Yesterday my husband Chris and I went to an art museum. Our kids are away at camp, so we thought it was a good time to get some culture. After all, there are only so many times you can watch Sex Sent Me to the ER on TLC before drool starts pooling on your chin. (One. One is the amount of times you can watch Sex Sent Me to the ER before drool starts pooling on your chin.) So, feeling rather sophisticated, off we went.
We walked into the museum hoping to be inspired.
We walked out of the museum hoping we could reverse the credit card charges.
Because while the museum itself is gorgeous, some of its collection left us shaking our heads. Like really shaking our heads. Like things were bouncing around inside our skulls we were shaking our heads so much. I know modern art is a perennial thing to make fun of and of course we’re both loathe to be the stereotypical dumb American philistines who look at modern art and say, “What the hell? My kid coulda done that,” and yet—
What the hell, my kid coulda done this:
“Is that just…tile stacked on pallets?” I asked Chris with my index finger carefully placed under my lip so I appeared smart.
“Maybe to you it is,” he whispered, with his index finger carefully placed under his lip so he appeared smart, “but what it actually represents is man’s endless, futile struggle against God, the devil and nature.”
“It does?” I replied with my index finger now scratching my ear so I appeared to be a hillbilly.
“Oh, hell no,” he answered with his index finger now checking movie listings on his iPhone. “I think it looks like our stupid garage.”
Which it definitely does because we’re currently having two bathrooms remodeled and there’s tile stacked everywhere:
I showed the museum tile picture to our contractor Jimmy this morning and he yelled, “Hey! I’m an artist! Who knew?” Then I suggested that he apply for a grant after he reinstalled our toilets and we had a good laugh until I tripped on a hammer and needed Neosporin.
Here’s yet another highlight from the museum:
I know to you it may look like a few squares of copper tile someone forgot to finish installing, but it’s so much more than that. In fact, the plaque next to it reports that, “The flawed industrial character of the copper plates negates any pretension of classic sculptural processes, and focuses attention instead on the natural weathering of the material as a record of its own history.”
Shit, if that’s the case, I’m going to start charging admission to our bathroom and then hire a few docents to quietly walk around in blazers reminding people to keep their hands to themselves and not touch the objets d’art. Don’t believe me? Then take a look at my masterpiece as of this morning:
“The missing pieces of flooring and exposed plumbing reflect the struggle between the industrial world and the artist’s celestial life as well as also commenting on the fact that Larry the Tile Installer said ‘Fuck it’ and knocked off early to go fishing last Friday.”
Next up at the museum, Chris almost lost it when we saw a wrinkled piece of pink fabric hung on the wall. That’s it. A wrinkled piece of pink fabric. Hung on the wall. Per the museum, the fabric is an “unexpected and poetic use of materials that embraces the value of looking without prior judgment—of observing with an open mind.”
Per Chris, the fabric is “horseshit” and “Remind me again why didn’t we just go see Planet of the Apes?”
But then we finally came to an installation that didn’t look like something we had in our own house:
Of course I don’t need to tell you that the thousands of pennies, stack of communion wafers and ceiling made out of cow femurs is a comment on 18th century Jesuit missions in Argentina. You knew that, I’m sure. Who wouldn’t? But I admit that I didn’t much care for this art, and based on the sign next to it, neither do most museum visitors:
Maybe that’s why the docents we saw next to it were wearing glasses.
But even worse than paying $20 to look at framed pictures of white that expose the hypocrisy of the paradigm shifts prevalent in turn of the century marriages was the fact that on the one day we finally got sick of just sitting at home watching cat videos, on the one day we drove all the way downtown, paid for admission and paid for parking, what did we happen to see in the museum?
Cat videos.
Get me some pennies to throw.
It sounds like what these artists have isn’t so much artistic abilities as a really good dictionary and a talent for slinging philosophical bullshit. Which means I’m about to change careers and become an “artist,” because that’s gotta be better than my current gig.
This makes me happy. I took a history of modern art class in college and had to restrain myself, daily, from rolling my eyes constantly. If that makes me a hillbilly, I’ll just be over here scratching my ear.
Oh, girl! I went to the Guggenheim in 2006, and I STILL haven’t stopped talking about it. Two sinks drilled to a wall? A pile of Root Beer Barrel candies thrown on a floor?! One of my favorite things to do when I go to museums is take pictures in the modern room of any museum, just so I can remember what it is I want to complain about. I have started to like some of it, though, but the paintings, not the piles of junk. One side of that equation HAS TO be doing drugs in order to get that stuff into museums. Some modern art is, to quote the vernacular, totes ridic.
Perhaps I shall take a series of photos of the bruising on my knees, caused by the fall from my chair in uproarious laughter while reading your brilliant article. Yes, these photos shall hang on a blank wall in my home. Or in my bathroom.
Finally! A use for all of Nancy Kho’s Restoration Hardware catalogs!
We live in Chicago and took the kids to art Institute. I think my youngest was 4 at the time and the new modern wing had just opened. When we went in she yelled “this isn’t ART!”. My sentiments exactly.
You crack me up, finding cat videos at the museum. My husband’s theory about the Blanton is that they used all their money to construct the building and very little was left to procure exhibits. But sometimes they have great temporary exhibitions.
p.s. just showed hubby your pix and he said that your tile was more arty than the modern art:)
I think that the artists who make the modern art have secretly hidden video cameras in the galleries so that they can watch people’s reactions to it. Then and only then does it become art. It’s not the art itself but the patron’s reaction to it. They’re kind of sick that way :).
Your artistic bathroom was my favorite though. I am still cackling about that one – and jealous that you found a contractor that would actually come and do what they said they’d do (well, minus the weekend off and all. But hey.)
Wow! HOKGardner needs to get herself over there!
And throw pennies!
Oh Gosh who knew. My garage is a work of art! Created by Life itself! A flawless representation of the struggle between man’s desire for cleanseliness and the grim reality of his daily burdens.
And this is how the CSI:Cat series is going to make you the next Andy Warhol!
Wow, there’s art all over the damn place! I just had a flood under my sink: Man’s inhumanity to man. My toilet keeps running–music for the modern soul. It’s really about perspective ain’t it? Or I need to call a plumber.
Next time, just stay home and watch TLC with me.
You can watch eight full episodes of “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” before the drool starts pooling on your chin.
So I’ve been told.
(PS: The best time to accidentally give birth is while wearing stretch pants. So I’ve been told.)
Oh my goodness. Great post.. I actually wrote a similar one earlier this week about my own visit to MassMOCA last weekend. Of course, my boyfriend (who is a fan of modern art) thinks I’m a cretin because I don’t have a proper appreciation of the genius of Sol LeWitt.