Going to the museum alone
When did you go to your first museum?
I was 17 when I went to my first art museum. I was Art Club President in high school and my classmates and I went to a museum in Dallas. Immediately, this became my happy place. How could I have been missing out? It was no surprise, though. I was a child of immigrants and going to art museums wasn’t an activity that my family and I did. When I first moved to New York City, I was always amazed at how many children I’d see at the MoMA and The Met, happily staring at art with their parents. I told myself that I would do the same if I ever had kids. I also saw this tweet this week and it’s been something that’s been on my mind for a while:
Edit: I reposted that tweet^ on Instagram and it sparked some interesting conversations. Like how geography can play a role in your exposure to art (e.g. you grew up in a small town far away from museums, or you grew up in NYC a train ride away from The Met). Or how we tend to see being “cultured” as knowing all about Western and European art, instead of also seeing telenovelas and Bollywood movies as important culture, too. Or how a lot of our parents maybe didn’t go to art school, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t creative. Maybe they liked sewing or building things or being craftsy in other ways. I’d love to expand on this in a future newsletter.
One of my small pleasures is going to the museum by myself. I love going with friends (and on museum dates) but there’s something so special about going solo.
I recently went to go see Matisse: The Red Studio at the MoMA and it was one of the most incredible exhibitions. I had seen Matisse’s work many times before, but this time, I was listening to the museum audio guide which I had never done before but it made ALL the difference. You get so much more context that way and see every single brush stroke in a new way. I’ve truly been playing myself all these years. I cried (as I always do when I see beautiful art) and had a good time.
Matisse was iconic for so many reasons. Despite being a classically-trained artist and going to art schools like École des Beaux-Arts, he had his creative breakthrough after being inspired by Post-Impressionist artists like Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh. He wasn’t a traditional painter and instead, he became one of the leaders of the Fauvism movement (the style done by les Fauves, which means “wild beasts” because at the time everyone thought Matisse was losing his mind with the way he was painting). People constantly told Matisse he wasn’t a real painter but he kept painting the way he wanted. Fast forward to decades later and now everyone’s got a Blue Nude II in their Brooklyn apartment.
TLDR; go to a museum by yourself, let yourself cry over some art, watch this incredible Matisse documentary on YouTube, and listen to one of my favorite Toro y Moi songs Stoned at the MoMA:
Loved reading Sandy! I also didn't see a museum until much later in life. Makes me so grateful for them.