rural gone MoMA
Three nights and four days in New York, and I’ve yet to be phased. I live for adventures. The rural ones. The urban ones. The literal dancing through the city ones.
But, today, while walking through the Museum of Modern Art, I couldn’t keep from recording my thoughts. So, here we are. Let’s do this.
...
Unfamiliar languages echo through the galleries. None more than a whisper. Yet collectively, the room is shouting. Knowing gazes, contemplating forehead wrinkles; some connecting, me struggling. Maybe I’m doing it wrong? Maybe I’m not as open-minded as I fancied. I pull the buds from my ears. Maybe Drake is influencing my perception?
Still, nothing.
The art, maybe, is the people: their clothes, the way some care profoundly, while others care very little - but maybe they care the most. I certainly do today. Sorel booties - my everyday errand kicks, walk down to the creek to fire a few practice rounds kicks, my wear in the car en route to the place before putting on heels kicks - paired with black, on black, on black, with perfectly touslled hair, matte Ray Bans. Read as: my interpretation of how to New York.
For a moment, I get it. I appreciate the talent. The hours. The commitment. Picasso, van Gogh, all artists I’ve been told to appreciate. [To be frank, the ones who held the inspiration for the wine and canvas classes.] The next moment, well, I clearly made something just like this in kindergarten.
So I stand at ease. My head tilts. My eyes squint.
And I struggle, still.
Then, I walked through the Steven Shore Gallery. An evolution of his photography through decades of styles and technologies.
In the well-lit corner overlooking 53rd street was a simple, elegant, seemingly unimpressive photo of Montana.
But was it?
In the peak hustle and bustle of life, Shore escaped for two years and ... went urban gone rural.
Our paths, in this gallery, were at a crossroads. He in Montana, me in the city. He doing the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it, evolving through the silence; me doing the same, weaving through coffee shops, happy hours, and never-sleeping cities, evolving through the noise.
Both looking for something.
He, clearly, finding it.
Me, still, looking.
