MOMA

Went to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York today, for the first time since it reopened. I’d heard it was expensive now, but it really wasn’t too bad. A quick second mortgage and I was good to go. No, just fooling. Actually, I got in for free, since one member of our party volunteers at another museum. We haughtily breezed past the plebeian suckers waiting in line (and it was a long line). I couldn’t believe so many members of the American public were lining up to see art … and it turns out they weren’t. Everyone in the museum was European. We mostly stuck to the “old school” wing, where I am able to awe onlookers with my modest art knowledge by successfully identifying pieces by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso, Gauguin, and by making perspicacious art comments such as “This is pointillism” or “This counterpoints the meaning of the underlying metaphor” or “This was done with paint.”

Actually, that reminds me of the first time I went to MOMA, as a teenager. I encountered Duchamp’s famous bicycle wheel bolted to a stool. It really baffled me. What the heck was it supposed to be? I just stood there staring at it. I stood so still and concentrated so hard that one woman asked if I was part of the exhibit. Shortly thereafter, a docent attempted to allay my perplexity. He came up beside me and explained dismissively, “It’s just a bicycle wheel on a stool.”