I wasn’t quite sure how visiting a museum had anything to do with my experience at Baruch until I set foot in the Whitney.
We began at Alexander Calder’s hypermobility exhibition, a friend from Pratt Institute and I. Her assignment was more direct: take photos. I shadowed her across the top floor of the museum aimlessly, all the while searching inside of myself for the sort of intellectual comment that I imagined was appropriate to make when viewing works of art. Despite living on museum mile, I harbored a love/hate relationship with galleries and studios alike. As much as I appreciate the innovations of art, I can never express myself the way I’d like to when discussing what I view. And so usually, I don’t.
However, when we left the hall of hypermobility we ascended to an entire floor which stirred my inner activist: the Incomplete History of Protest exhibition. All my self-consciousness evaporated as I immersed myself in the history before me, the backstories and objections of previous generations outlined in an array of text and color. Each piece only deepened my excitement, and I soon found that I was the one directing our steps. My previous questions– should I have read the blurbs beside each work before looking at the art, or done it the other way around? Should I have been analyzing? Was there a right and a wrong way to go around an art museum?– were all ultimately forgotten. I chose to live in the moment instead.
Through this process, I was reminded of how the fate of my personal experience rests entirely in my hands. When I chose to immerse myself in the art around me rather than over-think my actions or downplay my time in the museum, I learned about how these moments translated to my first-semester experience at Baruch.
I want to take everything in just like I did at the Whitney. I want to be a full and active participant, never-mind my own inner doubts about whether or not I’m doing things “properly”. I learned that there is no way more proper than to just go for it. And that’s what I vow to do, in college and beyond.
