I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York City during Winter Break, something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time. Art museums are intended to function as a preservation of cultural expression, available to anyone.
In actuality, art museums aren’t for everyone, at least in terms of interest. There are a great number of people who would rather claw their own eyes out than spend the day in an art museum and that is perfectly acceptable. I have a solid background in art history, and I was thrilled to have the chance to finally see some of my favorite works of the artistically modern period in person. The MoMA contains such works as Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” and several works by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Naturally, I anticipated the space in front of those works to be the most crowded, but I was not, perhaps naively, prepared to see a horde of people in front of each major work not clamoring to get a chance to stand and reflect, but to take selfies in front of the painting before crossing it off the list and moving on.
At the risk of sounding like an art purist fed up with this generation and every subsequent one’s obsession with documenting themselves, I will sum up my feelings thusly: If you insist on viewing important works of art through the camera of a smartphone and not through your own eyes, at least turn the lens on the painting itself.
Obviously major art museums can’t accommodate every person who would enjoy the chance to stand alone in quiet contemplation before the works of the masters. But it may be time to ban more than one photograph per person, in the interest of thinning crowds and stopping visitors from standing with a slack jaw, taking photo after photo of “Nude Descending a Staircase” only for the sake of being able to say that they saw it. I guess that’s the bigger problem, at least in my eyes.
The vast majority of people I saw that day didn’t appear interested in seeing art to be emotionally moved, or to understand artistic expression, or to learn something. They were there to collect photographic evidence proving they had seen something they think they’re meant to, with their face in the frame. Maybe “Starry Night” isn’t your thing. If it isn’t, that is perfectly okay. Don’t spend money to go to a museum because you feel culturally obligated.
The New York Times reported this week that the MoMA would begin the process of completely renovating its famed 53rd Street location, guaranteed to attract millions of more visitors with the newly expanded space. Upon hearing the news, I could only hope that the new visitors wouldn’t do what I witnessed one patron doing: putting her hands on the frame of Van Gogh’s most famous work to better pose herself for her new Facebook profile photo.
