Right after college I moved to New York. My first job was around the corner from the MOMA – the Museum of Modern Art – tucked away on West 53rd Street just off 5th Avenue. My parents gave me a membership to the museum, allowing me to visit frequently. My memories from that time are still vivid – the smell of roasted chestnuts from a street vendor, sitting in the sculpture garden studying a monumental Rodin, eating lunch in the museum cafeteria feeling superior to people who looked like tourists! I loved New York and I was taking it all in.
Even though I left the city many years ago, I visit and, when I can, always go back to my old friend MOMA. Last week I was there, and after seeing the special exhibit of Picasso sculptures I wandered up to visit the masterpieces of 19th and 20th century European painters – ones that even the most casual of museum goers knows (Van Gogh, Monet, and Cezanne to name a few). As I stood in front of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a young woman carefully centered the image of the painting on her cell phone. She took a picture, then another of the tag that identifies the artist, date, title and so on. A young man followed doing the same thing, and then another. But it wasn’t just the iconic Van Gogh they were photographing, but other less well-known works.
It wasn’t so much that they were taking pictures, we all are drawn to photograph scenes, objects and people we want to remember, but they were missing the actual experience. Here was the “real thing” in front of them and they weren’t looking at it, engaging with it, being moved by it.
This got me thinking about other situations where we only go through the motions of being there, but are somewhere else. We are just “checking the box,” like the picture takers in the museum. Starry Night, check. Monet’s Water Lilies, check. Cezanne’s Still Life, check.
Hey, what’s up, how’s business?
Fine, and you?
It’s good, and the kids?
So good to see you.
My challenge to myself this week is to be aware of when I’m merely “taking pictures” instead of engaging and experiencing what’s actually in front of me.
I invite you to engage this week with what or whom is in front of you and let me know how it goes.
Until next Tuesday.
Elizabeth