I briefly saw this exhibit when I was at the Art Institute with my granddaughters during their winter break, and I wanted to go back and see it one more time when not in a rush (and possibly more times later – I usually try to visit each new exhibit several times). My original plan to do it on January 3 didn’t work, so my next opportunity was this Thursday, when the Art Institute is open until 8 PM. I still had to visit my mom on that day, so I planned to be there for no more than 1.5 hours, and maybe come one more time later.
When I entered the hallway which led to the exhibit, I saw a sign “Free event today,” but since I had never seen any evening free events in the Art Institute (just fancy receptions sometimes), I thought that this sign was left there since midday. But to my surprise, when I walked into the exhibit hall, I heard a conversation which sounded exremely interesting, and I hurried up to join it.
It turned out that there were two docents conversing with the group of visitors. I can’t even call it a tour, because it was very informal, and both docents were passing the ball of the conversation to each other, happily including the visitors, and turning their questions into the prompts to tell more. It was a million times better than any lecture!
Goff was an artist, an architect and a composer, and he didn’t want to follow conventional way in anything he did, including the choice of materials.
An additional pleasant surprize was that the Art Institute started to keep the Member’s Lounge open during evening hours! It was never the case, and I always regretted that when I come on Thursdays, there is no place to sit and have a cup of coffee. Now, I can even make it a dinner!
While I was sitting there, the hell broke loose outside, and I had an exceptionally interesting evening commute, but that’s a separate story 🙂
Hettie's Reflections 