Art Trekker

It sounds like the title of a Stephen King novel: Where Libraries Go To Die. Libraries are on display at the Speed Museum in Louisville, and at the Tate in London. Both museums have exhibits featuring fully installed libraries. In both cases, the purpose behind the exhibits is much deeper than seeing a library in a museum, but I can't escape the reality: Libraries are now obsolete. They belong in museums. On an endangered species list. Thanks to the Internet and smartphones, libraries are a mere curiosity of a bygone, primitive age. Still, it was a bit jarring walking into a gallery at the Speed and seeing a library: What's next, Museum late fees? We can now find libraries at the local museum. Perhaps located between Mozart's fortepiano and a fangyi wine vessel from ancient China. Libraries are not quite dead but I now know where they'll go to shed their last breath: The museum. Up next: A Blockbuster Video exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute?

A section of the current Taft Museum exhibit,  Winslow Homer to Georgia O'Keeffe: American Paintings from the Phillips Collection  is devoted to city scenes. Edward Hopper is well represented with his dark and brooding images of isolation and despair. Two other city scenes grabbed my attention: Power, 1933, by Edward Bruce New York, Lower Manhattan, 1921, by Stefan Hirsch You can see how much New York grew up in the course of just a decade, looking from one painting to the other. Both paintings portray New York City's skyline in their own time. The buildings in Hirsch's painting look small and stubby compared to the larger skyscrapers depicted in Bruce's work. Viewing these painting made me curious to learn more about 1920's and 1930's skyscraper architecture. Another interesting contrast between the two paintings is the pessimistic bleakness shown in Hirsch's work and the optimism and pride on display in Bruce's skyline. Bruce's ...