I had been wanting to go to one of the museums in the city for a very long time, but I never was able to go either because my friend or family found museums boring or the plan would just slip out of mind. So, when we were given the option of going to MOMA, I was kind of hoping that I somehow end up going to the museum rather than a poetry recital or reading. I am glad the turn of events made that happen and I got to visit this fascinating place.
I went right after my last class of the day to the museum, initially planning on staying there for only an hour, but I really couldn’t tear my eyes and curiosity away from the variety of exhibits that the museum had to offer. And inevitably I spent a good 3 hours at the museum looking at all of the exhibits from media and photography to sculptures and paintings. It was very interesting to see the differences between traditional and contemporary art, with the latter more focused on an individual idea, while the former was mostly based on ideas drawn from historical contexts.
The exhibit that captivated me the most was a contemporary art painting called “Muscular Paper”, and was made by David Salle. Here is an image of the painting below:
The reason why it struck me is because three very different and strong images are put together in a way that they strangely connect to each other. That’s the feeling I had when I first looked at the painting, and when I read the exhibition label, i was surprised to find that that was exactly the meaning of the exhibit that the painter had intended. The exhibition label revealed the painter’s belief and concept behind this painting: Different things in this world can relate to each other. It is a simple, yet deep and meaningful, concept of life. So many different things can be associated with this concept, most obvious of which, is that no matter how different we all are, we still can relate to each other.