Walking through the modern art wing on the second floor of the Met with Sara C, the 27 year old art history major and graduate student now working as an art conservationist, she fills up the silence trying to connect me to art I feel little connection to. Like African and Chinese art, modern art does very little for me. It's mostly splashes of color that doesn't have the resonance to hold my attention, to inspire me.
Sara C fills up the audible space recounting David Smith
's alcoholism and the car crash that killed Jackson Pollock. Three teenage girls, recent Abercrombie and Fitch escapees, take a non-flash photo of the fourth, who is standing in front of "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)" which is a dark oak tag canvas splattered in black and white paint. The girl's black tank top, white skirt, and oak tag tan skin help her fade into the art work. She is a surprise chameleon and her existence connects me to the piece in a way I couldn't have been otherwise.
As Sara C and I round the divider Jasper Johns' bleached white American Flag grabs my attention. This is the first work to feel like a piece of art since we entered this wing, it is a tree branch of interesting jutting into the fast flowing river of boredom of the modern art exhibit. Robert Rauschenberg's found art piece grabs Sara's "Hey, Modern Art Isn't So Bad" narrative. It is interesting in an abstract sort of way, which I suppose was the point. He put a ladder and some paint together, and although it wasn't something I'd necessarily think to do, I am not sure it warrants a spot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Despite Sara's interesting stories about what a great guy Roucshenberg is, I listen with only one ear. Instead Ellsworth Kelly's "Spectrum V" has stolen my attention. The chill of the room and noise of explanation are a sharp contrast to the vibrant swaths of color on the white wall. The big colorful rectangles are startling. I may not like it. But it does inspire me. I sit down in view of it to write the entry up to this point.
All in all, I'd suggest that if you are curious person going to an art museum, your best bet is to take along an art history major to custom create a tour for you. Sara and I spent the afternoon at the museum. We quickly realized that although we are both (please pardon the term Sara) "Liberal Arts Kids," we see very different things. Sara looks at the pieces themselves, fascinated by the luminescence of an alabaster, or the curve in a sarcophagus statue. I, on the other hand, will read the blurbs of explanation first, then look up to see the piece, and often then look for further answers in either the other blurbs or in Sara's vast art knowledge. Nonetheless, she and I made good museum companions. We meandered through Egyptian, entirely skipped medieval, and power walked through Early American only pausing for me to look at the "people pictures" I am so fond of. And even though we had very different favorite exhibits, we spent time wherever each wanted to go.
After the museum we met Erin, the EHS staffer, for dinner in Union Square. The three of us went to the Ramen restaurant Erin and I had been talking about since we met four weeks ago on the Coney Island / China Town weekend. The three of us wandered around town and ended up meeting a friend of Erin's named Matt. The four of us hung out for several hours and then split up for the night after making plans to spend tomorrow being artsy in Central Park.
