Becoming the Art Giant (with giants) at MoMA

December 24, 2009 in photography | 4 comments

On December 23 (I finally!!!) went to MoMA. It’s funny how everyone always positions themselves relative to the art to snap photos to make it real. To concretize their experience. To never forget. I find it really awkward. So here is me posing, hiding my face in front of well known paintings by some of mainstream ‘greats’ like Pollock, Warhol and Rothko.

Other people started taking photos of me as I was posing, to have their own ‘memory of art’ I guess.

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  1. decantering’s avatar

    decantering on December 25, 2009 at 02:23

    interesting take – but is it really different from the other concretizing effort, when you know that behind it all it’s still you?

    (I hope this isn’t coming off as snarky, I don’t mean to – I am just genuinely wondering. I find myself not bringing the camera with me at all to art galleries anymore because of the said catch-22, just my notebook)

    /and merry christmas, if you celebrate it.

  2. Magda O!’s avatar

    Magda O! on December 27, 2009 at 22:34

    I’m not suggesting it’s any different or the same really. I mean, I was at MoMA and all these people are just taking photos over & over again & it got me thinking of Benjamin’s Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction & how visual art is so different than recorded music as it’s so limited (sometimes even to one copy) but with photography it’s so easily recreated and we don’t have to take the time to look at the art because we can just take a photo with it, and there it is and there we are – I wasn’t trying to make a political statement for the sake of it, but just be playful with the art, which is why I specifically only chose to stand in front of the large pieces by the ‘giants’ of the art world and not any of the pieces.

    I guess it is different in the way I approached the art work and how I decided to become part of it, by trying to even blend it with some of them. The last piece I also chose to pose differently because of the message behind me. It was just really fun to be honest, and I enjoyed being allowed to interact with paintings, something not really done or encouraged in traditional art spaces.

    And you’re definitely not coming off as snarky! I’m so happy to have some opinion on what I say/post, I need it. I find it so boring when people are too passive to say anything that might be deemed as bitchy or dissenting or whatever, ya know?

  3. ryan manning’s avatar

    ryan manning on January 21, 2010 at 06:21

    i like this project