[February 07, 2010] Open-minded art: New MOCAD exhibit a beguiling mix of whimsy, philosophy Tweet Feb 07, 2010 (Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Lighten up, folks! the new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit seems to say. Art isn't about the answers, it's about the questions. It's about playing along with the artists, having fun, stepping out of your comfort zone and opening yourself up to images and ideas. Stop worrying so much about what it all means and go with how it makes you feel. Organized by curator Anthony Huberman of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the show sprawls into every corner of the museum and features about 20 works, mostly large-scale installations, by an international cast of artists. The prosaic title -- "For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn't there" -- descends from a famous description of mathematicians (often dubiously attributed to Darwin) and it suggests a kinship between artists and scientists: Both are explorers working in the dark. Lots of the works wrap metaphysical, existential and philosophical musings into goofy riffs. An hour-long video of Peter Fischli and David Weiss finds the Swiss artists romping through the lovely countryside, debating the meaning of life while dressed as a panda bear and a rat. Rachel Harrison's beguiling series of 58 photographs of faces, busts and mannequins, from Barbie and Abe Lincoln to stuffed animal heads and sculptures from antiquity, meditates on evolution. Some 2,000 heavily marked works on paper by Matt Mullican transform an entire gallery into a massive, nervous bulletin board. Sometimes, the work dares you to call b.s. -- Belgian Eric Duyckaerts spins out a fog of highfalutin absurdities in a video monologue. And sometimes old-fashioned beauty stops you in your tracks: German Hans-Peter Feldmann's 34 portraits of strawberries, a full pound, presents each berry as a biological and physical marvel, pregnant with feeling yet elusive of meaning -- each a work of art. Contact MARK STRYKER: 313-222-6459 or [email protected] To see more of the Detroit Free Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.freep.com Copyright (c) 2010, Detroit Free Press Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]