I've been to a lot of museums since covid "ended". It's interesting to see how they've all spent the two-year timeskip adapting and updating their layouts to accommodate for the wants and needs of the 2020s, fighting to stay relevant in a world where you can type "Cezanne" into your phone and have a gallery in your hand within seconds. Regardless of whether you visit a portrait gallery or a modern art space, there seems to be a universal focus on "Instagrammable" moments: extending art beyond the frame and allowing it to occupy enough physical space for a cool selfie or 15-second clip that you can cryptically share with the internet to increase your various clout scores. I'm not opposed to the idea, really - museums have to evolve or die, and I've seen creative takes on Van Gogh and Picasso pieces that are probably helping people think about those artists in ways they can relate to and understand in the present. But it is very funny that the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art has an "Instagram usher" whose sole job is to stop people turning Basquiat light shows into their own personal photo studio, perhaps belying the fact that some people aren't necessarily there to look at anything but themselves.
My favourite of these new installations is probably FRIDA KAHLO: The life of an icon at the Centre d'Arts Digitals. (Funny that every clip of the exhibition has someone taking photos with their phone, right?) It's essentially just a massive warehouse full of projectors and props, but it serves as a fusion reactor for a number of digital artforms, combining huge images, CGI, music, soundscapes and physical space to tell the life story of Frida Kahlo and her work in a more immediately relatable way than going up to description plates next to a glass-protected painting in a big old hall and "hmmmmm"ing to yourself about dates and times and names; by walking down halls and seeing light-life form and respond to your movement, you get a chance to walk in step with the artist in a whole new way.
The problem with these installations, of course, is that you need to be in the one particular spot on the planet where they're happening in order for them to work. You can't study them from the comfort of your home as you could a photograph of a painting or sculpture or video. KID A MNESIA EXHIBITION, an installation similar to Frida's, was meant to happen in London last year - but it had to be called off due to the continuing complications of covid. The creative solution to that problem was for Radiohead to partner up with Epic Games and recreate the installation as a "video game" you could download from the same place you get Fortnite and Rocket League - perhaps not a museum space your parents would visit, but regardless I think it's fair to say this digital alternative was a success, a new kind of experience that people would like to feel more of.
Cuccchi is another such experience, and it's interesting in so far as it's basically the same thing as KID A but for a physical space that has never existed. Step through Enzo Cucchi's art in a new kind of "high-fidelity", a whirlwind gallery that makes the paint move on your behalf and infers meaning through smart music cues. ("Why aren't you painting? To me, this scene is beyond belief!") Unsurprised to see VGV make a personal cameo here - it's fair to say a lot of this exhibition takes inspiration from paintings like The Starry Night and Wheat Field with Cypresses, to the point where I felt like Marty Scorsese in those plains of wheat. Borders on trascendent, but there were a few moments where I found myself bumping up against invisible walls that broke my flow - ever had that happen at a museum? The inclusion of annoying little ghosts and skulls who can damage you was hardly welcome, either - imagine you went to the Picasso Museum and there were dudes chasing you around with pointy sticks while you were trying to look at the paintings, a dream and someone turned it into a nightmare! The National Portrait Gallery on "Ultra-Violence" difficulty?! No thank you! Although there's a novelty to visiting the world's first museum with a Hard Mode, I recommend playing this on the setting where you can't take damage.
My favourite of these new installations is probably FRIDA KAHLO: The life of an icon at the Centre d'Arts Digitals. (Funny that every clip of the exhibition has someone taking photos with their phone, right?) It's essentially just a massive warehouse full of projectors and props, but it serves as a fusion reactor for a number of digital artforms, combining huge images, CGI, music, soundscapes and physical space to tell the life story of Frida Kahlo and her work in a more immediately relatable way than going up to description plates next to a glass-protected painting in a big old hall and "hmmmmm"ing to yourself about dates and times and names; by walking down halls and seeing light-life form and respond to your movement, you get a chance to walk in step with the artist in a whole new way.
The problem with these installations, of course, is that you need to be in the one particular spot on the planet where they're happening in order for them to work. You can't study them from the comfort of your home as you could a photograph of a painting or sculpture or video. KID A MNESIA EXHIBITION, an installation similar to Frida's, was meant to happen in London last year - but it had to be called off due to the continuing complications of covid. The creative solution to that problem was for Radiohead to partner up with Epic Games and recreate the installation as a "video game" you could download from the same place you get Fortnite and Rocket League - perhaps not a museum space your parents would visit, but regardless I think it's fair to say this digital alternative was a success, a new kind of experience that people would like to feel more of.
Cuccchi is another such experience, and it's interesting in so far as it's basically the same thing as KID A but for a physical space that has never existed. Step through Enzo Cucchi's art in a new kind of "high-fidelity", a whirlwind gallery that makes the paint move on your behalf and infers meaning through smart music cues. ("Why aren't you painting? To me, this scene is beyond belief!") Unsurprised to see VGV make a personal cameo here - it's fair to say a lot of this exhibition takes inspiration from paintings like The Starry Night and Wheat Field with Cypresses, to the point where I felt like Marty Scorsese in those plains of wheat. Borders on trascendent, but there were a few moments where I found myself bumping up against invisible walls that broke my flow - ever had that happen at a museum? The inclusion of annoying little ghosts and skulls who can damage you was hardly welcome, either - imagine you went to the Picasso Museum and there were dudes chasing you around with pointy sticks while you were trying to look at the paintings, a dream and someone turned it into a nightmare! The National Portrait Gallery on "Ultra-Violence" difficulty?! No thank you! Although there's a novelty to visiting the world's first museum with a Hard Mode, I recommend playing this on the setting where you can't take damage.