My Date With Andy Warhol, part 3

The last part of the exhibit were the two staggered rooms. These rooms held more of his art, plus a good number of the films that he made over the years. The films were projected simultaneously on different hanging screens. One room probably had 5 different movies showing, and the other probably had 12. The movies and their set-up was my biggest complaint about the whole exhibit. While some of his films were silent, many of them had sound, so the way the Wexner people set it up (or this could be the way the exhibition travels, I'm not really sure) was that in front of each screen there was an odd-shaped bench/cushion thing that you could sit on and above it was another odd shaped thing (I have no idea what to call it) in which a speaker was put, so that you could hear the movie you were sitting in front of. But, much like the speakers in the first room, the volume on most was much to low to actually make out anything that anybody was saying, and for some of them you could overhear the speakers for the film next to you. On top of that, it was unclear for some which bench matched up with which screen. So, though some of the films were kind of interesting to watch, I found the whole set up too confusing to really enjoy. Maybe this was the point, and if it was, then I'm going to go from confused to annoyed.

A few of my favorite films to watch: Outer and Inner Space, with Edie Sedgewick. This one is meant for a double screen. All it is is Edie Sedgewick sitting there, talking, next to a TV where a pre-recorded profile of Edie Sedgewick was talking. On one screen there was a zoomed in image of this, and the other screen was zoomed out. So there were four Edies and they all looked like they were talking to each other. Even if the volume wasn't so low, you still wouldn't really be able to hear what she was saying because they were all talking at the same time. That was probably my favorite. I also really enjoyed the one where Warhol filmed the Velvet Underground rehearsing, and then being busted in on by the police. Even after the police came in and they stopped playing, the camera kept rolling and you could see people just milling around and Andy talking to the police.

I mentioned that a lot of his other work was in these two rooms. There were tons of silk-screens (probably 20 different soup cans, a few Elvises, a gun), a few drawings, and a few sculptures (the Brillo Pad boxes). But this led to another problem, and what was essentially the main problem with this part of the exhibit. These two rooms were really tall, but thin. Some of his work was hung up so high that you couldn't see it, or you couldn't see it without getting dizzy. It was impossible to go to the far side of the room and look up, because there were screens everywhere. The main problem with the exhibit was that they had too much stuff and not enough space. I understand wanting to get as much as possible in your exhibit, but I think that the overall experience would have improved with maybe 4 or 5 less movies, and either less silkscreens, or putting some of them in other parts of the center (and there was plenty of room where they could have been put to be seen better).
Overall I think they did a really kick- as job, but when I'm in charge, we'll go for quality, not quantity.

On my way out, of course I stopped at the gift shop. I really wanted an exhibition catalogue, and since I got in for free, I figured I could afford it, especially considering everything was 30% off, due to it being the end of the run. But the price of the catalogue was $50! Whoa, no thank you.

Since I was already at OSU and Nick told me not to hurry home on account of his workload, I figured I'd go check out the Art History building, since I applied to grad school there. Hayes Hall. A decent looking red building (I forgot to get a picture of the outside). In the front hall there was a little lounge area with some chairs and two cases of faculty publications. It was quite something.

I walked around and looked into some of the classrooms. Decent sized rooms for small-ish classes. I found this written on the board of a seminar room, which made me smile:

I looked at the doors of the faculty offices, where they had little fliers of the classes they teach. I didn't think so, but it looks like the faculty might match my interests pretty well after all. There seemed to be good representation of the medieval/Italian Renaissance classes.

I passed a pay phone and was amused to see it flashing this:

We didn't have this kind of school spirit at Kenyon.

After my self-tour of the art history building, I walked around the Oval Mall a little bit, but there wasn't a whole lot to see on a Sunday evening. The big library is under construction, slated to be open this summer, so if I did decide on OSU they will have a newly-remodeled library which will probably be pretty sweet. I left campus and walked up and down High Street a bit and decided to grab a quick and cheap dinner at The Flying Pizza

It was a little hole-in-the-wall, pizza by the slice place. It wasn't the most fantastic pizza I've ever had but for two big slices and a pop for $6, I was happy with it.

Since I was parked next to one of the smaller libraries, I decided to check it out and see what OSU students were doing without their main library. This library wasn't exactly small, but with so many freaking students, they were all crammed in together. There's no way I could study if everybody and their brother was at the table with me, so I'm sure they will be just as happy to see the main library re-open as I would be.

Satisfied with my date with Andy Warhol and my tour of Ohio State, I headed back to my car and hit the open road back to Cincinnati.