The Wright show disappoints in other ways, too. There’s no sense of a governing critical intelligence. The exhibition is simply a haphazard attic of Wrightiana, certainly fascinating for Wright buffs, but lacking a clear point of view. The title is the giveaway: Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward. The idea is that Wright designed his buildings by first planning the interior spaces, and only then shaping the exterior appearance around them. Well, sure he did, but so what? This is a tired cliché, not a stirring theme for a new exhibition. It’s an idea for an old-fashioned show on a new-fashioned artist, because the truth is that Wright is as relevant today as ever. I’d rather have seen an exhibition on Frank Lloyd Wright: Environmentalist. Wright believed in building from local materials, not from costly stuff shipped halfway around the world. Often his buildings grow from the trees and rocks of the site they’re built on. And in a world that today is sinking into universal sameness, Wright was hypersensitive to the nature of place.
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