The Weekly Croissant: Crystal Bridges
Being an Art Hoe in Bentonville, AR
Bentonville, AR, the native home and continuing HQ of WalMart, has become a very fancy town, complete with miles of beautiful mountain bike trails and a world-class American Art Museum called Crystal Bridges (all funded by various offshoots of the WalMart dynasty). Driving into this city we couldn’t help but feel that we were nearing District 1 in The Hunger Games.
Nevertheless, we greatly enjoyed our stay in an AirBnB which was equipped with not one, not two, not three, but four different kitchens, and bathrooms the size of my current living room.
We also took the opportunity to check out Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Here are some of the best things I saw:
Blast Furnaces
by Elsie Driggs, 1927
This reminds me of one of my favorite songs
“The Lights from The Chemical Plant” by Robert Ellis
“Cut Piece” by Yoko Ono was a filmed performance of Ono seated passively on stage while members of the audience came up and cut away pieces of her clothing. It was wildly uncomfortable to watch. Highly recommend.
Mark Rothko "No. 21 (Red, Brown, Black and Orange)"T
errible photo of a stunning painting. These type of paintings always seem like “What’s so hard about that?” until you see a true masterpiece. WHEW. The COLORS.
The building itself is a work of art, literal curved bridges over water leading in different directions. But this wall installation was also a stunner, as is Miss Lollies in the background there.
“Number 184T” by Leonardo Drew
Yayoi Kusama “Infinity Mirrored Room – My Heart is Dancing into the Universe,” 2018
This one had a time limit which is probably good because I could have stayed in this room for hours. Based on a psychotic episode that the artist had as a child, Infinity Mirrored Room feels like a fairy tale come to life. You really can’t tell where the room ends and where you are standing within it.
There are many more of these infinity rooms by Kusama it seems!!
That is all for this week, but I hope y’all are squeezing in some good croissants, delicious books, and nice coffee in this chilly weather!
-Rachel