Finally: Menil Collection and Rothko Chapel

I finally made it out to Rothko Chapel. A friend from work who is new to Houston enthusiastically agreed to check this out with me, so off we went. The weather was gorgeous outside and there were people sprawled out on the green lots around the museum buildings.

First: Rothko Chapel.

The building sort of looks like a bomb shelter from the outside. It is tiny for a museum. And of course, there is The Broken Obelisk in a rectangular reflecting pool outside the building. Heading into dark the chapel, I pushed the glass doors, turned around, and saw this:

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Um.
The black cushions are seats for people to sit closer to the art and think. There were books for spiritual reading on the benches outside the exhibit space.

We walked over to the Menil Collection couple of steps away. I didn't know this was an entire museum.  They had galleries of ancient artifacts: pieces with wood or human hair stayed preserved for hundreds of years!

This was my favorite piece: 6-30 by David Novros. While looking for pictures, I came upon this article: the piece that I saw is actually a replica of the decaying original.

The special exhibit of Richard Serra Drawings was interesting. Many of his drawings used paintstick, which I learned is thick and sticky almost like crayons. Some of his paintings that looked similar had wildly different titles.

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A note about abstract art: it gives you nothing to think about. What I think when I am looking at these pieces: This is too much. Or maybe this isn't anything. Am I not feeling enough? Am I just not getting something? Wait, did so-and-so text me back? And my thoughts wander off to whatever has been lurking in my mind. Maybe this nothing isn't the absence of something, but the presence of this thing called nothing.

But I do love surrealism. ("Is that gin bottle part of the exhibit? What about that chair?") Like when we used to drive on I-275 over the ocean to the Dali Museum in St. Pete. The seven mile stretch over the ocean with turquoise water on both sides was part of the experience too.