Destination: Smart Museum of Art’s “Cosmophilia” exhibit
The payoff: A pleasant way to spend a weekend morning celebrating the beauty of spring — and free parking!
There is a piece of 450-year-old Turkish velvet in the Smart Museum of Art’s exhibition of Islamic art that is so breathtakingly modern it could have been made yesterday. The design looked to me like lips and bowling balls.
This fabric appears at the end of the museum’s delightful “Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen” exhibition, which showcases dozens of gorgeous works of art spanning eight centuries and half the globe. Filled with vivacious images of blooming flowers and plants, the exhibition seemed like a lovely way to enjoy a warm spring morning.
This is, in part, because the Smart Museum is such a low-key, stress-free place to visit. First off, admission is free. Parking on weekends in a neighboring parking garage is free. Plus, the museum is outfitted with a coffee bar and a big sun-dappled patio with tables, chairs and sculpture.
And, I should disclose that I have a soft spot for this little museum because it’s where my husband and I had our wedding celebration four years ago.
Inside, there are enough galleries to fill a few hours. “Cosmophilia,” which means “love of ornamentation,” filled exactly one hour of leisurely perusing.
And what inspiring perusing it was. I loved the towering 400-year-old wooden door from Iran decorated with what look like impossibly complex geometric designs. This is khatamkari — rods of metal, bone, wood and other materials fused together then sliced like a roll of holiday cookie dough with, say, a reindeer in the center.
I also drooled over six 16th Century Turkish tiles bursting with lush blue blooms, and a 300-year-old blood red cotton panel from India that was once part of a luxurious tent. I wanted to believe it once fluttered in a hot Indian wind, part of a festive encampment.
And then there’s the delicate calligram of a lion filled with beautifully scripted words from 19th Century Turkey that is, I realized with a gasp after a closer look, actually cut out of paper like an absurdly complicated snowflake.
These are not works you look at and think, “Huh, I could do that.”
After walking through the exhibition (and stopping to take a look at its perfect complement — artist Magdalena Abakanowicz’s modern, decidedly unornamented black sisal tapestry called “Structure Black”), I drove a few blocks east to The Nile Restaurant. If you are wearing more comfortable shoes than I was, you could walk there.
The Nile serves groaning plates of satisfying Middle Eastern favorites like hummus, chicken and lamb shawarma and kebabs with shrimp, salmon, beef or lamb in a mauve and green dining room that looks a lot like the buffet room at a Best Western, circa 1985.
Slices of chicken shawarma, though a little dry, were flavorful, as was the shish taouk (marinated, charbroiled chicken). I found the salmon kebabs a little fishy, and the shrimp kebabs tasty but a bit tough. All dishes come atop a hillock of yellow rice with pita bread and soup or salad on the side. Entrees range in price from $6.50 to $14.50.
In just a few hours, my appetite for Middle Eastern food and beautiful art was satiated. And I also felt like I had had a little taste of spring.
Smart Museum of Art
5550 S. Greenwood Ave.,773-702-0200, smartmuseum.uchicago.edu. “Cosmophilia” runs through May 20. Admission is free. Parking is free on weekends at the parking garage on 55th Street between Greenwood Avenue and Ellis Avenue.
The Nile Restaurant
1611 E. 55th St.; 773-324-9499. Metered parking available on the street.
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