I was eager to go again October 5, after member previews and opening weekend.
As soon as I got there at 10:15, I darted past everyone in the first 2 rooms, was surprised that there were 2 people in photobuddha and found no one in Passion, I don't know, and Umber. I literally made a beeline for the final sanctum. Ever since first seeing it, I've only wanted to go back and be there alone. Greedy. One person, a store employee put her shoes on and crossed the threshold, giving me the advice that it's really comfortable to be there, with no shoes.
I spent 6 minutes alone in the bardo, walking, looking, sitting, feeling, thinking, wondering, being. It was ... I don't know what it was. A combination of curiosity, peacefulness, wonder - maybe...this is ... awe? Singularity, just being.
I wanted that microcosm to myself so I could soak it in. I don't know what it is.Maybe only the curators know. But whatever, I wanted all of it, to myself. And it's not like I wanted all of me to myself. But being there, with it, with whatever energy is generated and/or exists and/or may or may not be swirling already and accumulating. Between. Everything there and between.
I sat down and noticed the feel of the bench under my butt. The pillow-ness. And the ridges of the accordion folds of the wall behind me, in its 270 degree enclosed shape. And I ran my hand across the ridges so it made this soft sound. And the light on the one piece of art in the room, suspended above the round table.
The dark and the light.
I had about forty minutes to practically run through RM’s exhibition after he made brief remarks at the opening reception. It was just enough time to see it but not to really take it in. Still, I left deeply moved.
Maybe part of that is because I’ve spent the better part of this year working on Sturdy Bridge, following artists, ideas, colors, relationships, and questions that now suddenly existed together in physical space. There were touchpoints everywhere, catching my attention.
The Kim Whanki painting that opens the exhibition extended a warm, familiar welcome because I've seen it often in different contexts. It's stayed with me, differently, because of the story around it that I hadn't know before.
So did blue - as sky, water, emotion. Blue as something that keeps appearing, carrying meaning.
And then umber.
That moved me even more.
A few weekends earlier, I had spent two hours at SF public library, facilitating an exploration of ultramarine and burnt umber watercolor with a room full of strangers-turned-new-friends through the work of Yun Hyong-keun. We mixed them. Painted with them. Watched what happened when one moved toward the other. And everyone seemed to find something different. Some people found quiet or weight. Others found movement or landscape or emotion, and some simply played. No one was asked to arrive at the same...anything. That was part of what I loved about it.
So walking into the exhibition and finding this visual and metaphorical language there, with its pervasive vulnerability, scale, generosity and audacity, felt strangely intimate, powerful and raw. By design.
Blue and umber. Sky and earth. Personal and universal.
The colors effectively bookend the exhibition, but they also seem to do something more than frame it.
They ground it and allow it to rise.
Umber holds weight, material, earth. Blue opens outward into water, air, distance, sky. Between them is everything else: people, homes, passions, relationships, objects, artists, questions. After spending time with Yun's colors, they felt like a vocabulary I had already begun learning and it was being spoken across an entire exhibition. As I stood in the first of the umber rooms, I nearly started crying, I was actually so overwhelmed, moved.
After taking a moment, I continued past the rest of the giant totems to the last room, only to respond with a shiver and left with even more wonder.