Brilliant Corners #21: German kitchens, Japanese amps, and Afropop gems
I have a day job at a museum. One of my favorite things about working there is taking the elevator from my office down to one of the floors open to the public; I walk into the galleries through a discreet panel in the wall. This makes me feel like I'm in one of those horror-movie manors with a tunnel concealed behind a bookshelf. Sometimes I startle people, which I kind of enjoy.
Mostly I like spending time looking at art, especially in the early mornings when the galleries are empty. Lately, I've been watching art handlers hanging a roughly 100'-long tapestry depicting some manner of planetary jetsamor maybe they are aquatic plantsby Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga. And I make regular trips to a small theater to watch mesmerizing footage of Orchard Street in working-class lower Manhattan, shot in 1955 by veteran filmmaker Ken Jacobs. Captured on warm, saturated 16mm film, the long-gone people on the screen appear as vividly alive as the museumgoers around me.
My favorite-ever thing at the museum, though, is a life-sized kitchen. Austrian architect Grete Lihotzky designed it for a Frankfurt housing complex in 1927.
