Point of Exquisite Suspension: Another "Watching Gallery Watchers" Post


Art Institute of Chicago, Summer 2010. Photo © O. Douglas Jennings. All rights reserved.

I love watching people watching art.

They come to the gallery space with a desire to connect; to connect with the past; to connect with the creative mind of the creator of art they admire.

Each person responds in their own way to the fruits of artistic labor lining the walls or on pedestals throughout the museum.

To each soul, in each mind, the images create respective unique stories.

In the gallery of American Art Works (Gallery 262) where I snapped the photo above, there is a small crowd around the painting "Night Hawks" by Edward Hopper. The picture records a glimpse of the connection several people are having with Hopper's masterpiece.

"Night Hawks" and its admirers was my focus when I took the picture. But I didn't notice, until recently, another gallery watcher connection taking place: on the lower right side of the photo, there is shown a young patron with a less-than-rapturous expression while looking at something off-panel.

I know that gallery and, without checking, I realized what caused the little girl's reaction. I hope it did not cause any bad dreams. I found another of my photos from that same gallery (below) that reveals the painting that hangs in the corner where the child's gaze rests.

It is the famous painting by Alvin Albright depicting the depraved Dorian Gray whose debauchery-caused disfigurement is magically confined to the uncanny canvas.

The painting was featured in the Oscar-winning 1945 movie The Picture of Dorian Gray. Looking like he could be a cast member on the set of The Walking Dead, the painting's subject is quite horrific.

I wonder how long that image lingered in the mind of the young gallery watcher.

Point of Exquisite Suspension

29 November 2015

Another "Watching Gallery Watchers" Post

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