Steppenchik

A series of posts inspired by visits to art museums. In an attempt to capture what I saw and what I felt, I’ll select three pieces that moved me most. 

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For years I’ve documented museum trips in a small green Moleskin notebook. Names of pieces that took my breath away. Names of artists to research later. A curious concept captured by the curator. Revelations about my own life or mood, sparked and inspired and validated by someone else’s questioning and grasping and searching for meaning. It’s deeply spiritual, visiting a good museum. I haven’t visited a synagogue in years but when I enter a gallery and start to read the description on the wall of what I’m about to see, I feel the most delicious combination of calm and excitement at the sheer opportunity of witnessing someone else’s interpretation of life, the world, and what the hell is going on. It’s life affirming. It’s divine.

There’s something about a trip to an art museum that lifts my spirits and reminds me what it’s like to feel alive. When I’m in the depths of depression, art is the only bulletproof remedy. It’s not a complete cure, but an effective short-term reprieve, like a balm or a salve that starts working instantly. For the entire time I’m inside the walls of an exhibit, it feels like I’m drinking water from a spring in a desert after years of thirst. That’s been the visceral power of art museums for me, as far back as I can remember and I suspect others feel the same.

Visiting MoMa with No Plan

I had no exhibit in mind; I simply needed a strong dose of art like a shot to the arm. I had to book tickets in advance, the new way to visit museums thanks to social distancing creating the need for limited capacity. Booking in advance turns an idea into a commitment. Rather than simply dreaming about visiting the MoMa, buying tickets online makes the experience immediately begin - turning it into an event to look forward to. Similar to how concerts used to feel on your calendar, back when live music was a thing. 

My phone died while I was there, adding another layer to the experience. I was singularly aware of the impact the art was having on me, rather than how it would look on Instagram. I was grateful for this. There’s something so irritating about walking through an exhibit, seeing people staring at artwork through their screens, or recording live video to share with others and also prove they were there...instead of just being there. 

Collection: 1970′s - Present

I hadn’t been to the MoMa since its renovation last year, so decided to explore one of the permanent exhibitions to reacquaint myself with the space. 

The three pieces that inspired me the most were all created by female artists. I didn’t realize it at the time. And as I write these words I realize how ridiculous it is for that to be a thing worth noticing. How unusual it is to see multiple works by female artists, beyond exhibits focusing on female artists. I wonder if the pieces that stood out to me the most did so because they were created by women, and there’s some form of shared experience that I’m responding to at a time of such loneliness and yearning for connection. Perhaps. 

In any event, here they are in order of appearance:

“Transparent Self Portrait” by Maria Lassnig, 1987 

A dreamy self-portrait with an ominous expression in a pastel color palette and expressive brush strokes. This piece most captured my current mood and emotional state, and would be the catalogue cover for today if not the entire month. I also love the title of this; yes it’s translucent in the paint treatment, with loosely applied stripes of color, and a lower section seemingly left unpainted with sections of the white canvas showing through. Yet it’s also a transparent representation of self. Totally exposed, open mouth, eyes staring into the distance in a slightly bewildered expression. The rectangular section over the top portion of the face floats like an extra window into the mind of the artist. 

It was in a gallery room named “Hardware/Software” featuring assorted works about “the body as a critical and vexed point of focus”.

[Composition-45-2011] by Shirana Shahbazi, 2011

A beautifully chromatic piece by a female German artist who was born in Iran. The composition is soothing and balanced, complementing the explosion of colors with a kaleidoscopic effect. Each fragment is smooth and solid, with rich, opaque, uniformly applied paint. The result is a vibrant, radiant work. 

This work is in a themed gallery called “Surface Tension”, including works that “reflect the fragmentation of the physical and digital worlds we inhabit, admitting the impossibility of a cohesive image”. 

  “Dear Data” by Giorgia Lupi and Stefani Posavec, 2015

A year-long project by two information designers in which they exchanged weekly postcards based on a different theme related to daily life. Each week they’d record their observations around the chosen theme, bringing those observations to life visually using colorful charts and symbols, custom designed for that particular week. For example, "A Week of Laughters” included an itemized list of each laughing incident, color-coded by the cause of the laughter, and with whom it was shared, over the course of a week. “Complaints” was another one, in which the subject and recipient of each complaint was recorded and expressed, visually. 

This afternoon I went on a long walk around the neighborhood. I wanted to listen to a podcast episode on On Being called “First Aid for Spiritual Seekers” and hadn’t been outside yet by 4pm. And as usual, without fail, I felt better after moving my body around, wandering around the streets and pausing the podcast every time I entered a store or paused to ponder something interesting. I haven’t written on this blog in a long time. I have no idea if anyone gets these posts automatically; I hope not. I might create a fresh one for the anonymity but for now this feels like a good place to store these observations and images while they’re fresh in my mind. 

Here’s what happened on my walk: 

1. I resisted buying coffee since I had bought one every day this week and am not currently working. But when I approached Thompkins Square Park and the light was just so perfect and the temperature was that mix of chilly yet warm, I caved and went to Ninth Street Espresso. 

2. Armed with a cold coffee, I headed down Avenue B to observe the “Open Street” that’s been blocked off from cars since the BLM protests began months ago. 

3. I passed a small well-lit gallery space called Ki Smith Gallery I had never noticed before. A man in a mask sat outside on a folding chair; inside were framed white prints with bold gesture drawings of a woman in various poses, using charcoal. The man was the artist, and he told me about the space. I told him I loved his work (which I did) but didn’t get a chance to ask him about it because social interaction is really exhausting and after five minutes of chatting about the space I was ready to move on. But I did like his work.  

4. I’ve been thinking about tea lately. Not drinking it so much as thinking about it and how I wish I wanted to drink it more. I have been craving some form of new “tea experience”, whatever that means, just putting that desire out into the universe and keeping my eyes open for opportunities to bring it to life. So when I passed by 29b Tea House, I went inside to look around. A guy was sitting (inside!) with a book, which instantly calms me. Just the sight of someone reading by themselves in a cafe does something to my nervous system. They apparently offer tea-infused cocktails until 11pm and I plan on returning.

5. Next I visited Exit 9, a gift shop. I am a sucker for gift shops, and took a quick internal index of dates coming up and possible reasons to buy a gift for someone. I might visit my friend Laura this weekend and found a book about Orcas for her baby, and a unicorn coloring book for her little girl. Plus a book called “How to Stay Human in a Fucked Up World” for myself. It had a testimonial by Tara Brach on the back which convinced me. I couldn’t resist. I need to know how.

6. Stumbled across another art gallery I never saw before, called Karma. It had only four paintings inside, one per wall. I fell in love with the aesthetic: flat shapes and simple lines created a mood that felt somewhat sad and slightly whimsical at the same time. A transparent polka dot scarf held up against an abstract horizon of grass. A headless woman crossing her arms over a see-through shirt made me think of my friend Sarah, who wears see-through shirts. Another part of the same gallery down the street had even more paintings by the same artist including a living room with books and an entertainment stand, with yellow triangles of light and shadow, everything feeling neat and in place. It comforted me. My work is so non-committal and loose.

7. I passed the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I’ve never been but always wanted to go. Sadly it’s closed due to covid and I loved their sign out front, “Remember that creativity inspires resilience, and poetry can help us endure the most challenging circumstances.”

The rest are churches, doors, a sculpture garden, Black Lives Matter signs, psychic studios, mosaics and graffiti. I made my way home feeling refreshed and inspired and alive.

Artist quotes from a book at Art + Hotel, a boutique art hotel I stayed at in Tel Aviv one night for my then-boyfriend’s birthday. Every floor had a different design by a local Israeli artist.