Reading Day 1
The modernEJR #essay, #dialogue, #museum
Hmm I don’t know? To take an active part in the present, isn’t that more in line with a contemporary way of behaving? What if you swap the modern with the contemporary… like: ‘to be contemporary means to go with the present flow of things.’ My mother (and these are her words) likes modern art, as in historical artists that are mostly dead, preferably in a museum for modern art with included audio tours. Whenever I take her to see an exhibition (i.e. she takes me, because the exhibitions I’d like to see don’t have audio tours), she takes hours. Carefully listening to everything the mechanic guide has to tell her. Intricate back stories are told giving her information on the personal lives of the artists, like a friend coming over for tea and some steamy gossip. But besides the gossip she will be educated on the meaning of color, texture, material qualities, and of course the history of the museum building will not be missed. Usually we go our two separate ways, and decide to meet after a good few hours (when my mom is finally finished with her seminar in aesthetic and cultural understanding) in the museum shop or cafe. She will be able to give me a lecture on what she has just seen (or heard), but somehow I always wonder if she has really experienced art or if she really liked it. Or, if the contemporary museum of modern art uses our collective memory and understanding of what and what not to find aesthetically pleasing as a tool to tempt the mindless masses with a buffet of bitesize bits. Delicious art snacks, with a nice story. Entertaining, palatable, easily understood, and quick. Unfortunately, these are not very
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