Jump to: Reviews | I May Not Know Art, But I Know I'm On Fire
Today's Groupon gives adventurous art-lovers a yearlong individual membership with all the perks, at the award-winning Contemporary Art Museum for $20. Get a membership to take advantage of the museum's most ambitious group show since its grand opening: For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn't there.
Named after a quote attributed to Darwin, the godfather of evolutionary biology and probable Trekker, the show celebrates the artistically liberating experience of not knowing something and unlearning what you do know, all while letting you play around in the figurative dark with strangers. This show takes on a variety of unseeable forms, though in a good way, not like the invisible goblins, space aliens, and nuclear escalations that plagued your childhood bedroom. Today, for example, the Contemporary Art Museum is hosting a five-course blind tasting of haute cuisine and wine courtesy of Chef Gerard Craft (recently named one of Food & Wine Magazine's 10 Best New Chefs in America), all served in total darkness.
For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn't there will occupy the museum's entire stark, concrete interior until January 3. After that, it will return to its usual nimble, elastic exhibition schedule. The most reactive and experimental exemplar of this elasticity is The Front Room, which houses exhibitions for a few weeks at most, and often for only a few days, testing the boundaries of conventional programming and echoing the simultaneity of contemporary culture. More long-term and large-scale projects will be presented in the Main Galleries.
Your museum membership will let you experience FTBMITDRLFTBCTIT, plus a year's worth of equally mind-bending exhibits and invitations to special member previews and events. You'll also get free passes for family and friends, so you don't have to stand there alone. Membership includes a copy of this year's MESH magazine and a subscription to eMESH newsletters, free or reduced tickets to classes and events, and a 10% discount at the Muse gift shop and Tempt Cafe. Best of all, you'll even get opportunities to meet top artists, curators, and critics and pin them with all your questions, like "Why is this room so dark?" and "Seriously, why is this room so dark?"
Reviews
The Riverfront Times rated the Contemporary Art Museum the Best Museum in 2004, and also awarded it Best Museum Exhibition this year:
- The Contemporary...has become the best place in town to hear world-class artists and curators speak, while it continues to support regional artists and local causes. The cocktail hours and annual Dada Ball aren't bad either. – Riverfront Times
The Contemporary also gets five stars from reviewers on Yelp:
- I live for this museum. I do experimental art, including videography, and this place is always inspiring and intriguing... There is every kind of contemporary art here, and there are always new exhibitions. – Jennifer B., Yelp