Yo, Maya, Tenn and I just returned from an incredible Sunday spent at the Kawamura Memorial Art Museum in Chiba. What is almost as unbelievable as the collection is the ride out among the rice fields to get to the museum. The Kawamura Museum is located in the middle of countryside that reminds me of Nagasaki prefecture, yet once you arrive you are greeted near the entrance by a monumental piece of sculpture fashioned from massive scraps of steel and iron by none other than Frank Stella himself! The piece looks like a verticle train wreck or an airplane disaster balanced on end: an immense encounter that exudes a modernity chewed up and spit out by two world wars and every wreck of every Edsel rolled into one great Kodak anti-moment. Yet the feeling of Stella’s giant object is peaceful, the dreadul peace of the moment after the bomb has gone off or the gun has been fired or the plane has bellied in on the landing strip with its landing gear still undeployed. Before heading to the Klee retrospective on the second floor, we spent time with Monet, Braque, Picasso, Schwitters, Ernst and Arp. We moved into a hall of wonderful Joseph Cornell boxes and Tenn called out that she needed paper and pencil. The guard lady kindly gave Tenn a pencil, as pens weren’t allowed, and my daughter spent time sketching “The Hotel Star”. Maya hastened us on and I was totally unprepared when I–without knowing–stepped into the middle of the Rothko room, which contained some of the best panels of the Seagram Mural. I couldn’t believe my luck! These paintings are so huge and so subtle! They radiate a kind of od-like energy that is absolutely palpable. I wanted to spend more time with those pictures, but we had to hurry upstairs to flash through the Klees before the museum closed. We’re hoping to get back to the Kawamura Museum before the end of this month. We need to take more time with the Klees and sit longer with the Rothkos.