Yesterday I went to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts to see “Through the Looking Glass,” an exhibit of Dale Chihuly glass sculptures on view through August 8th. By far the largest of the sculptures on display is the 42-foot-tall “Lime Green Icicle Tower,” which looms in the enclosed Shapiro Family Courtyard between the MFA’s old and new wings: a spiky spire of neon-green goodness.
Before seeing the “Lime Green Icicle Tower” in person, I’d read about the MFA’s campaign to purchase the piece, which costs more than a million dollars. “Through the Looking Glass” has been an inordinately popular show, with weekend crowds queuing for hours for a turn inside the exhibit’s riotously colorful galleries. Now that so many museum-goers have seen Chiluly’s work–and now that so many museum-goers have seen how the “Lime Green Icicle Tower” perfectly decorates the Shapiro Family Courtyard’s otherwise bland, empty expanse–it’s only natural to ask those appreciative crowds to chip-in for the sculpture’s purchase.
Having snapped a handful of pictures of ol’ Limey when I first arrived at the MFA yesterday, I found myself photographing him again and again from every angle and seemingly at every turn. The “Lime Green Icicle Tower” is one of those monumental pieces that seems so at-home in its present location, I can’t imagine the space without it.
On the MFA website, there’s a short, time-lapse video of the installation of the “Lime Green Icicle Tower”: like an artificial Christmas tree, “Lime Green” was assembled branch by branch, starting at the base and working upward. Now that “Through the Looking Glass” is entering its final week, I hate to imagine crews tearing down ol’ Limey branch by branch, sending his pieces packing. Like a neon-green tree or spiky glass cactus, the “Lime Green Icicle Tower” has set down roots here in Boston, and I for one want him to stay.
Am I willing to put my money where my mouth is on that point? You bet your lime green icicle tower. Although the MFA has a page online where you can donate toward the sculpture’s purchase, and although cell-phone users can donate $10 by texting the word TOWER to 50555, I chose to make my contribution the old-fashioned way by dropping some cold green cash into one of the courtyard’s donation boxes.
Like individual branches assembled to form a towering green spire, your donation plus my donation plus every other museum-goers’ donation adds up to something enormous.
Click here to view my complete photo-set of Dale Chihuly’s “Lime Green Icicle Tower.” I’ll share the rest of my photos from “Through the Looking Glass” over the next week, as I’m able to sort through them. In the meantime, this is my contribution to today’s Photo Friday theme, Enormous.
Jul 29, 2011 at 5:12 pm
I saw the Lime Green Icicle Tower when I went to the MFA earlier in the summer, though I never managed to go through the exhibit. But my first look at a Chihuly piece was in San Francisco a few years ago at the Legion of Honor Museum (coincidentally, there was another big Chihuly exhibit somewhere else in the city that I never got to because of crowds). There were 2 at the Legion, I think part of their permanent collection(?). I was really quite fond of this one:
Hope they get to keep ol’ Limey!
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Jul 29, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Pretty amazing.
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Jul 30, 2011 at 10:43 am
I hope to go to that museum some day soon, and I hope ‘limey’ is there when I do! I enjoyed these photos.
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Jul 30, 2011 at 11:06 am
I enjoyed looking at the 4000×3000 pixel size photos, love the details!
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Jul 30, 2011 at 2:15 pm
it is beautiful!! thanks for sharing these images. dale chihuly is a major star in the pacific nw, especially seattle/tacoma and is very beloved. his teams of artists work in studios in several areas of seattle, and we are lucky to have chihuly pieces all around us in public places. so glad you guys and all your visitors will have this lovely piece.
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Jul 30, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Mmm. Who *doesn’t* want to go Through the Looking Glass?! 😉
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Jul 31, 2011 at 11:19 am
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I’m glad you enjoyed the photos…and there will be more to come!
Leslee, there were several chandeliers that looked a bit like the sculpture you saw in San Francisco, so I’ll be blogging those eventually. The exhibit itself contained so many works, I now have hundreds of photos to sift through!
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Aug 3, 2011 at 4:48 am
Fascinating. And thanks to you now I know who made the enormous chandelier hanging in London’s V&A museum. And I also know, having wondered about this aspect of things in relationship to ol’ Limey, how it’s cleaned! http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/behind-the-scenes-chihuly-chandelier/
I do hope Boston gets to keep its cactus! It does look entirely at home in its greenhouse of art 🙂
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Aug 3, 2011 at 2:46 pm
That looks like a complicated cleaning job! The photos are amazing. They should do a time-lapse video of the cleaning, just as the MFA did a time-lapse of the assembly.
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