Sunday, July 12, 2015

Contemplation 2.0

"Head of a Woman" by Pablo Picasso
My streak of normal, relaxed mornings ended today.

I woke up the way they do in movies: extremely – and I do mean extremely – late and flustered. To help you get a better sense of how late I was, I had missed the 9:30 Sunday church service I had planned on going to altogether. After what I deemed a good amount of time spent wringing my hands, I called Ms. Thrift and notified her that I would try to go to the 11:30 service instead and then meet up with her afterwards. Church service was wonderful again, with a great deal more people those who had been at the 9:30 service last week. (I guess I’m not the only one who wakes up later than earlier. Even now it doesn’t take too much effort for me to remember the franticness of checking my watch in the morning. I really did feel like Jim Carrey in the mask when his eyes pop out of their sockets and not in a good way either.) In the end, though, it worked out nicer than I imagined it would have and I can't complain about the extra sleep either.

So, when the kind doorman at the Lucerne asked me how I was, I said I was doing well. And the day got even better as time wore on. The majority of it was dedicated to viewing the Museum of Modern Art, more conveniently shortened to the “MOMA.” Whilst it was evidently smaller than the Met in size and volume, five hours was still not enough to look at everything inside the museum. (We did stop for “tea and cake” in the middle though, so make that four and a half hours.)

The original.
Like all of the other museums I had visited beforehand, I was blown away. The art expressed through various mediums including and beyond the traditional ones were simply remarkable. I was able to view the original “Starry Night” painting by Vincent Van Gogh in all of its nuanced splendor. (I’m going to be honest; I thought it was going to be much larger.) I was also able to see the works of other artists I had never heard of before like Lawrence Weiner, Niele Toroni, Lynda Benglis, and Jean Dubuffet.  

As I have already said, I can’t explain the things I saw in a way where I feel like my words do the work any justice. Each piece has so much meaning waiting to be derived from it, or maybe even no meaning (which is meaningful in it of itself). I just don’t have the understanding or the space to attempt to talk about each one currently. But it’s not that I don’t want to try. What I’m really trying to say is that you have to see and experience it yourself.
Museum staff are always so fascinating.

We were promptly kicked out of the museum in the middle of an installation and I hadn’t even seen an entire floor’s worth of art in the museum yet! (I do plan on going again later on in the week, maybe with Izabel if she’s up for it.) From there, we walked some more, lingering by the Rockefeller Center, before having dinner at – guess where? – Five Guys, not that I’m complaining because Five Guys is great. I just thought it was funny since I'd already been there twice in the past.

The MOMA had not yet seen the last of us and we returned for a free jazz concert by the Dahi Divine Quintet. The music, as expected, was phenomenal. The lighting and ambience in the MOMA’s medium-sized sculpture garden was spot on and the evening was beautiful, a bit sticky if I do say so myself, but still beautiful.
"Building Facades" by Jean Dubuffet
I returned back to campus becoming more conscious of the fact that I hadn’t seen any of my cohort members the entire day by the second. And although at first it was slightly weird not seeing them at all and knowing that they were all hanging out together without me *coughs,* I didn’t feel as though I was missing out; I had the pleasure of seeing and tasting and hearing and experiencing so many stunning things that there was no space left to feel as though I had missed out on anything.

So while I didn’t get to go see Yale with the others, I was glad that I decided to stay back and go to church and the MOMA and Five Guys and back to the MOMA again to hear the quintet and then the hot un-air-conditioned metro car on the way back to Columbia.

 I was more than glad.
One of my favorite Van Gogh's.
A mini Duchamp collection.

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