Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts — Attraction in Little Rock

Jet-setting, high stakes betting, Russian rouletting, 600 thread count Egyptian bedding, these are the (doing big-things) things I demand these days. New year, new me indeed. My special eyes will never set their gaze upon any old rinky-dink museum ever again. That's where the AMFA comes in.

The building looks like a German classical modernistic take on a church. About as inviting as a Rubik's cube made of thorns. Not exactly warm, but if they were going for a "Get the poors out of here!" look, they nailed it. It's beautiful, but scary. Some might say, like a dominatrix dressed in white. Bold, unapproachable, yet....you must. This place isn't messing around, unless the price is right and your wife doesn't harass them (obviously). My only complaint is really all the white. It's so much white, it looks like an 80's coke dealer's drug den before the inevitable FBI raid. While striking, it seems like a terrible choice for the climate. It's gonna mold up something fierce. State's more humid than the underside of a bald man's toupee after all. I don't envy the maintenance crew, but it's holding up so far.

Art is pretty good. It's all subjective anyway. What looks like a horribly drawn squiggly line fish or a boring old chair to me, might wreck someone's mind enough that they can finally pretend to be attracted to their spouse for a night. That lie to themselves is ON THEM. There are a ton of guards, as some bafoons have said in other reviews, but there were a bunch of school groups so what do you expect. It's either stop having kids, or gasp watch your kids so they don't destroy the priceless junk on display. It's not rocket science. If I had a horribly overpriced thing on the wall, best believe I'd have a 6'6" guy named Gibraltar ready to guillotine the scumbag away from my mid-life crisis based bad decision.

The coffee bar upstairs makes a pretty good cup. Restaurant food is hit or miss, but the hostess and wait staff seemed friendly enough. The sweet potato fries were pretty good, but everything else felt like the chefs had a deep-seated hatred of any and all seasoning. Almost like a teaspoon of salt wrecked their parents marriage, and then handed them over to an orphanage. If I'm paying this much for a sandwich or what have you, I don't want my food to taste like it was made by someone named Waterfall and their spouse Sunkiss (you figure out who's who). I want my arteries to know my meal was cooked by a heavy set woman named Big Bertha, or an equally heavy set man named Little Tubbs. For that price I better have high blood pressure afterwards. That's all I'm saying. The restaurant decor is a little crowded, but overall pretty nice looking. However, the tables do need to be bussed a bit better though. More crumbs than a chipmunk family's placemats during Thanksgiving. Seriously, that's how you get rats.

Now, the theater is beautiful. With that said, I've only seen one of their productions, so I can't rag on them too much, but if it weren't meant for children I'd have been embarrassed for all involved. Seems like an expensive waste for such a nice auditorium. The tall blonde flaming drink of water was my favorite actor by far. Whatever "It," is, he's got it in spades! I'd watch him play a rock named Pebble, and I know I'd be transported to Rockingham Palace, in the center Rocksberg Rockssachusetts. In fact, excluding most of the actors, it was pretty underwhelming. The puppets were cute, the set was a bit phoned in though. Reminded me of a set you'd see on PBS Kids during the '90s, but in your creepy uncle's basement. The costumes were equal parts colorful and horrific. It was like those memes/TikToks you see of kids freaking out over a gross off-brand looking mascot being anywhere near them, but come to life. Just make that meme over 30 minutes long, and put a young underpaid actor inside of it. All the while, it loudly attempts to engage with you and your children. With that said, the venue does seem better suited for things like ballets and movie screenings. Which apparently they do offer from...

Ok, the art we saw today was fantastic and inspiring. The check-in desk was very friendly and told us about everything going on and how to navigate the space. The creative Saturday crew was AMAZING and my kids loved working with them. We told them on our way out that we would definitely return to participate again! That is where our pleasant day ended. Following the experience we had afterwards, I would caution anyone against bringing children here, unfortunately. My family loves museums like this and my kids understand how to behave appropriately in this kind of setting. Directly outside of the creative area where we did the children’s crafts, there is an art display. It’s “roped” off in a sense, but not by a barrier- by a platform a few inches high on the floor, shorter than half a standard step, even. My youngest child stepped on this on our way towards the door out after we had finished our craft. I ushered him down immediately. The security ran up to us saying, “NO NO NO get down off of that!” after he had already stepped away. This startled us all a bit but I apologized and we continued on our way. She then came up behind us, and told me she needed to speak with me. Apparently, my son had left a very faint footprint on the floor/platform thing. I offered to wipe it off, she said absolutely not but she would need to take both of our names for this infraction. Even though she admitted to me that many children had done the same thing today…. so how did she even know it was his footprint? I told her that it seemed really strange to ask for my name, but to demand a 5 year old’s name too? Really? This really scared both him and his bigger brother because they know the art is not to be touched. They thought we were in trouble. They didn’t want to do the kid’s treasure hunt activity either, and I don’t blame them. There is a ton of security personnel in the gallery. 2 of them were friendly and said hello to my boys. The others stared us down as we looked, so I felt like the security guard downstairs had said something to them about the footprint incident(?). I’m not a paranoid person, but I’ll just say, I was super uncomfortable while there. We saw one group of people snacking and drinking juice while in the gallery but not a word was said to them- all eyes were on us. I get that we aren’t supposed to get close to the art on display and fully understand why that is. But here’s a suggestion- maybe the museum should create an actual, obvious barrier when it’s right outside of an area that they know will be high traffic for kiddos. Not by something that can be stepped on by someone who’s simply walking. He had no idea he couldn’t step there, and he got nowhere near the artworks, and apparently they take your name if you place a footprint on this trap. I’d be very interested to know what they do with this list of foot-printers and their guardians. I don’t think we will be returning or recommending this place due to our overall uncomfortable encounter today. This makes me sad to post because it is a really nice museum with lots of amazing displays, but other parents wanting to involve their kids in this need to know...

I was incredibly disappointed that most of what was on display was modern abstract art, although I am not going to hold that particular part against the museum as art is subjective and it'll rotate out anyway. However, the security guards have got to learn to calm down. There was one assigned to each room and I was constantly badgered to "stand at least 2 feet from the art" despite being 3-4 feet from it. Another security guard became incredibly agitated about a backpack that a friend was wearing and harassed them into wearing it on their front, which for some reason was not a problem with the first two security guards. When not being badgered, security guards would approach and loom over me as if I was about to steal the art and they were going to catch me in the act. It was an incredibly unwelcome experience and I felt like I was in a Best Buy being watched over by hungry sales associates instead of just letting me enjoy the damn art. If they're going to be eyeballing distance to art, then they need guard rails or distance labeled on the floor (which they had, but ironically for exhibits that weren't worth approaching). I couldn't read the plaques for a lot of the art due to this distance rule that I was constantly reminded of and a lot of the art I wanted to see I had to give up and go home and look at it on my computer so I could appreciate the minute detail of it, instead of when I actually saw it face to face in real actual life. Literally I would be the only person in the room and a guard would stand shoulder to shoulder to me. I'm also disappointed that the art museum has more space for event hosting and dining than it does actual art, as when I emerged I told my friends I was ready to see the rest of it and was incredibly taken aback when they told me that that was it. It's also odd that there would be more evocative art for sale in the gift shop than what they would actually put up for display, but to each their own I guess. I went with a casual interest in the place and came out devastated at the state of modern art and how badly people are treated who are just trying to enjoy it.

Seriously, get the security guards to back off. I will not be returning if I'm going to be jostled and vultured over at every turn of the corner. It was most unwelcome and really put a bad taste in my mouth for ever wanting to come back. I want to support them but if I am going to be treated like the way I was then I'll go elsewhere. Also consider issuing tape measures to security guards or make fun souvenir measuring sticks for guests to carry around so that security guards can learn what two feet actually looks like because they'll need real cops eventually if the...