From my afternoon at MIA with Klecko. Photo by Mark C. Taylor
Could you stare at a single painting for 100 hours? That's the challenge that the poet and writer Klecko set out for himself in his most recent book. Released in June, and titled Exhausting Jesus at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the book chronicles Klecko's journey as he examines the painting Christus Consolator, from 1851 by the Dutch artist Ary Scheffer. Klecko divided his 100 hours into one-hour viewing segments, and throughout the book we see how Klecko approaches the painting, and the community that coalesces around him as his mission gets more attention.
Klecko writes that he has two jobs as a poet: "Observe and Love, these are the only things you need to do if you want to be a successful poet. In my world, Observe and Love is more than a mantra, it's a lifestyle." (p.193) These two words, observe and love, play a large role in the book. And honestly, they should play a large role in every artist's practice. Simply put, that is what we all should strive to do: observe and love.
During hour number 17, Klecko tells us one of his goals for the project: "What I'd like to accomplish is to remind you that if you invest 100 hours, or even a fraction of that, staring and contemplating on a single object, it just might change your life. It's changed mine." (p.47)
One of my favorite quotes from the book is this one: "As my thoughts twisted like a kaleidoscope, I realized that graveyards and art galleries may be the only places that held abject beauty and silence in perfect balance." (p.52) As someone who also finds solace and beauty in those places, I strongly agree. Or to borrow Klecko's phrase, "I didn't disagree."
Klecko also describes impactful moments he's had at other art museums. You'll discover his love for Edward Hopper, and you'll want to Google all of the paintings Klecko mentions in the book. One of my favorite tidbits is his story about seeing Monet's lily pads at the Met in New York City. A woman came up to him and struck up a conversation about how wonderful it would be to see Monet's gardens in France.
"I told her I would prefer to stay in New York with the painting, because if you visited the beautiful gardens in France, people would strike up conversations, and that would destroy the moment." (p.167)
But don't read too much into that one interaction; it's usually Klecko who is striking up conversations with his fellow gallery occupants, and these are always entertaining. Klecko has the rare ability to strike up a conversation with anyone about pretty much anything.
Another quote I really liked was this one: "No amount of time will ever suffice when you are in the presence of beauty." (p.74) Well said, which at least partly explains why I'm so slow at art museums.
Exhausting Jesus is mainly written in prose, but there are poems interspersed throughout. One of my favorite poems ends with these lines:
"In a crazy world we still have art, and you know what
That might be the difference
That might be what saves us" (p.148) Amen.
Christus Consolator is a fascinating painting, as it contains 15 people, plus one Jesus. There's a lot going on in the painting, so it's a good candidate for long viewing. The painting has a fascinating story. Scheffer painted several versions of this painting, and it was big hit in the art world of the 1850's. The painting in MIA's collection came to the museum in a roundabout way. The painting was discovered in a janitor's closet in a church in Dassel, Minnesota, a small town about 50 miles west of Minneapolis. When the church realized the value of the painting, and how expensive it would be to conserve and care for it, they donated it to MIA.
I'll confess, I've probably bypassed Christus Consolator numerous times in Gallery 357. Religious-themed paintings are not my personal favorite, although the art history classes I took in college helped deepen my knowledge of the Bible, since so many paintings were illustrating scenes from the Bible. I can appreciate these paintings, but I'm more naturally drawn to other subjects, like landscapes or portraits. Gallery 357 houses some of my favorite artworks from the permanent collection at MIA, like the incredible Veiled Lady sculpture by Raffaele Monti, the slightly creepy Portrait of Clementine by Henri Lehmann, and the somewhat enigmatic Temptation by William-Adolphe Bouguereau and On the Thames, a Heron by James Tissot. I liked Temptation so much that I had a poster of it on my wall at college. There are about a billion artists who have painted the female form, but for my money Bouguereau is one of the artists who really succeeded at presenting the beauty of women.
Klecko's 100 hours take him through all seasons, and all types of weather. He writes about how the weather affects people's behavior. "In that silence I have watched, thought and deduced that the weather outside impacts how people are going to communicate inside the Institute...it's surprised me that people in the gallery are far less social in the summer...Looking back, it seems to me that the majority of quality conversations have taken place with people in parkas." (p.216) Maybe there's a certain solidarity among people when the weather is bad—we're getting through this together. And in Minnesota, there's no shortage of bad weather. There's a coffee shop I go to a lot to write, and I've learned that what I think about how the weather and attendance will correlate is usually the opposite. If it's crummy weather outside, I think "Oh, it'll be packed today with people getting out of the weather," and then there's no one there. And when it's beautiful weather and I think people will be outside enjoying it, the coffee shop is packed. Go figure.
This past Sunday, I went to MIA to check out Christus Consolator in person, and to spend some time with Klecko, who has embarked on a new 100-hour project at MIA. We looked at a John Singer Sargent painting of donkeys, we talked about F. Scott Fitzgerald, we looked at Richard Avedon's gorgeous and haunting 1957 portrait of Marilyn Monroe, and we met a new friend who asked if she could eavesdrop on our conversation, and who promptly bought two copies of Exhausting Jesus.
Exhausting Jesus at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is a wonderful book, one that reminds us of the power of art and what can happen when we look deeply and long at art, in communion with other people.
