Isn’t Art WNDR-ful

BY SETH HAWKINS

In a world that moves at the speed of quantum computing, filled with seemingly endless digital distractions, an afternoon at the art museum may feel like the perfect reprieve: Old Master paintings and silenced phones. Totally kidding! You are not unplugging that easily, and this is not your great-aunt’s museum we are talking about here.

The current trendy art experiences popping up around the US are immersive, experiential exhibitions. Pushed forward largely through the digital vein, whether it be VR, interactive video or the kitschy new advent of text-prompted AI images. These interactive art exhibitions are all the rage.

Once again, my art triggers are flashing. Alarms are ringing in my head, and my intrinsic need to question motives seems to always come into play. Were these exhibitions brought into existence to further art or commerce? What existed in vintage arcades, blacklight dorm rooms and the underground raves of my youth now fills museums which charge around $40 a ticket. Am I just being a selfrighteous critic like the old man that hates rap music (window to my soul—I grew up on Tupac, Snoop and The Beatles.)

All my old-man feelings aside— kids these days need constant stimulation and have microscopic attention spans combined with inflated hubris. It seems that now may be the perfect time in the art world for a more viewer -centric museum, especially one with the tag line “We are all artists.” WNDR Museum (pronounced Wonder Museum) is one of the leaders in this new art vein. Originating as a 2018 pop-up exhibition in Chicago showing a large Kusama installation, WNDR now has permanent locations in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle and a fourth opening in Boston.

WNDR is what we may call a most enjoyable spectacle—expanding like a trendy fast-food chain—each with its own Kusama. The rest of the museum is filled with a combination of experiential physical art, videos, food and even a classic Zoltar machine (á la the old movie Big) that predicts your future. My favorite artwork was an interactive digital hallway that moved and reacted like a wild oil slick as the viewer moved through the corridor. I should note that it was created by WNDR Studios. Yes, the museum also has a team that makes “art” to adorn the museum. How do we feel about a museum creating its own art? (Mr. Brainwash is currently doing it in Beverly Hills, but let’s call him an outlier or fringe case.)

In the end, it is simple: The conversation comes down to art as entertainment vs. fine art. As we consider the entertainment value this type of experience provides, where does that ticket money go? One more Kusama in the collection? At least the billionaires that opened their own museums in LA let people in for free (partly). To be clear, I had fun at the WNDR Museum, but it was not because I was seeing art masterpieces. Whether or not a cash grab, it doesn’t mean WNDR isn’t a fun place to take a date—they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Poems

Apple

Every day an anxious man appears in my apple and offers me a Magritte.

Jackson Pollock

Sometimes the Americans form a circle around something awful that has happened. Sometimes it is a painting.

The Tao

It’s easy to have no path and no plans, but it isn’t very easy to have no thoughts, and it’ll never work out with thoughts.

—WILLIAM MINOR

Unrealized

Here, also, in this gilded void of stale sadness, things get murky.

Perpetuating frustrations, exaggerations and fabrications. Laying a false trail across the visceral ether, where ennui is a luxury. A lone sentinel, constantly on guard against my lower self, and constantly straying from my watch. So many twilights, so few dawns. So many ways of dying, so few of being born. So much far that once was near. And when it was there, I didn’t care.

—JOHN TOTTENHAM

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