On joining a museum

Elaine and I had never considered a membership in the Art Institute of Chicago. We live at a great distance, and we visit just a few times a year. But as a helpful fellow at the ticket counter pointed out yesterday, just two visits a year would recoup the cost. A membership for one gets us admission for two, along with a magazine, a 10% discount on purchases, safe passage to the Member Lounge (with free coffee and tea), and, yes, a totebag. We have promised not to fight over the totebag.

There are some great things at the AIC now. Among them: an enormous Picasso exhibition, an exhibition of Chicago immigrant and migrant experience in art (with a woodcut by Elaine’s great-uncle Aaron Bohrod), Irving Penn’s chewing-gum-on-pavement photographs, and work inspired by or made in collaboration with poets (Frank O’Hara and Larry Rivers FTW). And the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art is back.


[Kylix (Wine Cup). Greek, Athens. Attributed to the Workshop of Nikosthenes. 530/520 B.C. Terracotta, decorated in the black-figure technique. Anonymous loan.]


[Pablo Picasso, White Owl on Red Ground. Vallauris, March 25, 1957. Red earthenware clay, decoration in engobes, knife engraved. Private collection.]

An unexpected benefit of membership: running into a old friend and colleague—in the Member Lounge.

Perhaps you too should join a museum.

A related post
Word of the day: apotropaic

[Descriptions verbatim from the AIC information cards.]