I Won't Admit I'm Wrong, but "They" Might be Right

The other night, I was running between meetings, and zipped over to Oak, along the Nelson. Normally, I cruise down Rockhill, and roll my eyes at the brightly-lit Butler buildings, astounded at the gutsy sales job that convinced the Trustees of that august institution to disrupt the sight lines and stateliness of the property that history had bestowed, until they took it away from us.

But, Monday night, I swung over to Oak on my way south, and, even though I was running late for my meeting, what I saw made me stop. More than that, it made me circle the block, do a U-turn on Oak (middle-aged white men in sedans can get away with all kinds of traffic maneuvers denied to the less-privileged). I had seen the Standing Figures (Thirty), by Magdalena Abakanowicz, silhouetted against the glowing buildings, and it was breathtaking. I had also seen one of the shuttlecocks, by Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen.

Wow. Simply wow.

These are interesting, perhaps even arresting, sculptures by day. This blogger does a fine job of capturing these sculptures in their daytime lives.

Night-time redefines them entirely. The silhouette effect from Oak transforms them into something wildly different. These are terrible photos that I tried to take - but it doesn't capture the essence at all. When I got out of my car and tried to position myself between the sculptures and the Butler buildings, a security light activated and altered the effect radically - kind of turned it inside out.

I was late for my meeting, but it was worth it. I saw art I already liked, but I saw it in a literally new light.