I have something to write about so I’m not going to wait until tomorrow to write. Today, believe it or not, I not only left my house, but I left the Bronx! I went to the Museum of Modern Art aka MOMA. It’s normally expensive, unlike the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, it is not pay what you want. That’s the reason I haven’t been there in ages. It just reopened from COVID-19 closing and they are making it free for several weeks. There’s limited admission and you have to get tickets in advance. I got mine two weeks ago. It takes only 46 minutes to get there from my house, the D train then walk two blocks.
I got two tickets, I figured I’d go with a friend, but none of the people I asked could make it, so I went alone. Museums were the first thing I went to by myself, before movies, converts, or sporting events. I started museuming alone in college. I got to know the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art like I know the back of my hand. I never visited MOMA as often. The first time I went was with school, a bit odd that my parents never took me as they brought me up living at the AMNH and MMoA. The painting I remember most from that trip was Picasso’s, The Three Musicians. Picasso became an immediate favorite of mine. In middle and high school, I decided that I was a fan of abstract art. I had a print of a Kandinsky on my wall and loved Pollack. By the time I graduated college I had outgrown that. I know longer thought of it as cool and rebellious. I wanted art that could keep growing on me.
The advantage of going to a museum by yourself is that you go at your own pace. You linger where you want to linger and go more quickly past the works that don’t speak to you. I decided to be open minded and give every piece I saw a chance. Instead of racing to my favorite rooms, I looked at every piece as I came to it. I started at the first-floor sculpture garden, where I took my only picture.
That’s Picasso’s She Goat. Notice that she’s pregnant. I recognized it immediately. The museum has an online audio tour and I listened to explanations of many of the works including that one. I never knew that it was made of odds and ends that he found around his house. It started with the stomach which was a wicker basket. Picasso’s kids would hide their toys otherwise they might find that their dad had incorporated them into a piece of art. He was a great artist, not a great father, a rotten husband and boyfriend too. I decided that was my only photo for the day. I wanted to stay inside the moment.
I then saw the exhibits on the second floor, the most modern pieces. I gave each of them a chance. There were some that made me think, “the creator wanted people to think he was profound more than he wanted to make art.” Others I loved. It’s easy to get lost in the maze of Keith Haring. You have to pay close attention if you want to see anything. Other pieces I tried to like but couldn’t. The I audio guides for these were museum security guards who are also artists. I discovered that those were not enlightening. They all seemed to be, I’m a graffiti artist and I see that this piece does the same things I do and has exactly the same message as mine. I love hearing background and context, like Picasso incorporating his kids’ toys; I’m not as fond of hearing other people’s interpretations of the art.
After finished the second floor I took the elevator to the top floor of exhibits, the fifth. That’s how I like to do museums. Start at the top and work my way down. I didn’t know what was on each floor. I didn’t check. Turns out that the top floor is the oldest 1880s-1940s, the modern equivalent of old masters. It was far more crowded there. I’m not the only one that prefers the less avant garde. Here’s where you walk into a room and see a picture you’ve known all your life, The Three Musicians, Chagall’s. I and the Village, Money’s Water Lilies, and most famous of all, Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I can stare at each of those for long stretches and keep finding new details to love. There were others by artists I didn’t know at all that I loved. They mix photography in with the paintings, which is how it should be, but it’s not how I remember it. Are there a lot more works by women than when I was young, or am I just noticing it now? I suspect both. One picture I remember that I didn’t see was Dali’s Persistence of Memory; I don’t know if it is temporarily not on exhibit, no longer in the collection, or if I somehow missed it. I tried to go to every room, but a few were closed. I love the surrealists. I could have mentioned Magritte’s The False Mirror as a work we all know. It’s so different seeing not a photo of the painting but the real thing. Magritte is a special favorite because my favorite playwright, Tom Stoppard, wrote a pay, After Magritte.
I spent so much time on the fifth floor that I didn’t have much time for anything else. The fourth floor covers 1940s to 1970s and includes much that I think of as trying to hard to be art, as opposed to art. On one of the audio explanations the docent says, “everything is art.” That’s the same as saying art is a meaningless term. I’m sorry, a solid blue rectangle is not going to inspire me. But there was much that I loved on the floor too. I wish I had time to see it all, but I didn’t. I didn’t even touch the third floor, a special exhibit. When they announced the museum was closing I was halfway through the 4th floor and headed down to the first where the only bathrooms are. I spent almost four and a half hours there. It would have been four and a half, but I couldn’t go right in. I had to walk from 7th avenue to the museum, not far, a little less than two avenue blocks. But I walked in quickly and in the sun. When I got to the museum they took my temperature. It wasn’t my internal temperature, it was my skin temperature, taken from a distance. I was not allowed in as they were afraid I had a fever. This is a COVID-19 precaution. They know this happens and told me to wait a few minutes and try again. I walked to an empty area and found an AC vent in the floor. I stood over that with my face to the vent. That cooled me down. Taking temperature is not an effective way of guarding against infection. People are most infectious before they get a fever. They do it because they want to do something. If nothing else it gives people confidence. I made it through the second time.
I could write a lot more about art, but I won’t. You don’t want to read my interpretations any more than I wanted to hear those of narrators of the audio tour. I need to go to more museums. I felt safe inside. It wasn’t very crowded, and everybody had a mask. The infection rate in New York is low enough that this should be safe if the building has adequate ventilation. Does it? I have to take that on trust. New York State has been so careful that the odds are that my trust is not misguided. So much of dealing with COVID-19 involves trust in the government. I trust Cuomo, I do not trust Trump, but I trust Fauci. I’m not going to do this every day. It’s all about cumulative rate. I’m going to the Morgan Library on Friday, but I will be spending much of my time in the courtyard. There’s a lot of space between total lockdown and free-for-all. I’m staying closer to lockdown but make exceptions.
Wise Madness 