MUDAM FOOT'S CAUGHT IN SPACE

Living near four borders gets me to and from certain countries in about the same time it takes to get to Santa Monica from Pasadena -- going 65 mph. Being able to say things like "See yah later, off to Germany for tofu!" does keep my spirits up. It's just too wild.

On my way for tofu one day, I decided to go via Luxembourg, to a museum in a city within the city, which has lots of space and an installation by a woman from Korea who lives in New York. After the museum and getting lost on the highway, going towards Brussels, I returned to France via Germany, with my tofu.

What the heck just happened here?

It's called space, babee, space. I played with space which played with my mind and allowed me to experience things and places in such a way that will never take place in space again.

cool...

Art plays with space all the time. Be it the space on a wall or inside one’s head. A concept or a portrayal of thought; all art messes with space.

MUDAM, the museum in Luxembourg, located in a city within the city, wants to bring people to its space by having artists create, because of the space and to introduce seeing space through various forms and ways. For their current exhibit, Sketches of Space, MUDAM basically said to the artists:

Here's da space - go fer it.

And they did, many wonderfully so.

What's wonderful as well is that MUDAM makes all this "schtuff" mentally approachable. Wall notes & booklets are translated into five languages, the hip room guards sure know their stuff about this work, and just wandering feels pretty fluid here. Even the practice of yoga takes place amongst the art, bringing in body and breath within space.

Me like that.


I've been caught up thinking about what it is MUDAM is working towards with all this space talk.  It's a big space, as in high. So how to fill the space has a lot of folks there talking. Also, how to get contemporary art from being stuck as considered so intimidating by many, and to simply have people come experience the space.  

Contemporary art can be provocative,
frustrating, absolutely beautiful and often mentally and visually consuming for its viewers.

A lot to ask?     I dunno.

Artists take elements, social, visual, historical, whatever, and often portray them to their simplest, barest beings. Artists do all the hard work. We just need to show up. Be willing to be there. Take up space. Mess with the space. Soak it up.

Why?

Why not? It's space babee. It will never be the same again. Why not mess with it, experience something that might blow you away?

I hope MUDAM succeeds in space. 

Top Photo: taken within Kim Sooja's piece "Mirror Woman, 2002".
Middle Photo: Simon Decker's amazingly high piece "Second Life, 2010".
Bottom Photo: Y8's public yoga space at MUDAM.