010 film Exit Through the Gift Shop crystalizes the complicated relationship between art and commerce.
Too many to list or rate, here are a handful of not Thumbs Up or Down global museums:
Enthusiastic Thumbs Up: National Palace Museum (Taipei), Museum of Islamic Art (Doha), Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Madrid), National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City), Museum of Gold (Lima), National Museum (New Delhi), Tokyo National Museum, Israel Museum (Jerusalem), Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon). And oh, so many more…
Meh Thumbs Down: State Hermitage (St. Petersburg), Tate Modern (London), Dubai Museum, Acropolis Museum (Athens), Louvre Abu Dhabi, Guggenheim Bilbao, Versailles (France), Vatican Museum (Rome), Museum Picasso (Barcelona), Bangkok National Museum. Not to say they aren’t worth a quick visit though!
Eager Yet to Experience: Pushkin Museum (Moscow), National Museum (Berlin), Barnes (Philadelphia), Pergamon Museum (Berlin), Vasa Museum (Stockholm), Shanghai Science & Technology Museum, Museum of Black Civilizations (Dakar), Instituto Ricardo Brennand (Recife).
BTW: Disturbingly, the greatest art collection that nobody ever gets to see sits crated up in the Geneva Freeport. It is the most valuable collection of art in one place, with an estimated 1.2 million pieces valued at over US$100 billion, all sitting in storage used as collateral for the various schemes of the world’s uber wealthy. Nothing more than capital asset investments, never too be seen by anyone but their owners and insurance brokers on rare occasions. And that is a tragedy for humankind.
* LA is often demeaned as a cultural void. And while that may be true, LA has an underrated art scene—maybe because it is so spread out?—with a dozen equally great museums worth a visit: The Getty, LACMA, The Broad, Getty Villa, Hammer, Norton Simon, MOCA, Natural History, Academy, Petersen, Grammy, Fowler, Huntington as well as various Japanese, Latin and African-American art museums.
Thanks for the privilege of your time, it is the most precious thing we have, and I appreciate it. Be well.
William D. Chalmers © 2022 GreatEscape Adventures, Inc. All Rights Reserved.