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I've been to many art museums in my life. I've always detested the modern art museums. None of what's in it makes sense to me. Slap dash of colors on a canvas, physical pieces made of trash, mundane things with fancy lighting and put on a pedestal, films that are just moving shapes. Everyone else is always walking around all respectfully while I'm over here not feeling reverential at all. Then one time I went to the San Francisco Modern Art Museum and saw the Polar Stampede by Lee Krasner. It was on the 5th or 6th floor. It was a big, huge, piece. there was conveniently a good viewing chair in front of it. Objectively, it was just like any of the other pieces of art that I held no feelings towards. I didn't even know who the artist was, I assumed it was some thing Pollock-y. But the emotional impact of that painting struck me like hammer on glass. I sat on that chair for no less than half an hour just staring at the piece, trying to take it all in, like a man jumping into a river after days of desert. I had just recently came out of a period of depression, and that piece of art was like a mirror to my own feelings at the time. I've never wished more that I was incredibly wealthy and can grab the nearest personnel of the museum, then just go up the chain, then make an offer they can't refuse, then hang it somewhere that I can view every day, and presumably have fancy cocktail parties in front of it. I still don't like modern art, but since that da, I know that each piece of art has an audience, and I am lucky to have found mine.
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