While we’ve never been fans of anything connected to Wal-Mart, we have to give credit where credit is due. Crystal Bridges art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas (home of Wal-Mart headquarters), founded in 2011 by Alice Walton (the wealthiest and perhaps most generous of the Walton clan) is a wondrous art facility and a crown jewel of philanthropy. We always drop in whenever we’re in the area to see the new exhibits and the old, the permanent and the temporary, the traditional and the experimental, the ordinary and the wacky.

The building sits on about 120 wooded acres, and the grounds themselves are utilized as outdoor exhibit space to complement the treasures on the inside. And there are plenty of those in this spacious, architecturally impressive multi-story structure. In front of the entrance is a tall stainless steel sculpture that many people mistake to be the semblance of a gnarled, leafless tree. It’s actually supposed to represent nerve tissue or some such.

On the inside, there are exhibits of works by artists well known and not so well known, spanning several centuries. There are paintings and sculptures by Calder, Miro, Pollock, Picasso, and others. Not surprisingly, there are 18 works by the renowned painter Thomas Hart Benton, the namesake nephew of the politician after whom the city of Bentonville is named.

Here you can see Gilbert Stuart’s celebrated portrait of George Washington and Norman Rockwell’s historic and iconic (How many times has that adjective been applied to him?) Rosie the Riveter. And a couple of other items you may recognize.

In addition to paintings and sculptures, there is plenty of conceptual art that will leave you either dropping your jaw or scratching your head, if not both.

On our most recent visit, there was a temporary installation by Yayoi Kusama, who at age 95 is still pushing the boundaries. She is noted for her obsession with polka dots in various incarnations; a few years ago, at Marciano Gallery in Los Angeles, we saw an exhibit of a work of hers that was composed of red and white polka dots covering an entire room. There was something very fairy tale-ish about it, something redolent of, say, Alice In Wonderland.

At Crystal Bridges, her exhibit is called Infinity Mirrored Room, and that’s an apt description. Instead of painted dots, she uses colored lights that resemble dots, installed in a darkened room full of mirrors. It’s like a carnival funhouse on steroids. We were so dazzled by it all when we walked through that we turned around and did it again.

Whatever your taste in art (or even if you didn’t know you had any), you’ll find something to wow you at Crystal Bridges. We urge you to check it out if you’re ever in the Bentonville area. Oh, and did we mention that admission is absolutely free?

7/5/2023