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A Visit to the Kröller-MüllerDepartment: Contemporary Art | By Sarah Green | 2 Comments »

JUL

192011

On the last day of my two-month experiment in Dutch living, I squeezed in a visit to the vaunted Kröller-Müller Museum and Sculpture Garden near Otterlo, the Netherlands. It had always been on my to-see listbecause of Claes Oldenburg’s Trowel I (1971-76)—one of his earliest large-scale projects—but I was alsocurious to think about the sculpture garden in relation to our very own 100 Acres.

The Kröller-Müller is located on about 60 acres, set within De Hoge Veluwe National Park, and visitors caneither park their cars nearby and take a brief walk to the museum, or leave their cars in several locationsalong the park border and pick up a free bike to cycle to the museum. Taking the latter option, I started tothink about the art-viewing pilgrimage—whether it’s climbing the steps of a neoclassical art temple, ridingin a van across the New Mexico countryside to reach The Lightning Field, or wending your way through theIMA’s formal gardens and crossing the canal into 100 Acres. Before the art viewing, there is the preparingfor the art viewing. Not a walk for the sake of a walk, but a palate cleanser in anticipation of a specific,intentional sensory experience.

Along this same vein, I recently enjoyed encountering several empty galleries at the Stedelijk Museum inAmsterdam. As part of its temporary program during the construction of its new wing, the Stedelijk hasreopened its renovated original building with a changing installation of works from their permanentcollection. Interspersed between galleries that for the most part contain single artworks, are unlit vacantspaces that are at first curious, and, upon further consideration, revelatory. These spaces were designed inpart as a creative solution to the fact that the museum is still under construction—insufficient climatecontrol, the need for light blocks for new media works—but they also provide a fascinating pause betweenartworks: a breath in the often-overwhelming bam-bam-bam of artworks presented in quick succession.The rooms draw your attention to the building itself—its architecture, its history, its key role in the framingof each work on display.

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Dan Graham, "Two Adjacent Pavilions," first version 1978, second version 2001.

Most important about the darkened rooms is that they do a fine job of affirming one’s place in theworld/city/building/room, urging you to consider your presence as a body in space (phenomenology, if youwill). Also very successful at accomplishing this is Dan Graham’s Two Adjacent Pavilions (first version1978, second version 2001), which is sited near the entrance of the Kröller-Müller Museum. Made of glassand steel, Two Adjacent Pavilions is part architecture, part sculpture, and its reflective surfaces frame andmirror the lush grounds, the more traditional sculpture nearby (Mark Di Suvero’s K-piece, 1972), and alsoyour own encounter with the structure. Entering the glass cubes (the doors were propped open), I wasimmediately hurtled into an unstable ground between experiencing the work and being the work. Thesubject/object relationship was upended marvelously, and I was made acutely aware of my own presence,the proximity of others, and Graham’s expert insistence upon his art’s integration with its context. His art isthe context.

I’ll commit a crime here and skip over the contents of the actual museum (except to note that a gallery ofearly Piet Mondrians is one of the most impressive displays of Modern painting I’ve ever had the pleasureof viewing, to say nothing of their collection of Van Goghs) and move directly to the sculpture garden.Opened in 1961, the sculpture garden was designed to capitalize on the museum’s stunning naturalsurroundings, originally housing sculptures by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth in formally groomedoutdoor galleries and an open-air pavilion by Gerrit Rietveld that was added in 1964. As years passed, thesculpture garden expanded beyond the bounds of the original plans and leaked into the wooded areassurrounding it.

Jean Dubuffet, "Jardin d'email,"1974.

In 1974, the Kröller-Müller added the striking and unmissable Jardin d’émail by Jean Dubuffet. (No,Dubuffet was not a savant who predicted the terminology of the coming technological revolution: émailmeans enamel in French.) Those who have seen the IMA’s Dubuffet painting from 1964, Courre Merlan, orhis large-scale sculpture Monument with Standing Beast outside of the Thompson Center in Chicago, willrecognize the black-and-white outlined forms of the artist’s signature art brut style. Quite the opposite ofDan Graham’s glass pavilions, Dubuffet’s bright-white landscape contrasts sharply with its environment.The “enamel garden,” made of concrete and polyurethane painted with epoxy, sprung from the artist’simagination in the form of a model he created in his studio in 1968, before its final destination was known.This garden-within-a-garden struck me at first as a bizarro mash-up of Alfredo Jaar’s Park of the Laments(you enter from underneath and climb stairs into its center), and Atelier van Lieshout’s Funky Bones (thematerial, the color, the stylized forms). Traversing Dubuffet’s landscape, I felt as if my fellow garden-goersand I had swallowed an “eat me” pill and emerged on planet Dubuffet, free to cavort and recline within oneof his famed Hourloupe paintings. The anti-nature of this garden, surrounded by a ring of trees, remindedme once more that successful outdoor art need not be made of rocks or blend subtly with its environmentto engender a fruitful consideration of the relationship between the self and the natural world.

Filed under: Art, Art and Nature Park, Contemporary, IMA Staff, Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 at 8:53 am and is filed under Art, Art and Nature Park,Contemporary, IMA Staff, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Bothcomments and pings are currently closed.

Diana Says:

October 10th, 2011 at 11:32 pmYour experience with Dan Graham’s piece reminded me of how I feltwhile walking through Ken Lum’s Mirror Maze. It’s a disorientingexperience in which I felt kind of afraid of taking another step, and atcertain moments even forgot which limbs were actually mine andwhich were just reflections. It’s not a work at which you can stop,reflect on for five seconds, and move on. You are forced toexperience it.

Jim Says:

January 8th, 2012 at 8:53 amSuch a great article it was which those who have seen the IMA’sDubuffet painting or his large-scale sculpture Monument withStanding Beast outside of the Thompson Center in Chicago, willrecognize the black-and-white outlined forms of the artist’s signatureart brut style.In which quite the opposite of Dan Graham’s glasspavilions, Dubuffet’s bright-white landscape contrasts sharply withits environment.Thanks for sharing this article.

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