Hirshhorn Museum : Washington DC has a number of really excellent museums – all world class and most of them completely free. Despite our wish to see all of them, we tend to go to Washington DC primarily when we have guests. And then we take them to the two most visited museums, the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History. These are great museums but now we have been slowly badmouthing these museums to our guests and suggesting that they visit some other museum. Most folks are clever enough to not fall for our trick but my cousin really didn’t care enough about museums and let us lead us into Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Now we entered the museum not knowing anything about anything about contemporary art. Right at the door, we were met with a young docent who was giving a free guided tour of the main exhibit , so we decided to take advantage of it. While waiting for the tour to start we took a stroll in the gardens to look at the various sculptures they have.
The exhibit that was featured were works by Ilya and Emilia kabakov-Russian born American sculpture artists. Our young guide was trying to explain to us the major themes of their work whicn revolved around freedom, hope and the pursuit to escape Communism. The guide aspired to be a teacher because he was good at asking us the right questions to get us to the answer he was looking for. Thanks to his efforts, we appeared to be getting the message. It was all going really well, till we reached one of their final works – a small antenna – which was a miniature representation of one of their larger installations. “What do you see when you look hereâ€, asked the guide.  “An antennaâ€, we chorused. Like all good teachers, he was quick to praise. “Now whats different about this antennaâ€, he continued. This was apparently the question Seejo was waiting for.
This is is all wrong, said Seejo. Antennas are supposed to be parabolic in nature to capture the signal. These
antennas don’t make any sense – they just won’t work. The poor guide was speechless. He was trying to get us to see that underneath the antenna, there were words written that spoke of wide open spaces and loving without boundaries. Seejo brushed those lofty feeling aside – but this is technically wrong he insisted. It was at that point, when I steered Seejo away from the Ilya and Emilia exhibit to some lego faces and colorful paintings. We really understood that well.
Continued…