Lessons in Art

Last Sunday, David, Annie and I visited an East Village art gallery that housed an exhibit called, “Strange Powers.” Annie lead the way up the stairs of the rickety old building on East 4th Street, and upon entering I must admit, I immediately felt hesitant. I was, as I often am, arrogant and reluctant to remain open.

While I made my first glances around the room, I was quick to judge. One wall was dedicated to a pencil drawing of a human nose; another space held a glass box lined in plastic and filled with water. Christ, I thought. On the other side of the gallery there was a chair and a set of headphones, and if you listened closely you could hear the voices of dead people. There was a black curtain, and the description that hung beside it encouraged viewers to stand in the darkness and see what arose. I spotted a wall that hung five white picture frames, one displaying an overseas letter; the other four frames were empty. What a racket, I thought. But the gallery itself was interesting; a run-down pre-war tenement building with heavy wood floors and abundant and irresistible light.

As David strolled around on one side of the gallery, Annie wandered on another. Soon I came across a small screen mounted on a wall, a video showing two middle aged French men lying on the ground in the forest, tripping on LSD. They were laughing hysterically and I couldn’t help but smile. One of the men began moving his thumb back and forth, back and forth, and the two friends marveled at the sight. One of the men began waving his hand over the green grass saying,” Do you hear it? Do you hear the orchestra play? It’s choreographed. Do you see the choreography here?” His friend listened so intently, almost as if, for him, the orchestra was inside the syllables of the words being spoken. I was completely present to what was occurring in the video, as present as the man was with his own thumb. I was taken by the joy and the fun they were having, and even from a tiny screen on a wall, it was contagious. I stood and watched, and I laughed.

I then decided to take a closer look at the empty picture frames. The piece was titled “The Missing Letters.” There was a post letter in the first frame, and the empty frames, depending on how one’s beliefs came into play when viewing them, represented either anticipation and hope, or doubt and skepticism. Anticipation that the letter will be returned and will take up residency in the next empty frame (and so on), or doubt that the letter will ever be returned at all. Okay, so, I didn’t find the concept behind the piece particularly mind-blowing, but I appreciated that the artist had something to say, and that was enough.

David walked up to me and said we should all go stand behind the black curtain and again my cynicism arose. Standing in a closet being pawned off as art. But I bit my tongue, we all went inside, David pulled the curtain closed and the three of us stood together in the dark. Annie was sandwiched between my body and David’s, our arms around each other and around her. “I’m scared.” She whispered. “Shhh,” I said, “Let’s just stay open to what might happen.” David’s hands were on mine, our bodies pressed against Annie. “I want to go out,” she said, and David whispered, “You don’t have to be afraid honey, Mommy and Daddy are here.” And his words touched my heart, they were true, they would always be true, we would always stand together with our arms around each other and around her. And when David pulled back the curtain and we returned to the light, I could see the choreography, I could hear the orchestra, and everything in the room, suddenly, looked like art.