WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:08.839 There's a particular satisfaction in small certainties, the satisfying click 2 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:11.480 of a locked turning, the delicate alignment of a picture frame, 3 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:14.000 even the brief bracing chill of early morning as the 4 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:16.160 cities when finds its way through the half cut loading 5 00:00:16.199 --> 00:00:19.800 dock doors. Some pleasures I know our habits borrowed from 6 00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:23.359 other older routines. As a retired pilot, I thought I'd 7 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:26.920 seen the limits of runway repetition, checklists, control towers, census shifts, 8 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:31.239 blurring into sunrises over ocean clouds. Retirement for me wasn't 9 00:00:31.239 --> 00:00:32.759 an end to all that. It was just a change 10 00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:36.759 of airspace. These days, I guide ground bound routes. I 11 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:39.039 volunteer as a docent in the City Dark Museum, where 12 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.159 a built shipping where Else perched above the old Tarborough 13 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:43.759 warren of white walls, hummy h fac and a dozen 14 00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:45.880 rooms that echo with the footsteps of school children and 15 00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:48.119 the quiet murmurs of people with nowhere else surgeon to be. 16 00:00:48.679 --> 00:00:51.520 On Tuesday morning, one of those particularly calm thus moted 17 00:00:51.560 --> 00:00:53.920 March mornings, I arrived Valley as usual to prepare for 18 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:57.399 an elementary school visit, unlocking the staff entrance with Ben. 19 00:00:57.479 --> 00:01:01.240 The night security chief exchange my usual greeting, then looked 20 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:03.280 as ever, just out of sleep, eyes roomy in the 21 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:07.760 blue corridor lights. Everything smooth last night, nothing but wind 22 00:01:07.799 --> 00:01:12.079 in an overactive censor on gallery too, he grunted, all yours, captain. 23 00:01:12.680 --> 00:01:15.319 I suppressed a smile at the old nickname. I walked 24 00:01:15.319 --> 00:01:17.480 a gallery for the room assigned to me for the week. 25 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:20.359 I knew it lay out intimately two landscapes on the 26 00:01:20.359 --> 00:01:22.519 east wall, the audible cubist next to Syria lef of 27 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:25.879 his reclining need, a modest nineteenth century ship's portrait anchoring 28 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:28.480 the room by the battered loading dark door to day. 29 00:01:28.599 --> 00:01:30.760 Though I stop halfway through, rolling up the dust curtain. 30 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:33.959 Something off, but not immediately striking. Instead of the marsh 31 00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:36.879 as sunrise march lawlands by Jay Sharp on the left 32 00:01:36.879 --> 00:01:40.079 of the French portrait, the twards what places not just 33 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:43.319 slightly out of line, but entirely traded spots, each perfectly 34 00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:46.640 centered on its hook. I frowned. My love book or 35 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:48.799 Bada Navy notebook talked in my coat pocket might have 36 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:51.799 confirmed their orientation from last week's notes, or perhaps my 37 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:54.879 friend's came roll. But surely the registrar would have filed 38 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:57.319 paperwork for ara hang, and there was nothing on the clipboard. 39 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:00.439 No object moved, posteds on the door as ended as 40 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:03.760 walk through. A gestured at the new layout, any idea 41 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:06.200 of collections moved these last night? The leff ever and 42 00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:09.840 the sharp he glanced over, offered only a vagrant. They 43 00:02:09.879 --> 00:02:12.560 move things all the time, don't they? Maybe for cleaning 44 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:15.400 or those art students than reliable. I pointed at the 45 00:02:15.400 --> 00:02:18.240 events calendar, at a color code, a grid for scheduled maintenance, 46 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:22.639 nothing listed for gallery for then shrugged, stuck both hands 47 00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:25.879 deep in his jacket pockets. I guess it's above my clearance. 48 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.840 Charon will not lean into the unpredictability. Captain makes the 49 00:02:28.840 --> 00:02:31.960 place feel alive. His tone almost made me smile, but 50 00:02:32.039 --> 00:02:35.639 not quite. As a pilot, small inconsistencies had been my job, 51 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:37.759 a flecker of a raid up lip, a checklesitem not 52 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:41.439 done here. The stakes were only educational embarrassment or school 53 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:44.840 field church griphonoff kelter. Still my mind folwed the shift 54 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:47.280 to smoldrift noted for a review like sudden wind shear. 55 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:50.000 I made no face, but it moved from the periphery 56 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:53.159 to the scenter of my awareness. It's not that unpedantic. 57 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:55.800 I just prefer when the world is exactly as it 58 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:58.840 says on the box. Some people call gallery for that 59 00:02:58.919 --> 00:03:02.240 in between room curators claim it's a transitional volume, a 60 00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:04.919 pallette cleanser before the ball new commissions. In Gallery five, 61 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:07.840 the walls are white orsh brick, tall and clean line. 62 00:03:07.879 --> 00:03:10.680 The light filtered through half frosted windows, south faces towards 63 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:13.680 the harbor. The residence of the room damp, ever slightly 64 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:16.639 accoing depends on the weather's mood. Mornings start with a 65 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.360 routine unlock the double doors with Ben, share dry jokes 66 00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:22.400 with Mired, the curatorial assist, and sharp eyed, faster remembering 67 00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:24.280 names than I am, and flick on the perimeter lights. 68 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:27.159 Before the first children arrive. I line up the steels 69 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:29.719 for skull groups, set hand outs on the tables, and 70 00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:31.560 walk the edge of the floors one last time, the 71 00:03:31.639 --> 00:03:33.919 old cockpit habit of double checking what the official daily 72 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:38.439 checklists might miss. Other volunteers prepare the bigger shows. Gallery 73 00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:41.919 four nest of oddments and transitionals, cycles between crowd favorites 74 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:46.199 and overlooked treasures. Its love bears volunteers, retirees and local 75 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:49.319 artists nursing coffee between sketches. If mostly ignored by critics, 76 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:53.400 still at my favorite the miner in perfections, old doors, 77 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:56.479 one winder that sticks slide upward grade near the modernist display. 78 00:03:56.560 --> 00:04:00.400 Somehow make the changing arrangements easier to notice. I keep 79 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:02.360 my own love with a kind of personal flight diary 80 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.199 Mercy Mundane a note on a curious child's remarks and objects, 81 00:04:06.280 --> 00:04:09.120 lightly but persistently crooked or lost Saturday to gift shop. 82 00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:12.479 Theft suspected but never confirmed. I don't write literature, just 83 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.759 the bearefacts in case something ever comes up. Sometimes a 84 00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:18.360 mere another dozen't with a pensiant for remember in every 85 00:04:18.439 --> 00:04:21.199 visitors Dob's name, but never actual, or borrows that you record. 86 00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:24.319 Her own motivations, usually complaints about the room's sporadic rotation, 87 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:27.600 of the mysterious absence of her preferred folding stool. Maya 88 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:31.120 all energy and efficient movements drifts by every morning. She 89 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:33.920 notices things at the social level, a sudden cluster of sketches, 90 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:36.720 a wave of visitors with umbrellas after a rainstorm, artward 91 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:39.959 handouts discarded in odd piles. Feels busy than it ought 92 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.279 to be, she said that morning, flancing at my newly 93 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:45.480 note on them aspaced paintings, but maybe your map's out 94 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:47.759 of date. Which side is left from the window anyway, 95 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:51.839 Ben is the immovable object. He sees flow rather than detail, 96 00:04:51.959 --> 00:04:54.839 Sometimes brusque, but always willing to unlock a file cabinet 97 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:56.920 or fetch a forgotten jacket, even if he considers my 98 00:04:57.000 --> 00:04:59.879 questions about layout flasbecking. Then there is Sharon, the head 99 00:04:59.879 --> 00:05:03.240 of curation, Methodical, gently skeptical, but up into the odd connection, 100 00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:06.759 prone to brief searching pauses and conversation. She'll listen with 101 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:09.519 authentic interest, then leave you pondering suggestion it didn't fit 102 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:13.639 your question. Most days the art is stable enough. Occasionally 103 00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:15.519 a visiting artist will re arrange a portion for a 104 00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:18.160 youth engagement event, but these are always well documented, with 105 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:21.600 paperwork and object and transiitforms left on the desk. It's 106 00:05:21.639 --> 00:05:25.240 all very proper, But lately I notice attention between memory 107 00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:28.519 and presence. I'm mirror enough and disagree about the placement 108 00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:30.560 of the mountain scene. She insists it's been off duty 109 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:33.160 for months, but I am sure it's visible behind the benches. 110 00:05:33.199 --> 00:05:36.800 Every Thursday morning, one or two visitors post Instagram shots 111 00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:38.879 of paintings. None of us recal a blue canvas with 112 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:41.439 a strangely modern Loco signature hung where I was shore 113 00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:44.720 last week. Roccer portrait had been I find myself flipping 114 00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:47.160 through old expiion guides, comparing what's on my route to 115 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:50.000 what's supposed to be there now, and then a teacher's 116 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.560 class room notes or a skuldtell's sketch seems to remember 117 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:54.600 more than the rest of us drawings that suggested woodcut 118 00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:57.800 was on display, though no record exists. It's all only 119 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:01.759 slightly odd. The world, after all, doesn't owe us perfect accounting. 120 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:04.000 But by the end of the week what had been 121 00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:07.519 a hobby of noticing turned into something else. Friday morning, 122 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:09.959 prepping for double twur of six graders, I printed out 123 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.160 the Days of Galloy guide for educators, the map laying 124 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:15.600 out the order of paintings, sculptures, and interactive displays for Galloy. 125 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:18.800 For half way through highlighting muskripped, my brow furrowed a 126 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:21.519 missing listing. The bronze kite sculpture was gone from the room, 127 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:23.199 though it was clearly marked on the map as a 128 00:06:23.240 --> 00:06:26.839 primary object. Window Alkove a mirror arrived early, her back 129 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:29.560 overflowing the snacks for the kids and noticed me scanning 130 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:33.160 the corners. What are you looking for the bronze kite, 131 00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:37.160 I replied, supposed to be over there right. A gestured 132 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:39.519 to the sunlit window, see which sat empty save a 133 00:06:39.519 --> 00:06:41.759 half filled water bottle, likely to property of the morning 134 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:46.199 security sweep a mirror squinted through her glasses, biting a lip. No, 135 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.519 I think your mixing up shows the kite stilln storage 136 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:50.839 hisn't it was in on my last walk. I held 137 00:06:50.879 --> 00:06:54.680 at the print out there in bold window alcove Bronze Kite, 138 00:06:54.839 --> 00:06:58.360 nineteen eighty two, Galloway Collection. Frustrated, I tried the next 139 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:02.800 best test. What about the pastel seascape? Was swall She blinked. 140 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:06.600 Puzzle always there or no, sometimes near the fire door, 141 00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:09.759 but it's here. We examined the room, tracing the sequence 142 00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:13.639 from wall to wall. No past el seascape. Instead, in 143 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.000 the hallway toward Gallery six hung a bright blue canvas 144 00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:19.720 that are recognized after a beat as the missing painting. Officially, 145 00:07:19.800 --> 00:07:22.000 it should have been in gallery for to day, last week, 146 00:07:22.199 --> 00:07:25.360 every day, according to our records. Yet here it presided 147 00:07:25.399 --> 00:07:28.240 over a corridor, despite no mention in the day's placement guide. 148 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:30.920 It was a relief foddlely to find the painting at all, 149 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:34.120 a win for the world's baseline sanity. Still, I opened 150 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:36.519 my phone's gallery shots from three days ago showed the 151 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:38.519 sea scape hun clearly in gallery for it, with a 152 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:41.879 child's outline barely visible in the corner. Proof positive, but 153 00:07:41.959 --> 00:07:45.079 a mirror was adamant. I remember it moved months ago? 154 00:07:45.319 --> 00:07:48.319 Or no? Maybe not. We had a big installation last month. 155 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:51.120 Maybe I'm confusing seasons here, the one with the records. 156 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:53.319 That was true too, though what good was a record 157 00:07:53.319 --> 00:07:56.240 if no one else's care to check? The contradiction sprawled 158 00:07:56.279 --> 00:07:58.800 in my mind? How did I miss the switch? Why 159 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:02.000 did our memories diverge so completely? Back at my desk, 160 00:08:02.120 --> 00:08:04.800 I made a careful note for the log March eight, 161 00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:07.839 eleven fifteen A m bronze kite miss andform listed map 162 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:10.759 not seen by a mirror. Fast Elsie escaped not in 163 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:13.560 gallery four found in G six corridor. My previous notes 164 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:15.759 and photos show it in G four Mar five six. 165 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:20.560 A mirror disagrees on timeline, memory contradicts image record, old 166 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:24.360 habits die hard. Precision wasn't needed here, but precision was comfort. 167 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:27.120 I could handle confusion but not a lack of interest 168 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:31.040 in unraveling it. So I began paying closer attention. I 169 00:08:31.079 --> 00:08:34.360 started taking fourtos after every shift, marking my lock of dates, 170 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:38.120 weather and family events, and clustering observations into small patterns. 171 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:40.720 I wasn't driven by suspicion, at least not the kind 172 00:08:40.759 --> 00:08:44.799 of breeze conspiracy curiosity can take a person far. Within 173 00:08:44.840 --> 00:08:47.000 a week, I noticed the flux wasn't limited to a 174 00:08:47.039 --> 00:08:51.360 single errant painting. Things moved in subtle, sometimes almost imperceptible ways. 175 00:08:51.919 --> 00:08:53.879 A sculpture on Thursday would be an inch closer to 176 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:56.240 the door on Friday, as pedestal, faintly scuffed in ways 177 00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:59.120 it hadn't been one day. A painting's brass black would 178 00:08:59.159 --> 00:09:02.960 read Temperatons eighteen ninety five, next day the storm Lucian 179 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:06.600 Gerrard ninety o one. Sometimes a whole work seemed diminished 180 00:09:06.600 --> 00:09:09.120 in color, as palate cooler, or the brushwick more agitated 181 00:09:09.159 --> 00:09:12.440 than memory ellile. Once I found myself frowning at a 182 00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:15.600 bronze positive it was larger the week before. I decided 183 00:09:15.639 --> 00:09:18.519 to enlist help, or at least comparison. Maya was a 184 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:22.000 reliable bromto of staff memory and visitor patten. I cornered 185 00:09:22.039 --> 00:09:25.159 her in the break room, unwrapping a sellufane raptart. I 186 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:28.279 need your memory, I grinned, or at least your opinion 187 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:30.279 that ship painting on the north wall. Is it more 188 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:33.000 blue or green lately? Or am I seeing things? She 189 00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:37.320 squinted and considered for an exaggerated pause. Blue always blue. 190 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:39.720 It's that calm water right, the one with a weird 191 00:09:39.759 --> 00:09:42.679 little peer half submerged. I checked the day's photo on 192 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:45.559 my phone. It was certainly blown them before, too blue, 193 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:49.279 maybe bleeding into turquoise at the horizon. The painting's label 194 00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:52.960 described silvery neutrals. When I pointed it out, my frowned. 195 00:09:53.679 --> 00:09:55.679 Funny though I swear it was dulla last week. But 196 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:58.360 now that YE say it, maybe I just notice whatever 197 00:09:58.399 --> 00:10:01.559 stands out. Then's rea action, when asked about the sculpture's 198 00:10:01.559 --> 00:10:04.799 apparent shrinking, was typically dead man arch, Just tricky that 199 00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:07.320 way light shadows the rooms too, call ye peep, are 200 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:10.519 supposed to notice beauty, not millimeters. That was about as 201 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:12.879 much as I get from him, But when a press 202 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:16.519 suggesting something odd really was happening, he only aughed. If 203 00:10:16.519 --> 00:10:19.159 no one complains, what's the harm? Everything else in this 204 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:22.799 city changes overnight, why should art be different. In the meantime, 205 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:26.879 I started comparing visitor comments. A teacher from Pierce Elementary, 206 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:29.440 stopping by the information desk, handed me a stack of 207 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:32.600 colored sketches done by her students. One drawing sured the 208 00:10:32.639 --> 00:10:35.480 seascape in a location no longer possible south wall under 209 00:10:35.480 --> 00:10:39.120 the prominence gaunts with the room's house plansets. Another depicted 210 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:40.960 the missing bronze cat on a shelf by the window, 211 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:43.399 though again it had not been listed for public view. 212 00:10:43.399 --> 00:10:46.279 And weeks I spent a week in scrawling through geoed 213 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:49.320 hagged Instagram forhetos under hash museum in De Harbor, looking 214 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:53.159 for timestamp proof. None of it matched my records exactly. Angles, 215 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:57.399 lighting positions all varied. Sometimes of background painting was present, 216 00:10:57.519 --> 00:11:01.159 sometimes mysteriously it was not. If Ben was indifferent, myer 217 00:11:01.159 --> 00:11:03.519 at least joined in the game. She agreed to try 218 00:11:03.559 --> 00:11:06.559 her own records, keeping a diary for a week. Her 219 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:08.840 notes were at odds with both mine and a mirrors. 220 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:11.360 I'm starting to doubt my own eyes. She had made 221 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:13.679 it laughing. Didn't you say this place used to be 222 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:16.240 a warehouse? Maybe its haunted by the ghosts of crates. 223 00:11:16.919 --> 00:11:19.559 At this Emir's eyes lit up, Or may be as 224 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:22.120 the gods. We reprint the tour booklets so often some 225 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:24.159 of the old versions could match a room that doesn't 226 00:11:24.159 --> 00:11:26.720 exist any more. Remember when we updated all the blurbs, 227 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:28.679 and nobody could agree if the red painting was in 228 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:31.759 Gallery three or four. But for all the speculation, I 229 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:35.279 never detected fear. If anything, there was a kind of fascination, 230 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:39.000 even amusement. No one was hiding the phenomenon or terrby 231 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:42.879 invested in correcting it. The world forms supplied enough ambiguity 232 00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:45.559 to go round. I looked for patents but found none, 233 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:48.360 at least not in the sense of a formula. Changes 234 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:51.440 didn't repeat, didn't line up with scheduled maintenance, didn't correspond 235 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:55.159 to school chores, special exhibits, or even the janitor's shifting schedule. 236 00:11:55.679 --> 00:11:58.960 I watched day after day as objects quietly migrated. I 237 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:02.200 asked Ben if we could vie some overnight security footage. 238 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:04.519 He obliged, not because he expected drama, but out of 239 00:12:04.519 --> 00:12:07.840 mild curiosity about what I call evidence. We sat together 240 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:09.919 in the monitoring room while an ancient piece he stutted 241 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:12.960 through a week of overnight stills a time up's gallery 242 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.440 four midnight shadows drift with the slow crawl of street lights. 243 00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:19.679 Nothing moved to no gallery ghosts, not a frame, nudged 244 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:23.360 paintings hung as they should. But at seven a m. 245 00:12:23.519 --> 00:12:27.120 The next morning, the arrangement was subtly, definitively altered. In 246 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:30.039 the tape, it simply jumped from one configuration to the next. 247 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:31.879 The cut between cameras made it look as if some 248 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:34.960 technician had simply forgotten to hit record during the actual movement. 249 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:38.840 Ben only shrugged again, Probably nothing or the tapes miss 250 00:12:38.879 --> 00:12:41.320 a shift or a well, does it really matter? But 251 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:44.799 to me it did. The inconsistency was now too persistent, 252 00:12:44.919 --> 00:12:48.320 too insistent to ignore. I started making lists, wall by wall, 253 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:52.360 object by object. I began sketching the arrangements after ever shift, 254 00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:54.720 circling motifs that seemed to reappear or travel like a 255 00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:57.759 particular windsward tree. At first I trucked it up to 256 00:12:57.799 --> 00:13:00.679 stylistic repetition, but then it appeared in places it shouldn't, 257 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:02.639 in a gold framed landscape. There echoed a week later 258 00:13:02.679 --> 00:13:04.519 in the fine cove of a bronze, then reflected in 259 00:13:04.559 --> 00:13:07.720 the shadow behind a contemporary collage, and the changes stopped 260 00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:11.039 being just about location. I noticed one morning the painting 261 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:13.120 called sep when mal is, a calm coastal view with 262 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:15.639 little more than sand and horizon, had now the faint 263 00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:17.840 up light of a figure by the water. It was 264 00:13:17.879 --> 00:13:19.679 so subtle, I wondered if I had missed it before. 265 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.120 When I asked my she nodded, quinting, Yeah, I've always 266 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:27.159 seen that, haven't you. I checked earlier documentation, photos, description 267 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:30.120 on the wall, even a children's activity hand at the print. 268 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:32.600 Description hadn't changed, but the painting had there. Now it 269 00:13:32.639 --> 00:13:35.360 was the human outline in muddy purple, faded and indistinct, 270 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:38.720 but a mistakable. I became absorbed, making quick pencil sketches 271 00:13:38.759 --> 00:13:41.679 every day, expecting it to flip back or perhaps vanish entirely. 272 00:13:42.279 --> 00:13:44.879 Another afternoon, my old part at friend Fred, who had 273 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:47.919 visited the museum with me last autumn, send a message, Hey, 274 00:13:48.039 --> 00:13:51.000 your mountain painting's completely different. Now, looks almost abstract in 275 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:52.879 the photo you sent When I remember it as all 276 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:55.000 sharp lines and realism. Did this which is for a 277 00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:59.279 new one? I replied, same frame, same label. He persisted, 278 00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:02.240 No way, maybe the colors faded it almost closed. Now 279 00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:05.679 was it possible we were being pranked? Could the constant 280 00:14:05.720 --> 00:14:09.320 changes be a performance piece, curatorial mischief, technology malfunction, or 281 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:12.480 a city funded psychological experiment. But the lack of any 282 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:15.600 formal record and the consistency of the staff's innocent confusion 283 00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:18.840 ruled out deliberate intent. I decided to design a true 284 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:22.039 test in my own crude flight data recorder for a fortnight. 285 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:26.840 Every night after closing, I diaground the room. I map positions, labels, motifs, 286 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:29.200 where the landscapes costed in relation to the sculpture of 287 00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:31.720 the play of blue and ochre across the walls. I 288 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:36.240 cross reference visitive flows, visitor comments, even snippets from overhead conversation. 289 00:14:36.879 --> 00:14:40.000 It was in many ways the pilots exercise tracking headings 290 00:14:40.120 --> 00:14:43.679 relative bearing wind speeds. Here it was the movement not 291 00:14:43.720 --> 00:14:47.120 of error, but of art, image and association. At first, 292 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:49.080 there was only a noise, not quite random, but not 293 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:51.600 a pattern I could follow. But by a third week 294 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:55.320 something began to emerge, not a repetition, but nave and flow, 295 00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:58.919 a lacing and unlacing of relationships between works. For instance, 296 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:01.279 one day, the winding curve of a river in one 297 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:03.600 painting would appear in the composition of its neighbor. A 298 00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:06.000 week later, the pair would swap walls, but the motif 299 00:15:06.039 --> 00:15:08.240 would remain side by side in a sculptures base echoing 300 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:10.559 the river, or a coloss blue fabricueind in a ripper 301 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:13.600 matching the painted stream. Faces that appeared in one canvas 302 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:16.000 would be the next day echoed in a neighboring work, 303 00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:19.600 sometimes in outline, sometimes pure color. Sometimes just as a gesture, 304 00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:22.120 I made a chart, a sprawling hand drawn map on 305 00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:25.159 butcher paper, stitched together with bits of painters tape. At 306 00:15:25.159 --> 00:15:27.960 the center, I wrote every painting's titled date color palette 307 00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:31.399 distinctive motif in colored pencil. I drew lines to connect 308 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:34.960 recurring patterns, trees to trees, faces to faces, water to water. 309 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.840 The logic at first was purely visual, but connections spiraled 310 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:41.960 across time, a red swell, recurring not just in a 311 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:44.759 modern canvas, but in century old landscape and a stained 312 00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:48.200 glass scance. I began to suspect even the objects themselves 313 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:50.960 had become complicit, referencing each other, forming a kind of 314 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:54.759 secret conversation. I brought the chart to Sharon, the senior curator, 315 00:15:54.799 --> 00:15:57.320 one morning, rolling the tape pages up like a navigation 316 00:15:57.399 --> 00:16:00.840 chart across the wood conference table. She looked, baffled, half amused. 317 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:04.480 Here mapping the gallery's ideas, she said, finally, not just 318 00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:07.559 its layout, which as well. It's an approach, certainly, But 319 00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:09.559 don't you see how the motifs move as well as 320 00:16:09.559 --> 00:16:13.240 the objects? I said, lippy my finger between two lakescapes, 321 00:16:13.879 --> 00:16:16.679 this tree here now here or here, or in sculpture shadow, 322 00:16:16.720 --> 00:16:18.679 the blue always linked to the ship of the colost. 323 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:22.679 You see, she considered, If you read enough museum studies, 324 00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:25.519 they'll tell you every room has an interpretive flow. Maybe 325 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:29.679 you've just attuned to it, or maybe she grinned. But 326 00:16:29.799 --> 00:16:32.080 the arts evolving and were all too dull to notice 327 00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:36.279 her comment, half jesting, reriented my approach? Had I been 328 00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:39.000 trying too hard to pin things down? Was gallery, for 329 00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:41.440 somehow more than the sum of its objects? Was it 330 00:16:41.480 --> 00:16:44.039 alive in the sense that an ecosystem is alive, or 331 00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:47.919 a city or a memory. I began thinking differently, not 332 00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:50.320 just as a keeper of order, but as a participant 333 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:52.720 in an ongoing puzzle, a puzzle that neither began nor 334 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:55.639 ended in any one arrangement. As I entered gallery, for 335 00:16:55.799 --> 00:16:58.919 that afternoon, marking down the week's new relationships. I felt 336 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:01.679 less like a detective in more like an explorer. The 337 00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:04.200 art wasn't simply moving. It was moving for a reason, 338 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:08.519 not round them, but not plotted, a system, perhaps, but 339 00:17:08.599 --> 00:17:11.839 one whose rules I hadn't yet understood. I started showing 340 00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:14.000 up early, not just early, but before first light, so 341 00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:16.400 the museum's bones were visible in the blue haze before 342 00:17:16.440 --> 00:17:20.680 anyone else's routines could interfere. The curatorial staff would driften later, 343 00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:23.319 the dozens with their thermasis and floor all pins, arriving 344 00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:26.720 at reasonable hours. I needed the silence in the solitude, 345 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:28.759 the time and space to test the idea taking holt 346 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.599 inside me that this gallery wasn't merely rearranging itself by 347 00:17:31.599 --> 00:17:34.680 some hidden mechanism on this remembered process, but by something 348 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.119 my methods had always overlooked, a peculiar kind of order 349 00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:39.799 written in the strange collective language of everyone who crossed 350 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:43.039 its threshold. The first morning, I placed my own markers 351 00:17:43.039 --> 00:17:45.920 in gallery for not tape or chalk on notes too 352 00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:48.039 easily missed or removed, but ac code no no need 353 00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:50.799 to me. In one painting shadow, I rested a white 354 00:17:50.839 --> 00:17:52.519 button atop the frame. In the hollow at the base 355 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:54.640 of the bronze, I placed a folded slip of paper 356 00:17:54.680 --> 00:17:57.480 with a date and time. These would be my signal flags. 357 00:17:58.200 --> 00:18:01.319 If the objects themselves were moved, surely these tokens would 358 00:18:01.319 --> 00:18:03.839 be missing, or would they merely appear elsewhere, arranged according 359 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:06.720 to another unwritten logic. But the real change had already 360 00:18:06.759 --> 00:18:09.279 begun well before me, in a confusion of memories, the 361 00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:12.720 slippish in mat and guides and institutional paperwork. There was 362 00:18:12.759 --> 00:18:15.519 no vanishing magician behind a curtain, only something that reminded 363 00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:18.319 me of air currents, invisible but palpable in their effects. 364 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:20.599 The day I convinced my and Ben to help, the 365 00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:23.839 museum was closed for city water may repair. We each 366 00:18:24.079 --> 00:18:26.559 separately drew, without reference, a map of Gallery four as 367 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:29.440 we'd seen it last Friday afternoon. Not only did our 368 00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:31.960 sketches fail to match each other, all three disagreed with 369 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:34.400 my photos from that very day, and the photos themselves 370 00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:37.680 With the print guide on Sharon's desk, Amira, who wandered 371 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:40.200 him with a cup of something terrible, added her own schematic, 372 00:18:40.279 --> 00:18:43.279 radically different from any feature, swapped or altogether invented her 373 00:18:43.319 --> 00:18:46.480 memory certain, her tone playful. See this is from the 374 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:48.960 day the kids spilled lemonade. But purple painting was definitely 375 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:51.480 near the bench because little Mossy kept sitting under it 376 00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:54.200 and getting glitter in her hair. Ben scoff, but even 377 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:56.799 he admitted, I'd have put the sculpture by the door myself. 378 00:18:56.839 --> 00:18:58.960 But now that I see you maps undutting my own 379 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:03.039 walk throughs, the contradictions no longer seemed like failures of recollection. 380 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:06.039 They were, in their way, as repeatable as any control 381 00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:08.759 experiment that the results changed with every observer, with every 382 00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:12.160 question I asked, what looked like chaos on closer inspection 383 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:14.960 was not round them at all. That night, I delve 384 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:17.640 into the museum's deeper records, borrowing a kikout axis the 385 00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:20.599 archives beneath the lobby. Most of what I found was 386 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:24.480 expected old exhibition catalogs, colossy programs, and the stack of 387 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:27.680 original acquisition files typed out on onion skin paper. But 388 00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:30.119 in a dusty Manila folder labeled g foor External, I 389 00:19:30.119 --> 00:19:32.519 found a decade old exhibition catalog that stopped me in 390 00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:35.720 my tracks. A page describing an exhibit from twenty twelve 391 00:19:35.799 --> 00:19:39.559 displayed several paintings. I recognized the sane titles familiar brustruks, 392 00:19:40.119 --> 00:19:44.039 except their attributed artists were impossible. A mountain scene supposedly 393 00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:47.880 painted by Lefevir, whose genre was strictly portraiture, an abstract 394 00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:51.039 dated two years after the artist's published death. I checked 395 00:19:51.079 --> 00:19:54.640 the museum database. These attributions had never officially existed, and 396 00:19:54.759 --> 00:19:57.559 yet I remembered, as clearly as I remembered the flight's turbulence, 397 00:19:57.599 --> 00:19:59.519 that one summer the left of a mountain had hun 398 00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:02.000 in a city pride of place. It was as if 399 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:04.680 the gallery, whether through official history or private memory, held 400 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:07.440 multiple truths at once, each as plausible as the next, 401 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:10.559