Guide Index. Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!
Visiting museums: the quintessential tourist thing.
I do recommend the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Now I must admit, I went in convinced that most modern art was a scam. "Can you believe some rich sucker paid £50,000 for this crushed-up shopping cart? Ha, ha!" I walked in and saw the neon-lit seven-and-a-half-ton pile of American long-grain rice, and thought, "Hmmm!"
"The artist is this Laotian fellow," explained our tour guide, Jonathan. It was a damn fortunate thing that my friend and I were the only two who showed up for 12:15 tour. We had our own plain-English enthusiast, a knowledgeable fellow with his feet on the ground. "Rice is a major part of Laos's heritage and tradition. The neon comes from America and The West. Vong Phaophanit came over from where he’s now living in London, and he and four friends took a week to shape it all by hand into these waves. Doesn’t the smell of rice just drive you crazy? Doesn’t it just make you want to reach out and poke it with your finger? Or remember, it's OK to just hate it if you want."
The way all these different pieces were explained, the way Jonathan guided us into seeing them, they started making sense. It was sense in a way we would have never thought of before, which made it kind of interesting.
The neatest thing was called "Big School Dog." The guy who made it liked to paint and sculpt dogs. This one he covered with blackboard paint and wrote little lessons on. It looked kind of scary, but kind of like a faithful protector, too. It was Craig’s favorite and he wanted me to mention it, so there you go. I couldn’t find a picture of the Big School Dog to post up here, but am assured it’s on long-term loan to the museum so you can go and check it out for yourself.
The museum itself is in the Old Kilmainham Hospital, between Kilmainham Jail and the Guinness Brewery (two other tourist points.) It’s free to get in, and the stately old building and gardens themselves are worth a visit. One point of interest: just as all the statues of Lenin and Marx were torn down in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism, the Irish gave the boot to all the Queen Victoria statues hulking around Dublin after Independence. The hospital was run down at the time, and for years all these dozens of frowning Victorias were stored there, squatting about the grounds like frumpy garden gnomes. I get a hoot out of that image, and for a mere £50,000 will produce a very special multimedia interactive artwork. . . .
Guide Index. Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!