9.24.2013

NATIONAL VIETNAM VETERANS ART MUSEUM IN CHICAGO



My Mom just sent this story in to me....I never knew about this fine museum until just now. I would love to know if any of my readers have visited this museum. It's a wonderful place....


There has not been a war in the history of humankind that has been as closely linked with protest as the Vietnam War. Chicago has a great many museums, but few of them will stir your soul as deeply as the National Veterans Art Museum (formerly National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum).


Your intellect is also stirred by the ambiguity. The most patriotic veteran can see the same exhibit as a protester, and get a completely different message. "Radical Vulnerability," the major show at the museum right now, is typical of big shows at the museum: art by veterans, works of a quality that is inconsistent -- some remarkable, some adequate -- yet absolutely compelling in the way that art from the soul always is.


Dog tags of the more than 58,000 service men and women who died in the Vietnam War hang from the ceiling of the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago since Veterans Day, November 11, 2010. ( My father  Major Frank R. Maki is one of these tags)


The 10-by-40-foot sculpture, entitled Above & Beyond, was designed by Ned Broderick and Richard Stein. The tens of thousands of metal dog tags are suspended 24 feet in the air, 1 inch apart, from fine lines that allow them to move and chime with shifting air currents. Museum employees using a kiosk and laser pointer help visitors locate the exact dog tag with the imprinted name of their lost friend or relative.



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