Most art museums have permanent displays, paintings and sculptures and murals and etchings you can visit again and again, and also a section dedicated to whatever artist they’re currently spotlighting. The Frye Museum, where I visited yesterday, is so small that they have no permanent displays. I didn’t know that, going in.

A bedroom-size section toward the front featured a small selection of pieces by Jeremy Shaw. These were interesting photographs, but displayed under multi-angled plexiglass that allowed you to see only a portion of any work. You’d then tilt your head to see another portion of the photo.

This was on purpose, for artistic effect, but for me the effect was frustration. It felt like they were hiding the photos.

In a darkened room, they showed a short film by Shaw, called Liminals (2017). It’s about a weird dance class, with hippies of all colors twirling around by themselves but in a group, in an otherwise empty warehouse. The dancing hippies were shouting and breathing heavy and making ecstatic faces, while a drum played, and a British narrator was mostly quiet but occasionally said pompous stuff.

When the drumming stopped, the dancing stopped, and the camera zoomed in on one guy who looked like Jesus, as he made post-coital faces and groans indicating his extreme pleasure with the dance he’d just performed.

This film was, by far, my favorite part of the museum visit.

My second favorite part was a series of windows along one wall, looking over a pond outside. It wasn’t an art display, though, just part of the building’s architecture.

The rest of the building was entirely dedicated to the works of Romare Bearden (1911-1988), an abstract artist I’d never heard of. None of his art spoke to me, even abstractly.

About a hundred of his works were on display — a few rooms of collages, and several rooms of what I’d call ‘blotch art’. Having seen thousands of collages during my zine era, most of which seemed only intended to take up space, I was skeptical at first. Surely, though, collages created by a professional artist would be far beyond the zine-level stuff I’d seen.

Surprisingly, no.

As for the blotches, well, it’s a museum so it must be art, but most of the pieces looked like what you might see if you left a blank canvas outside for a year.

I walked through all of this, pausing several times not because something intrigued me but because I wanted something to intrigue me.

And then I’d seen the whole museum, and walked back to the bus stop. My visit had taken 55 minutes, including the film and a few minutes in the gift shop. It was the first time I’ve been to any art museum and not seen at least a dozen works I wanted to spend more time with.

I’m not slamming the Frye, though. The staff was kind, the facility is nice, the admission is free, and I’ll be back. Had a lovely time.

It was a very short time, but that was my fault. I should’ve checked the museum’s calendar, because they said up front, it’s all about Bearden and his abstract art. That just wasn’t my thing.

So, it’s a no for this particular exhibit at the Frye, but very much yes to the Frye some other time.

9/16/2022
Original publication

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