Making Space for Art

Stepping off the metro at L'Enfant Plaza the moving curvature catches your eye before the sound reaches your ears. From two blocks away I was captivated. This was something special.

Late Saturday night (after the Nationals rallied, but still took a beating from the O's) I drug DH to go see Doug Aitken's Song 1 at the Hirshhorn before it closed.  I had seen the work in passing a few times, but I had not yet been able to sit and just watch.

Doug Aitken's Song 1 viewed from Seventh St at the Hirshhorn.

The installation piece envelopes the entire circular exterior of the Smithsonian museum perfectly. The technical is flawless. My inner museum geek simultaneously pondered how hard the installation staff worked on getting the width of the projection just right and the sound levels just so, while taking in the full visual effect of the piece.

This was a happening. Truly. People were casual strewn about the grassy bits and low walls of seventh street. Some in their finest attire, others partaking in full picnics they brought out for the occasion. Seventh Street gave way to slow rolling bicyclists ambling past.

On Jefferson Dr. we perched on the Sculpture Garden wall, dark shadows cloaking the bronze figures several feet below us. The ethereal music of Al Dubin and Harry Warren's "I Only Have Eyes for You" washed over the landscape in a seductive, yet meditative fashion. The layered and shifting loop of sound is by definition repetitive. The same lyrics reworked reached your ears again and again. And yet, the piece never tires.

Fleeting in nature, the installation thrusts both the museum and the Mall into an urgent context that otherwise would pass their evenings quietly and undisturbed by more than ambling tourists trekking between monuments. Yet, the strength of the work is deeper than the novelty of it's limited airing. It literally transforms the concrete 1974 structure from a shrine to modern and contemporary art to a canvas for art. This seems more meaningful than being simply a backdrop for the work. The work and the location become inseparable. Sure you could install it again somewhere else, but it would be a different work, in a different place.

This pushes the boundaries in a way distinct and yet similar to what Quixotic has done in Kansas City with both the Kauffman Center opening and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  Interacting with architecture to make art. But instead of a single performance, there is the opportunity with Song 1 to return again to change your vantage point of the piece.

Creating relevance for the visual arts in a society that is becoming conditioned to consume work quickly and without consideration is an evolving challenge for museums. Developing inspired installations like this are certainly a critical step into bringing new and old audiences to the steps of the museum to be inspired. For people to find out for themselves why art matters.

Walking home from the Mall, I kept turning to catch a glimpse of the piece from across the expanse until it eventually receded and the city noises once again took over.