My NY-LON: MOMA Madness

August  2015
A month ago today, I spent my last evening in London walking across the Millennium Bridge. It was one of those rare summer nights when the breeze is still warm at 9pm and the setting sun has washed the whole city in a soft electric pink. The Bankside Power Station (Tate Modern) was bold and black against the pastel sky, oblivious to my sentimental gaze.  I’ve made pilgrimages to this cathedral of modern art for years, and while I have been intrigued, delighted, and challenged by its displays, it’s always been the structure itself - one of architect Giles Gilbet Scott’s many achievements (we can thank him for Battersea Power Station and the iconic red telephone booth too) - that has captivated me most.

I was carrying this memory with me yesterday when I visited New York’s MOMA in the middle of a fantastic thunderstorm that turned the afternoon sky black. I didn’t go with the intention of comparing MOMA to TATE, but once inside I could help but notice the parallels and disparities. Both have tremendous entrances; the Tate’s Turbine Hall is a vast, soaring, ominous space, and MOMA’s broad foyer is almost intimidating in its clean, crisp bleach-white lines. In both cases, the museums seem to invite us to enter, while simultaneously warning us away.

Inside, swarms of French teenagers clogged the escalators and lazed on gallery benches exactly in the same way they do at any one of London’s major tourist spots eleven months out of the year. In fact, during the three hours I spent at MOMA, I heard more French than any other language.

After two hours of elbow-jockeying just to see others take joyous photos of themselves in front of Warhols and Pollocks, I took a seat, and allowed myself to zen-out in the center of the MOMA madness. I began to observe my fellow visitors, occasionally eavesdropping on their conversations and following their paths around a space. At first glance, visitors seem to move around blankly and without purpose, rarely stopping to really look at a painting, let alone read a label. After about five minutes, however, I noticed patterns in movement and repetition in conversations.  I watched at least four people gravitate suddenly toward Kazmir Malevich’s Suprematism: White on White, where they  remained transfixed, seemingly unaware of the dizzying crowds around them. I actually timed one guy at two minutes, still and silent, not taking photos, not reading the label, just staring into its milky geometry. Minutes later, I stood behind a couple of middle aged men who were trying to puzzle out Gino Severini’s Armored Train in Action.

“Where’s the train?”
“I just see a jungle”
“Wait, those are guys with guns!”
“Man, the more you look the more you see.”

I couldn’t agree more. We museum professionals rarely spend time simply looking at our audiences, observing their behavior, their moments of irritation, befuddlement, or joy. That's a shame, since our visitors have as much to teach us as the art and artifacts we mount within our galleries' four walls.

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