ALWAYS CMA

Columbus Museum of Art partnered with Columbus-based artist, Melissa Vogley Woods, to create a new installation for the Museum, titled Always CMA. Always CMA is a photo interactive artwork, fabricated from engineering grade high-intensity reflective vinyl. It stretches along the glass canopy above the pathway to the entrance of the Columbus Museum of Art, welcoming visitors.

Vogley Woods partnered with curator Anna Lee to choose a work from the Museum’s collection that had been painted just as the Spanish flu was ending, in 1919. Louis Bouché’s Still Life with Flowers became the inspiration. Nearly a century later, in the midst of a different global pandemic, Vogley Woods re-envisioned Bouché’s painting as a radiant reminder that we have collectively struggled through moments like this before, and we will emerge stronger.

Throughout the day, the piece creates a dynamic web of shadows that move and stretch like a sundial. However, visitors also are encouraged to visit the piece at night, when they can co-create the most luminescent version of the artwork. In the dark, the pattern must be “activated” by the viewer through the use of cell phone flash photography, or cell phone flashlight. Once the light source hits the work, it becomes incandescent, shining back at the viewer from their particular vantage point.

Each digital image of the work is distinct, and viewers can share their unique versions of the work by using the hashtag #alwayscma. QR codes on the work’s signage will connect visitors to interactive elements and to additional background information about this project.

Louis Bouché American, 1896–1969 Still Life with Flowers 1919 Oil on canvas Gift of Ferdinand Howald 1931.111