Isabella Rossellini is Holy

Posted September 19th, 2009 by maya

For my birthday, Emily got me a ticket to the Kandinsky opening at the Guggenheim (where she is a VIP employee), and I got to see this private show first, which was full of fancy-shmancy important people, none of whom I recognized (let’s be honest, as for important New York peeps, unless they play roles on Gossip Girls, I’m not gonna have any idea who they are), but they were intimidating, and I would have felt like a total crasher, but I invited my kickass editor Megan and her incredibly cool and hilarious husband, ’cause they are actually classy people who don’t take themselves too seriously and made the whole thing really fun.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer—Levels of Nothingness

(from the Guggenheim website)Inspired by Vasily Kandinsky’s Yellow Sound (1912), Mexican-born Rafael Lozano-Hemmer creates an installation where colors are automatically derived from the human voice, generating an interactive light performance. Actress Isabella Rossellini will read seminal philosophical texts on skepticism, color, and perception while her voice is analyzed by computers that control a full rig of rock-and-roll concert lighting. Audience members will have the opportunity to test the color-generating microphone.

So, when it comes down to it…I didn’t get it. Which is probably because:

a) There is a serious gap in my education when it comes to art

and

b) it didn’t make any sense

Basically, Isabella Rossellini read these heavy quotes, and there was a light-show. But honestly, I’ve seen better light-shows at the Great State Fair of Oklahoma (and got to eat fried dough at the same time). That said, Rosellini is so freaking gorgeous and luminous I’d watch her read the phone book.

And, PS, I touched her. Of course, ’cause we all know I’m obsessed with celebrities. On her way out with her entourage, I touched her arm and said, “Wonderful performance.” And she smiled at me and said “Thank you” in that husky Italian accent, and I swear to god, that felt like I was in the glow of someone holy…it was like when I saw Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, and I got to stand on that conveyor belt and go back and forth looking up at her image…only in this version, The Virgin actually comes to life and smiles at me and she has an Italian accent.

Okay, I know she’s just an actress, not a diety or anything… but she was that magnetic. Then she left and I drank free champagne and looked at the Kandinsky collection and didn’t get that either.