Heaven on Earth: The Art Institute of Chicago

Part II of my blog about my adventure in Chicago last week focuses on my day at the Art Institute of Chicago:

When I made online reservations from home for the Obama portraits exhibit, I thought the Art Institute of Chicago was an art school, so you can imagine my incredulity when I discovered this most impressivemuseum of art. Now I get why Barack took Michelle there for their first date! I was excited for their portraits and made a beeline to what I thought was the exhibit, a large black stencil “Portraits” on a thick plate-glass gallery entrance. Instead, I walked into the magical world of Bisa Butler’s fabric art, a stunning portrayal of black American life through vibrant colors and textures. I am inserting a few photos. They do not do justice.

I thought it was a lead-up to the Obama paintings but actually they were hanging in a separate wing of the museum. Along the maze to get there, I caught a glimpse of scrumptious Impressionist paintings.  

“I’ll be back!” I thought. 

And there they were.^* I stood among the mask-wearing crowd–trying to remember to social distance again after the few meager months of freedom—admiring the 2 elegant side-by-side portraits.  The president’s oil on canvas stands seven feet high and five feet wide in dimension. (The first lady’s painting is six feet high and five feet wide, oil on linen.)

Barack’s portrait, modern in style, is stunning in its detail. As a painter, I was spellbound at the patience it must have taken for artist Kehide Wiley to paint the expansive background of i-n-d-i-v-i-d-u-a-l leaves. (I’m much more of a van Gogh brushstrokes kind of gal!)

But I was drawn to Michelle. Her dignity. All she had to endure as a black woman in these times. In her eyes, I saw pain and I saw challenge. Her presence evokes resilience. And I started to cry. For everything that is happening in this country. For the permeating racism that I never dreamed was so pervasive. For the hopelessness I feel.  

It took me a bit to recover. Eventually, Mona and I exited and stopped for a break in the expansive atrium. Mona, ever the nurse, urged me to eat something. I was discreetly eating a piece of string cheese when a guard scurried all the way out of the exhibit to scold me. I explained I was diabetic and he skittered away.

Next, the Impressionists and Post-impressionist. The galleries went on and on and on. Glee!

I find I am drawn to bolder colors in my older age and less sentimentality. Cezanne speaks to me more now that when I was younger. I was able to get quite close to paintings to examine brush strokes. The masters—van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Vuillard, Degas. Renoir. I was in heaven. 

Such polarity—from stinging sadness to the sublime. Enjoy:

^* “Last year, after NBC News reported that portraits of the Obamas wouldn’t be unveiled while Trump was in office, Biden joked that having Obama at the White House for such an event was another reason to elect him.”