One doesn't enter a dream intentionally; one drifts into it. Like wandering into a garden: a meaningful meander in space and time. For the chronic insomniac, it might take years before the dream arrives.
At M+, the dream is the architectural grandeur of Herzog and de Meuron's central atrium: white paint and grey concrete bathed in the confluence of sunlight and cold fluorescent light. But beyond this space, flanked by ambiguous signage, is a completely different set of galleries, where split bamboo veneer-lined walls are bathed in a warm yellow hue.
The Dream of the Museum (12 November 2021–18 September 2022), unfolding in two galleries, begins in a wooden box: a non-white space that manifests the fundamental struggle of M+ as a young museum that—while beholden to the ideological aspirations of great modern art museums like MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and Tate Modern—aims to chart a pathway for visual culture beyond Western centrality.
A white cube decontextualises and transcends actualities. A bamboo cabinet, on the other hand, gives room for associations and analogies to exist against the rigidity of canon, styles, and historicisation.
December 15, 2021