My very first tryst with the Museum of Modern Art — and I say first as there is too much of magic to fathom in one visit — was magical. If I were to spend another year of my life situated inside a space with little hope of going out and uncertainty being your gratuitous self in the house I would happily do so at the MoMA. The museum encompasses artworks that fall under the rubric of Modern Art, as simple as it may sound this place is an amalgamation of pieces that are stories in themselves. Each artwork curated and placed will evoke a different set of emotions as the pieces are puzzled together come from culturally diverse places and varied artistic sensibilities.
Every section is an interplay of sculptures, art, films, and photography introducing you to a visual environment that is immersive, playful, and meditative. It challenges the realms of what you consider to be art. Everyone will navigate the space in their own way shifting past different themes, mediums in their own quirky chronology. One encounters all kinds of visitors quiet, chatty, fast, slow, listeners, speakers but all of them are left intrigued by the museum space.
My takeaways as a first-time visitor and an absolute admirer of modern art were
- Art tells the best stories – I do not speak metaphorically when I say that immovable lifeless paintings communicate many details of movements and eras gone by. The Black History section of the museum made me understand nuances of their lives that even books, movies, and articles could not reflect.
- You aren’t alone – I always believed that art is extremely personal and is based on the thoughts of a single being; however most art pieces are about shared experiences. It may be influenced by events that a community has gone through. Some artworks resonated with questions of life and tugged away emotions like fear, anxiety, or feelings of being insignificant. Seeing these pieces tells you that there are others like you, in fact, a whole lot of people going through the same colors of life in different shades.
- Be Brave – Yayoi Kusama painted dots, just polka dots happily and unabashedly dots. Robert Rauschenberg made white paintings and Jackson Pollock just did what he loved and created stills of his movements for eternity. Morden Art truly teaches you to be your fearless self, accepting others’ perspectives whilst loving yours.