Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Amost Modern Art


I love this scene for a couple of reasons.  This is a fire door in the old Sprague Electric Company buildings which the designers of MASS MoCA left as is when they designed the museum.  Someone saw this and said, "This is so rich in its painting by happenstance - an old door somewhere that didn't matter, that we need to leave this in the new building design!"  It is surrounded by newly painted white walls which makes it stand out, and at first glance you think you are looking at an abstract expressionist painting!  But you are not, it's just an old door.  The fire extinguisher gives it away!  They have done similar things in another gallery or two where three walls have new white paint and they left one of the old walls as is.  Just brilliant design!

 

5 comments:

Ron said...

I wonder what the original walls looked like?

Anonymous said...

I love that they left this for its own art. Very cool.
Joan

Anonymous said...

Brilliant! Thought I was looking at an abstract painting until I saw the fire extinguisher and read your blog. betsey

ken schwarz said...

I have seen modern works of art far less compelling than this old painted door. The color pallet is absolutely beautiful, in my opinion. I think your photo illustrates a very interesting piece of Modern Art and not Almost Modern Art"! It would not surprise me if the artist left his or her mark somewhere on the door.

Anonymous said...

Squint your eyes and look at it this is one of those marvelous exercises in imagination. I see some trees in the foreground, Evergreens. The distinct margin looks like the edge of a shore. Likely that of a lake or something involving water, and there’s a bird with very large wings about to land on the lake. You can see some of the greenery in the distance, on the far side of the shore.So nice to have such a lovely piece of art hiding in plain sight, wink. Very nice! -laurel