Friday, July 5, 2013

CRIMINY! MORE BUTTERFLYS!

After my post from the Butterfly Wonderland in Scottsdale recently, I began to think the butterflies were tracking me down.  We visited and joined the Phoenix Art Museum Wednesday and what was the first thing we saw upon entering?


You guessed it.  A wall covered with black butterflies!

Well actually they are paper and meant to represent black MOTHS.


It's an exhibit titled Black Cloud created by a Mexican artist, Carlos Amorales.


There are 25,000 of them scattered through the museum.  It feels a little creepy at times but at least one museumgoer didn't let them get in the way of her enjoyment of the other art.


I thought once we passed into other galleries of the museum that we had escaped the butterflies at last.  Until we encountered this Chinese scroll from the 18th century.


The scroll was done by the artist Pan Xuefeng and is titled Dreaming in the Xiaoxin Pavilion.  The artwork's description says butterflies were seen by Chinese artists as the soul separating from the human body at death.

The Phoenix Art Museum is huge (as my sore feet could tell you) and is the home of some excellent art works from many different eras and schools.  It also encourages photography as long as flashes are not part of it so I have many more photos to show you in the days ahead.

8 comments:

  1. 25,000 black paper butterflies is an interesting idea. I wonder why the artist chose black, though.

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    1. "Black is the color of my true love's heart."

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  2. I look forward to seeing more. :)

    S

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  3. Those black moths are a bit eerie. Neat that the Museum permits photography.

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  4. That is neat, but a lot of work.

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    Replies
    1. Indeed. Students from a local art school and volunteers at the museum put them all up.

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