It was delightful and unexpected to encounter Chloe Aridjis’ account of two months at the Prado in Madrid (“The Prado and me”, Life & Arts, FT Weekend, February 3).
Aridjis briefly mentions her own 2103 novel, Asunder, and its narrator, a guard at London’s National Gallery. For those familiar with her jewel of a book, the FT magazine piece provides an opportunity to see the artist’s own engagement with visual art and sculpture in an institutional setting — without the frame (or intervention) of a narrating “character”.
Early on, in that brief comment on Asunder, Aridjis refers to museums as offering a form of “sanctuary” and says of them: ‘Yet so many of humankind’s struggles are represented within their walls.”
The essay comments not simply on artworks encountered, but also on what it means to run a working gallery, particularly highlighting the devoted employees with their requisite expertise.
The essay also prods one’s own conception of what constitutes a museum. Is it a commonwealth in a cauldron, or perhaps more of an urn never to be exhausted, always vibrant, while also and simultaneously (and wonderfully) a balm.
No small thing. Chloe Aridjis’ essay lights up the weekend edition.
Dale Churchward
Toronto, ON, Canada
