MoMA offers a free audio tour to “help” visitors understand what the artist is trying to express.
While helpful with some, you end up looking like a jackass to those brave souls who ventured forth sans audio guidance as you stare at an untitled canvas painted blue by Yves Klein for five minutes listening to a montage of monologues composed by various “experts”.
“Monochrome abstraction—the use of one color over an entire canvas—has been a strategy adopted by many painters wishing to challenge our expectations of what an image can and should represent. Klein likened monochrome painting to an “open window to freedom.” He worked with a chemist to develop his own particular brand of blue. Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium, he called it “International Klein Blue.” Klein adopted this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness that reflected his own peculiar utopian vision of the world.”
Yves Klein, Untitled blue monochrome, 1959.
I enjoy following kids and listening to their reactions to each piece they encounter. It’s in the same spirit of speed dating, they either “love it” or “hate it”. You will either hear, “Oooh…that’s cool!” or “Eeew…that’s crap!” What’s hilarious is that they are usually dead-on while being extremely economical with their word choice.
One room was entirely empty and the halogen lights overhead flickered on and off every ten seconds. Everyone stopped and soaked in the creativity. One couple had found a crumbled scrap of paper and were trying to decipher it’s meaning in the context of the barren room with faulty lighting. As I approached them, they realized it was just a piece of trash some inconsiderate visitor had dropped. They quickly vacated the room to avoid eye contact with me, knowing I knew they had just applied their art history knowledge to garbage.
I was tempted to stick my gum on the wall and attach the wrapper to it and wait for someone to unravel the meaning behind it.
I wouldn’t be shocked if I walked into an installation displaying a diorama of a middle-aged couple’s bedroom with two live models in coital activity with a group of tourist surrounding them holding their trusty audio guide to their ear.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I like that they (you?) black-boxed the dude’s balls, but not his cock. Classy.
New FCC regulations…Google it!
And I’ll be damned if he ain’t holding a remote control. That’s not Love is Blind. That’s Love is Best Served During the Halftime Report.
is that a remote in his hand, or did you black box his fingers, too?
How is this the main focus? Is everyone so single minded that they can only focus in on the old farts having sex.
The main focus should be that MoMa is filled with dumb bastards who have the time to listen to a speech on every painting.