My guy and I spent Sunday afternoon at the MFA, dodging the chilly rain (is it really June?) to see the Hokusai exhibit. It was crowded both with artworks and people; the press of bodies eventually became too much for us. But we both enjoyed seeing works by Hokusai, his contemporaries and students (including his children), and modern pieces – sculpture, ceramics, even a LEGO rendering of the Great Wave – inspired by his art. (His digitized sketchbooks, which you could flip through on a touch screen, were a great addition to the exhibit.)
One thing I love about the MFA: when I’m there, I always see multiple things I don’t expect to see. This time, that included a series of contemporary Chinese murals; a battered gold-plated weathervane in the shape of a rooster; and massive pottery jars at the Hear Me Now exhibit, featuring the work of Black enslaved potters from South Carolina. (I had planned on viewing the latter exhibit, but was stunned by the scale of the works and the potters’ history.)
Going to museums these days feels complicated, frankly. There are lots of questions swirling about access, provenance and artistic identity. I wonder a lot about where certain works came from, and which artists – especially marginalized ones – were cheated out of their artwork. I wonder who the “unknown” artists were (the MFA now notes them as “artists once known,” which I appreciate, but it still leaves a question mark). And the pieces themselves – like the photography exhibit from today’s Ukraine – often deal with heavy subjects.
I was particularly struck by a photo of a missile strike over Kharkiv; the sky was mostly dark, with a streak of light marking the missile’s path. It was lovely, or it would have been if I didn’t know what it was. Destruction and beauty, darkness and light, captured in the same striking image (itself surrounded by other images of battlefields and bombed-out buildings). It felt vital to stand there, in the safe, clean, well-lit museum, and bear witness to a totally opposite moment on the other side of the world.
By the end of the afternoon, I was rather emotionally drained: absorbing snippets of stories from Ukrainian teenagers, the Edgefield potters and other artists (and subjects) felt like a lot to carry. Part of me wanted to wander through a gallery of beautiful, anodyne paintings and not think about anything for a few minutes. But on the train home, it occurred to me: we go to museums to be moved.
I go to the MFA to appreciate beauty, yes: we love the lime-green, towering Chihuly sculpture in the museum’s courtyard, and I adore an Impressionist painting, wherever I can find one. But we don’t only go to museums to see pretty or elegant things. We go to see important pieces (like the Obama portraits or artifacts from ancient cultures); to reckon with parts of our history, including the stories of the pieces themselves. We go to see art in conversation with itself and with its context; to be challenged, sometimes unsettled, shaken awake. We go to be moved. And that is as important as seeing something we call “beautiful.”
P.S. The June issue of my newsletter, For the Noticers, comes out soon – sign up here!
cakes, tea and dreams 