Two weeks ago we went to MoMA.
I've been to a lot of NYC museums, but it was my first time going to this one. Can you believe that I have lived here for 15 years and I've never been to MoMA? Well, mostly because I've always been under the impression the modern art is not for me. Boy, was I surprised. But more on that later.
We went on a Thursday night, when the building has extended evening hours. There was a party going on in the Atruim. All sorts of Artsy Hipsters were milling around and participating in a photo booth exhibit thingy:
You can see the white square on the left, right? That's where folks were lining up to be filmed for 2 minute stretches. I'm not sure if it was exactly 2 minutes, but it was enough time to bust thru most people's facade. Interesting. Like, people would get in front of the camera and play "cool"...but eventually they would run out of ways to present themselves. In my opinion, most people crumbled before the camera-man shut off the projection on the wall. The people being filmed couldn't see themselves up on the wall, but you could really sense their thought-journey:
"Yeah, I'm cool. Just getting filmed here, no biggie. I'm a model! I'm a rock star! I'm the edgiest and...geez, is this thing still on? Okay, I'll just stand here. Um. Okay. Um. Yeah."
I thought everyone ended up looking self conscious in the end. It made me think about social networking and the shaping of our internet personas while I watched this. It's easy to create a vibe about yourself online...but no matter what you write or post, eventually cracks will appear and the real you will reveal itself.
Don't you think? For example, I woke up in the middle of the night recently to correct two words that I realized that I wrote on my blog without thinking. I wrote "lame-o" and "crazy" to describe two things...and that's not okay for me. Where was my brain?
I don't want to be the kind of person who says, "That was lame" or "so gay" or uses the word "crazy" haphazardly. It's something I decided to change about myself last year and I just caught myself in a slip-up.
So, it's pretty easy to go into your blog or fb profile or twitter account and clean things up, but the stuff you choose to clean up? It was there. It was there for anyone to see (and judge) until you deleted it.
Doesn't that make you feel a little self-conscious?
This exhibit in the Atrium made me think about that stuff.
Art is deep.
Since we can only handle about 2 hours max in a museum, Fred did a little online research and felt we'd enjoy the 5th floor the most. This is art from 1900 - 1940ish. The first picture I saw was "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh!
This was a joy to me because my parents lived in the Netherlands for awhile and I just love that country. Yep, I love stroopwafels, bikes, soccer, gouda cheese, delft pottery...and Vincent Van Gogh!
Also, the cruise ship that I used to work on was a Dutch ship and the theater that was my "home" was the Van Gogh Theater. It was the same colors as this painting and the walls had gorgeous mosiac tiles that looked like the swirly sky in this painting.
I was a little emotional when I saw it: the real "Starry Night"! Right here in my own city! I didn't know it lived at MoMa.
I saw lots of other famous pictures, too. Things that I saw in books when I was a little girl:
Dali
(I had a textbook in first grade with a print of this and I used to stare at it and let my mind wander during class. I defintely remember that.)
Monet
(Oh my gosh! The famous Water Lilies. Who knew?)
Picasso
(The Museum has lots of Picasso paintings but this one is especially magical. I watched people stop dead in their tracks - almost in surprise - and take in this painting for minutes at a time. Captivated. It's very...provocative, don't you think?)
Matisse
(Okay - I'm a little embarrassed with the last one. I didn't read the plate next to the painting before making a snap judgement that it looked like an elementary school finger painting. Then I read the plate and was all, "Henri Matisse. Oh. Oops." -- I am hardly in the position to make snap judgements about art. I was humbled.)
This one was my favorite:
"The Bathroom" by Pierre Bonnard
I like the colors...and it's a little voyeuristic. Kind of sweet and intriguing at the same time. I often look into people's windows when I am riding the subway above ground (hey, you leave the window wide open? fair game!) and I've never seen anything like this, but I wonder if other window-watchers on the subway do see a little piece of private life like this sometimes.
Oh. This is funny: see the picture on your right?
I saw Fred from across the room listening to his little audio device. He checked the number and listened again. Then, he stood there for ages.
Weird.
Finally, I went over to him and said, "What are you looking for?" and he said, "The audio program tells me there's a FACE in this painting and to start looking by finding the EAR near the BLUE SQUARE."
and then he stopped for a few moments and then was all,
"FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD, DO YOU SEE A BLUE SQUARE?!"
Of course, he was looking at the wrong painting.
So I nudged him and was all,
"Um, honey? I think the picture you were listening about is the one of the left. Not the right."
And it was like the skies opened and the angels sang:
"OH!"
He didn't even see the painting on the left the whole time that he was standing there.
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We quickly walked thru the 4th floor. That was more modern than the 5th floor. Lots of Jackson Pollack-y stuff: the kind of stuff that my brain automatically thinks of when I think of modern art. (Like, a big slap of yellow paint on a brown background and it's worth a million bucks and...what? you're kidding right?)
2nd and 3rd floors are sculpture and photography -- we didn't even get to those. But the 5th floor alone was worth the pricey price of admission. I'll admit, I do think that $20 for admission is a bit steep, but my shock at seeing so many of the paintings that I saw in books when I was little kinda made it worth it.