As much as I can say I’ve been to nearly every museum in the Chicagoland area, one that was always on my to-do list looks to be permanently closed (as you can see from the sign in this photo). We’ve covered museological shut downs here before (the Madison Museum of Bathroom Tissue still breaks people’s hearts) but the Museum of Holography was a place that existed for almost forty years and was so under the radar I didn’t think it’d be going anywhere. Containing the world’s largest collection of holograms, which included giant tarantulas, naked women and Michael Jordan (of course), the museum was established long before Oprah moved in across the street.
Consisting of four galleries, small and large holograms were arranged without any attention to theme or subject, even though one of the rooms had a number of works by the late mathematician and holographer Art Freund. One image within an image, binoculars that revealed a parrot perched in a tree, was a particular favorite of Michael Jackson when he visited the museum in 1988. Loren Billings, who ran and lived in the museum, used extra space to host lectures and teach holography classes, but that was a long time ago. The basement, which used to house a printing press, has an abandoned lab where Billings and her late husband once made holograms. In recent years, the museum had become eerily quiet with a somewhat outdated appearance (something I studied as a museologist…how does a museum, even a small one, not become a dusty, forgotten collection of random old things?). Even though the art of holography was making a comeback with a 3-D Tupac and appears to live on in an Allentown, Pennsylvania collection, it is always sad whenever a small, random museum shut its doors. Peace out, hologram lady!
