The Bloch Gallery of the Nelson-Atkins Gallery, the lighting design in the gallery is very mature.
In the sparsely populated Midwest of the United States, Kansas City is a small city of less than 500,000 people. In this city, probably no one does not know a neoclassical building in the southern suburbs of the city. There are several huge buildings scattered in front of the door. “Badminton,” an installation by modernist artist Oldenburg, is the proud Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
Serious “Conceptual Art”
Since one day in 2007, people driving past the art museum have been surprised to find several translucent “light boxes” on one side of the road, partially covered by grassy slopes and trees above the road. Sheltered, even though the museum was closed in the evening, the boxes continued to flicker, adding a magical warmth to the dry, icy plain landscape during a winter snowstorm.
”Hall has stripped away any attributes of the traditional museum, leaving only silent forms of light, and intense emotion…”
Nelson-Atkins’ new museum is the work of American architect Stephen Holl The proud work, whether it is Vitruvius’ three architectural principles of “sturdiness, practicality and beauty” or the concept of “economical, practical and beautiful”, is not enough to summarize its characteristics. In a sense, it is a kind of Looking at a building that is contrary to its function, its practicality can only be a matter of opinion.
The famous architectural theorist Geoffrey Gipnis moved out of the Baroque painter Caravaggio’s “Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness” to explain Hall’s creative intentions. The painters before the Baroque probably thought that what they painted was “absolutely true”, but artists like Caravaggio began to realize that representation is generally relative, and “theme” is only a temporarily stable category, such as a painting depicting “sacred”. The work of “Light” also expresses darkness.
Anyone who has painted knows that light and darkness cannot be directly expressed. What the artist reproduces is only the dramatic relationship between them, and they can only be expressed in pairs. In the ensemble of light and shadow, far and near, clarity and obscurity, it becomes less clear what absolute “content” is.
The playful badminton he saw when he signed with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1999 has become one of Stephen Hall’s most important sources of inspiration for 10 years. “.
Born into a family of artists, Hall paints something every day to nourish his architectural creations, so he is acutely aware of the natural “phenomenology” between architecture and art. In his opinion, even a very small building can rarely be grasped in its entirety. For “people”, architecture is actually a series of fragmented pieces. The creation of space must ultimately be integrated into people’s perception and action. , and only in this way is meaningful, so architecture is both a physical stacking and a spiritual activity. The “phenomenology” of architecture deduces this, saying that the substantiality pursued by traditional architecture is actually a misunderstanding.
The playful badminton he saw when he signed with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1999 has become one of Stephen Hall’s most important sources of inspiration for 10 years. “. As for the metaphors of “feather” and “stone”, Hall himself explained: “It can be the contrast between the light and shining new pavilion and the solemn and solemn old pavilion, and it is also a new design idea and A contrast of classical architectural approaches.” Under the gentle Midwest skyline, the translucent glass-clad new pavilion looks like a few gift boxes wrapped in plastic multi-sided panels, with no strong structural character, to those who see it One can’t help but wonder what kind of art works are suitable for display in such a building.
Art catalyzes architecture, so how does architecture pay off?
The Nelson Museum of Art is famous for modern art, and it is also one of the most important collections of Chinese art in the United States. However, the new design is not very closely related to the structure of the collection. In the books and articles introducing the architectural concept of the new museum, show There are few pictures of the relationship between the display of works and the gallery space. Compared with other “master architects” with high personalities, Hall is actually low-key. His designs are not really tailor-made for the collection, nor are they like the arrogant Frank Gehry or Daniel Libeskind. The lack of awareness of the “context” has led to it being overwhelming; however, the relatively conservative old gallery system may not have changed much in about 100 years, and the “living” “phenomenological” architecture that emphasizes the integrity of the whole cannot be simply In order to change the higher culture in this box, the problem of inconsistency inside and outside has been ignored.
This discrepancy between intention and reality is the question architects are most afraid of being asked. However, the designer’s intention is not only to make the visitors look good from the outside, or to take care of every aspect of the interior display, but how these “lenses” vaguely lead the future direction of the museum . If looking at the buildings of the new museum from the outside, there is an unfathomable feeling of depth and depth, then they cannot find a very stable spatial structure inside. On the contrary, people often see the steps rising gradually cutting into the long exhibition wall. , the small second floor is hidden into the curved roof that turns and flows… Under the condition that the boundary of the building itself is not cancelled and the air-conditioning system is not completely invalid, these intertwined passages and light passages, from all angles, at least symbolically “run through” “Indoor and outdoor, creating a momentum that pervades the wilderness, opening up the possibility of artworks leading to a wider world.
In terms of architectural theory, Hall’s new exhibition space concept reflects the choice of viewing architecture as an isolated “object” or a “landscape” in which subject and object are integrated. In the connection with the city, the issues of “objects” and “landscapes” correspond to two planning models, one can be called the central pavilion model, which focuses on the external “seeing” in a large and small manner; the other can Summarized as a garden style, the result of the enclosure is a kind of self-examination-style “interior view”, in which the boundaries between the viewer and what is viewed are not clear.
To effectively control the optical magic catalyzed by the lens, lighting and lighting are also the most important part of art space design. Hegel famously said: “Architecture is frozen music.” He juxtaposes music and architecture, perhaps not just for the reputation of the vividness of architecture, he is actually talking about those ostensibly “non-architectural” factors ( Such as music) may be just the proud part of the building, light, color, sound, smell, these have now become an organic part of the exhibition building, so the art museum is a purely emotional building, light but also heavy.
Light. Modern lighting design has become so mature, but the basic experience is still Caravaggio’s dramatic “because there is light”. In order to protect the artworks, most galleries are dark, and the backlight suddenly emerging from one end of the gallery makes people seem to enter the upper realm, that is, the materialization of the “palace”.
color. The gypsum white of the keel exhibition wall is a common skin color in galleries. Some museums from noblewomen—the art galleries are now envious of the simplicity of a maid—can’t make a hole in the oak veneer every time the exhibition is installed? Brushing it clean, then brushing in the clean, it is actually quite expensive to do this often. However, the Halls may still be more envious of some galleries in old Europe, because they can’t afford a plasterer and have to make the white walls a mixed dark color, and the wood paneling is stained with age, maybe this is the ideal of art display environment: take a step back first, then go forward.
Voice. The sound of footsteps in the corridor, the terrazzo, concrete, wax floor, is always bright, clean, pleasant, but uncomfortable. However, the careful but inevitably harsh crunch has become an embarrassing and just right dubbing in the “palace”.
taste. Outdated and wandering in the air, apart from the smell of unearthed cultural relics (mercury compounds) with oil paints, can they really “smell” the “history” of the deceased?
Such a display may sound mysterious, but it poses a real challenge to the space of the museum. The existence of serious “conceptual art” does not depend on exhibitions. Exhibitions merely expose the evolution and practice of ideas into visible and perceptible forms for artists and audiences to communicate with. Such an exhibition space can neither be too “real” nor too “virtual”; it should not only convey the basic situation of viewing works to the audience, but also point to the end, and not say superfluous words for the artist.
The Politics of Eternity by Dustin Yelling. The creator sees light as an integral part of art, witnessing the transformation of the work, embodying the power of light as a medium. Through careful calibration of the lights, finding a way to neutralize the glassy green tint shows the amazing detail of the creation.
Dustin Yellin’s work, inspired by the Chinese Terracotta Warriors.
The Politics of Eternity by Dustin Yelling. The creator sees light as an integral part of art, witnessing the transformation of the work, embodying the power of light as a medium. Through careful calibration of the lights, finding a way to neutralize the glassy green tint shows the amazing detail of the creation.
art and nature
The American poet Wallace Stevenson wrote a poem called “The Anecdote of the Bottle”: “It makes the messy wilderness lined up around the peaks, and then the wilderness springs up to the jar, and the days are all around, no more Desolate…” This poem is famous far and wide, but no one cares what the unseen bottle looks like. A more serious architect just found it online. According to him, the mysterious bottle was not of noble origin, a “special wide-mouth can” of the “Dominion” juice produced in Canada, as readily available as recyclable soda bottles. This ordinary bottle was only fortunate to enter the history of literature because it was placed in the wilderness.
This poem, which sounds a bit “pear flower style”, may just describe an ordinary event, but there is also a hint of mystery in the ordinary. Those who are familiar with Western literature may think of another famous poet Keats’ “Ode to the Greek Vase”. The ancient bottle is a common vessel in the life of the Greeks. It is used not only to pour wine, but also to hold ashes. In Keats’s poem, there is not much doubt about what it is. This famous bottle in the history of art makes People recall the golden hour of the beginning of Western civilization.
Comparing these two poems, comparing ancient Greek bottles and “Yitong brand” juice jars, what we see is the relationship between “art” and “nature”.
British Museum of Natural History.
The art of “capital” is destined to be a kind of artificial structure, even if it originates from nature, it is separated from nature. Those landscape paintings depicting beautiful scenery cannot really be equated with the creation of heaven and earth. The ancient vase is made of clay, but once it is fired and shaped, it is clearly different from the latter. The same is true for their relationship with the natural environment. Once they become a kind of museum culture, they are not suitable for being placed in the vulgar countryside.
In addition to the separation of places, there is also the separation of time, that is, the “ancient” and “contemporary” calculations that we often talk about. This historical alienation and spatial disparity may overlap, creating a “unity”. The uniqueness of the brand “juice” special wide-mouth can. The beginning of the history of human collection means that the ancient and the present are separated, and the ancient Greek bottle has therefore become a gift from time. If it is placed in the wilderness, it will probably become more and more distant.
Whether in Greece or Tennessee, the “architecture” is invisible, but if we regard space as a physical representation of the relationship between objects and subjects, space has emerged on the edge of the bottle and the wilderness, while the ancient The difference between the urn and the new bottle is clearly the aftermath of the storm of modernity.
Since the 19th century, there have been countless natural history museums that try to “shift the sky and shrink the earth” and regard natural creations as an art collection. The London Museum of Natural History designed by Alfred Waterhouse is one of them. one. Although the architect deliberately highlights the theme of “nature” in the Roman style decorative motif, the architectural program itself has nothing to do with the original context of its collection, and the sequence of exhibits presented as “specimen” follows the classical architecture The logic of the linear expansion of the room, the superfluous “natural” in such a solid “artificial” is like playing a house, which is far from the realm of the Tennessee bottle.
The pursuit of “integrity” is shared by many Chinese and foreign architects. The typical strategy is to use “landscape” to build, or even dress up the house as part of the landscape. For example: as far as the “picturesque” English gardens, the various antiquities displayed in Lou Sam, and as close as the Roman art displayed in the Getty Villa.
If the art museum borrows the mirror from the garden, the garden has no clear boundaries between the subject, the object, or the viewer and the exhibits; the garden has no “backstage”, or the distinction between the museum’s warehouse and the main exhibition; the garden transforms the original private experience of the art museum into a A quasi-public space. The famous garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York used to be the backyard of the “Rockefeller’s living room”.
The original design of the talented Brazilian landscape architect Roberto B. Marcos had nothing to do with the city. It was an oasis in the urban desert. Rockefeller Jr., the gold owner of the museum, asked the designer again. Upstairs apartment guests can enjoy this oasis in the jungle of skyscrapers (that building is his own property), but can’t let the passers-by make a profit. The successor, Philip Johnson, understood it. He built a high wall, which blocked the eyes of idlers from the wall. It was like a dojo in a snail shell. Dynamic; this kind of “nature” rolled into the depths of the block, heralding the subsequent development of the entire modern museum building complex, and even brought a ray of life to the airtight New York City. Later, landscape architect Laurie Olin called it a “disaster”, even though another architect, Cesa Perry, erased a significant portion of the outdoor space to fill the building, but a certain In this sense, it can also be said that the garden is still the crux of the modern art museum. In terms of various possibilities of viewing, the distance between the city and the entire museum building has been greatly shortened.
The Meixiu Museum, designed by I.M. Pei, is located in the mountains and forests of Japan, and the designer buried 80% of the building underground. The terrain around the museum is relatively steep. In order to facilitate the arrival of tourists, in the first phase of the art museum, tunnels and roads have been built, and a 120-meter-long suspension bridge is also supported, so that tourists can go directly to the main entrance of the art museum. Everything seems to be just right.
The first-line man-made scenery is vaguely visible in Taoyuan Mountain Tunnel. The surrounding of the building is also an organic part of the museum’s “exhibition process”. The intentional “delay” and the carefully arranged rhythm form a blurred area between space and nature. It’s just that in such “nature”, “art” is no longer visible.