Moments at MoMA

I spent an afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art about a week ago and it really got me thinking. I originally went to see the Rain Room, but the line was two hours long so I just meandered around for an hour and a half.

While I was exploring, I remembered the last time I had been to MoMA, in a large group towards the beginning of the year. One of my best friends, Nidhi, was obsessed with one of Dali's paintings. When we finally found it, she just stood in front of it for at least half an hour and cried. Just looking at the thing. The rest of us kind of laughed at her and ran around taking hipster looking pictures and instagraming our hearts out, proving that we were cultured.

On my solo trip, I started out doing the same thing, but somewhere between floor 3 and floor 4, I realized that I was spending much more time looking at the art through the lens of my iPhone and hardly any just looking at it with my own eyes. What's the point of that?

Once I put the phone down, I was able to really enjoy and appreciate what I was looking at. No matter what filter you put on it, nothing will ever look as cool as a Pollock, Monet, Picasso, Dali, or Cezanne (who I discovered is one of my favorites) does in real life. I flashed back to Nidhi (who notably doesn't have an instagram) standing in front of that painting and thought, maybe she has the right idea after all.

So, I'm sorry there aren't more expertly cropped and enhanced cell shots of my trip, but I'm learning to be okay with it. You'll just have to go look for yourself.