An exhibit opening Saturday at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is big and brash. But first, it's quiet.
In small groups, visitors will enter "Power and Beauty in China's Last Dynasty" through a dark room containing a single black vase. Before the doors open — a whole nine minutes later — a meditative piano piece by John Cage plays. People hear the soft drop of a single chopstick.
This museum exhibition has theater at its heart.
Which makes sense, because it was dreamed up by a stage director: the legendary Robert Wilson, known for breaking molds since he made his name with Philip Glass' five-hour opera "Einstein on the Beach" in 1976. This time, Wilson is reimagining the art show, placing the museum's ancient Chinese artifacts — sculptures, robes and artworks from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) — in a new light.
But visitors start in the dark.
"In order to see this work, we need to empty our heads," Wilson explained Thursday, "and get the daily life and activities out of our minds so we can focus on something else."
Wilson, 76, designed the exhibition around the number 2 — yin and yang, dark and light, point and counterpoint. One gallery is covered in mud, another in gold leaf wallpaper. One is lined with thatch, another with shiny silver Mylar.
After the first room, with its single vase, doors open into a gallery with hundreds of objects, brightly lit. Gold ornaments, lacquer boxes, ornate dishes. On the walls are even more artifacts, re-created as wallpaper. Each gallery gets its own audio score, its own scent. In a deep red gallery meant to represent imperial power, ceremonial bells sound. "Intermittently, there's a fearsome screech," Liu Yang, the museum's curator of Chinese art, told reporters Thursday.
