This post doesn't have terribly much to do with music, I don't think. On Sunday, my wife and I and some good friends decided to go up to New York City. Our first stop was MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. It was exceptionally crowded, being very close to Times Square where all of the New Year's activities would take place the next day.*
What really struck me about this visit was the number of people who had cameras in the museum. I guess digital cameras are now so inexpensive and small that anyone can afford them and bring them anywhere. I always thought that cameras were forbidden in museums: something about the repeated flashes slowly damaging the paint. But the visitors here were snapping away.
One of the things I enjoy about going to museums (something I don't do often enough, I'm afraid) is being able to enjoy everything that a photograph can't show you about a painting. I saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and was amazed at how tiny it is! Based on reputation alone, I assumed that it would at least be the size of my closet door. (I'm not going to tell you how big it really is--you'll have to go to the museum for that!). My friend and I were admiring the size and the texture of a Jackson Pollock painting (click on the link and look at the size of this thing). When you get really close to the painting, you can see (as my friend called it) real geography--hills, valleys, etc., of paint. It's so massive, too, that when you get close enough to it, it floods your peripheral vision. All you can see is paint all around you.
A quotation from one of the descriptions of a surrealist painting (I don't recall the painting at the moment) said that one of the main tenets of surrealism was to stimulate the process of free association. My friend and I got to talking about "what does this painting do?" as opposed to "what's this supposed to be?" It seems to me that the former is a more interesting, appropriate question especially to be asked of modern, abstract art.
At any rate, I was disturbed by the number of people who were experiencing these paintings through a camera lens. It is almost as if they were simply collecting things to enlarge their collection. At some point last semester, I began reading Philip Auslander's book Liveness which changed how I look at performance (and media) in the present day. It occurred to me that maybe these photographers at MoMA felt a certain safety around the art by viewing it through their camera. When they get home, they unload the camera onto their laptop, put the pictures on MySpace or Facebook, and these stunning paintings become just another image on the internet, like the New Year's Eve revelries that doubtless were added the next day. Experiencing the paintings as paintings was difficult for many of the people. Experiencing the paintings as uniform images on MySpace or iPhoto is much closer to what they expect.
*Despite being so crowded, the crowds (and the 3000 mile distance) didn't prevent me from spotting TTU's trombone professor among the visitors! Small world...
What really struck me about this visit was the number of people who had cameras in the museum. I guess digital cameras are now so inexpensive and small that anyone can afford them and bring them anywhere. I always thought that cameras were forbidden in museums: something about the repeated flashes slowly damaging the paint. But the visitors here were snapping away.
One of the things I enjoy about going to museums (something I don't do often enough, I'm afraid) is being able to enjoy everything that a photograph can't show you about a painting. I saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and was amazed at how tiny it is! Based on reputation alone, I assumed that it would at least be the size of my closet door. (I'm not going to tell you how big it really is--you'll have to go to the museum for that!). My friend and I were admiring the size and the texture of a Jackson Pollock painting (click on the link and look at the size of this thing). When you get really close to the painting, you can see (as my friend called it) real geography--hills, valleys, etc., of paint. It's so massive, too, that when you get close enough to it, it floods your peripheral vision. All you can see is paint all around you.
A quotation from one of the descriptions of a surrealist painting (I don't recall the painting at the moment) said that one of the main tenets of surrealism was to stimulate the process of free association. My friend and I got to talking about "what does this painting do?" as opposed to "what's this supposed to be?" It seems to me that the former is a more interesting, appropriate question especially to be asked of modern, abstract art.
At any rate, I was disturbed by the number of people who were experiencing these paintings through a camera lens. It is almost as if they were simply collecting things to enlarge their collection. At some point last semester, I began reading Philip Auslander's book Liveness which changed how I look at performance (and media) in the present day. It occurred to me that maybe these photographers at MoMA felt a certain safety around the art by viewing it through their camera. When they get home, they unload the camera onto their laptop, put the pictures on MySpace or Facebook, and these stunning paintings become just another image on the internet, like the New Year's Eve revelries that doubtless were added the next day. Experiencing the paintings as paintings was difficult for many of the people. Experiencing the paintings as uniform images on MySpace or iPhoto is much closer to what they expect.
*Despite being so crowded, the crowds (and the 3000 mile distance) didn't prevent me from spotting TTU's trombone professor among the visitors! Small world...