Edwin Himself is Edwin Negado » Tara Donovan at the MCASD Downtown

Tara Donovan at the MCASD Downtown

November 3, 2009

I had the day off today and spent my time over at the MCASD to check out the newly installed Tara Donovan exhibit. The Eternal Ruler left me a museum voucher before he moved to Japan a few months ago but I just now got around to using it. It was midday, and I pretty much had the museum all to myself (I like it that way). Upon entering the show, I was really blown away by Donovan’s appropriations of familiar objects into an artistic experience.

Stacks of plastic cups are turned into a world of organic swells, while layers of paper recreate topographical dioramas of canyons. The large-scale installations definitely create a setting that can only be experienced in person. Sometimes, the atmospheric experience is the medium, at least, this time, for me it was.

This Thursday, MCASD will be hosting their first TNT since their last, earlier this spring. Admission will be charged this time around, but I can assure you that it’ll be worth it. Mark Ramos-Nishita aka Money Mark (also the guy who plays keys on the Beastie Boys’ Ricky’s Theme) will be performing live; and that alone will be awesome. A museum membership will save you money in the long run and will even get you and a friend in for free. Get one. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

The wall instilled with cloud-like forms (shown bellow) was entirely constructed out of straws cut in various lengths. Its pretty deceiving from a distance, since looking at it directly from a horizontal point-of-view creates a brownish cloud around your focus point. I you move parallel to the wall the cloud seems to move along with you. When you get closer, you begin to notice how important each straw is to the composition as a whole. [Did that make any sense?]