If you are anything like me, you live like everything in your life that is here today will be here tomorrow. Slowly in life we find out that things are not permanent.
I was thinking about this today, because it was announced that Cafe Sparrow in Aptos was closing permanently by the end of the month. They had been a staple in Aptos for fine dining for 38 years. People were shocked. And some people were racing over to get one last meal. Nothing is permanent.
This reminded me of an amazing exhibit I saw in 2021 in Paris at the Bourse Museum. The Bourse Museum is the old stock exchange. The building was purchased by French billionaire businessman Francios Pinault, who remodeled it into an exhibition site for his personal art collection. I was intrigued and wanted to see the building and the art. I’m generally not a huge fan of contemporary art, but I had heard good things. In the main exhibition hall under the huge dome of the Bourse, there was an impressive statue that was a recreation of Giambologna’s Abduction of a Sambine Woman. You don’t notice it at first, but the statue is made completely of wax. The first day of the exhibit it was a perfectly complete wax statue. The Artist, Urs Fischer, created a wax masterpiece. His required protocol for the piece was that at the beginning of the exhibition, the wicks set in different locations of the sculptures are lit. As the wax melts, what seemed lasting turns out to be fragile. What was created by hours of meticulous and detailed effort is consumed by chance and entropy. What was formal, becomes shapeless. The duration of the exhibition is the time it takes for the wax candles to be consumed or transformed, in a process of creative destruction.
At first I thought it was weird and strange, and I couldn’t understand why the artist would destroy his work. Then I saw the brilliance. The exhibit was to produce the sense of impermanence. Nothing lasts forever. And in fact, his art was created specially not to last to expose impermanence. I loved the exhibit. I’ve talked about it more than any other piece of art that I have seen.
Is there something you want to see or do? Don’t put it off. Things aren’t permanent. Just like when Notre Dame burned. It’s getting rebuilt, but not everyone can go back to see it. Don’t put off joy and adventure. QTR!
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