December 10, 2007

I was waiting in line the other day. A number of things can be inferred by the opening statement alone. First, that if waiting in line is stimulating enough to merit reflection, I must not get out very much. Second, that on the few occasions that I do go out, I must do so alone, as time spent waiting goes by much faster in the company of another. And lastly, that my recent move to a city that does not require sitting silently in at least two hours of freeway traffic a day has left me relishing the few pauses that my current lifestyle allows me. Let me assure you that all of these possible conclusions are true. I had missed my chance to get an advance ticket for the Jenny Holzer lecture at the Museum of Modern Art, and so was left to weigh my chances in the standby line. Oftentimes while waiting in this line, one's train of thought turns to considering the factors that will ultimately assure or deny your entry to the lecture hall. For example, rain is an accident in your favor. As is heavy traffic. The general popularity of the artist, of course, matters quite a bit. Also, the number of seats you think may have been put aside for board members, donors and employees who, for the most part, couldn't be bothered to make an appearance on a Thursday evening. But more important than all of these things is the time at which you arrive at the museum to throw yourself at the mercy of the Education interns who, armed with clipboards, hold your fate in their hands.

On this particular occasion, I was running about ten minutes later than I had hoped to be, which, on certain days, can make or break your chances of getting in. Having finally arrived at the admissions desk, I asked to be pointed in the direction of the standby line.

"That's her over there."

I looked up to find a single girl, dwarfed by the enormity of the clean, white wall against which she leaned, patiently earning her seat in the lecture hall. I thanked the intern/warden and walked over to join the girl's efforts. And then we were two.

Only a few moments passed before a third candidate arrived to present himself at the counter. He made his way over to us, and the first words he spoke served as our introduction:

"Which one of you is the front?"
"I'm the back."
"I'm the front."

And then we were three.

At this point, I'd like to note that this all happened along a slight incline. Because, at the Museum of Modern Art, the exact location of Public Programs Purgatory also happens to be the wheelchair ramp that New York State law requires the museum to house. And, because it is the Museum of Modern Art, it is the most aesthetically advanced wheelchair ramp one would ever care to come into contact with. Specifically, it's behind a twenty-five-foot-long sheet of glass.

During the time that I spent pondering my gentle aquarium, our small group was joined by three others: a man in a green polo shirt with a big, gray genius/crazy person afro, a shiny-headed bald man in a bright, salmon-pink t-shirt, and a sixty-or-so-year-old woman dressed in all black with ankles so small they would sooner snap than support her eighty-pound frame. Lined up in a neat row, each member lived up to his or her own artworld stereotype, with the girl ahead of me scribbling into her black moleskin sketchbook, me reading a surrealist's account of 1927 Paris (Louis Aragon's Paris Peasant), the boy behind me reading collected war memoirs, the men behind him reading the New York Times or the Village Voice or whatever it is that the middle-aged male museum-going demographic reads, all followed up with the little old woman, empty handed, but staring her piercing little old woman stare.

We must have been quite a sight, because at that moment our glass cage was penetrated by a flash of light. There, on the other side of the barrier, was a boy my age perched on one of the many Le Corbusier benches that are scattered throughout the MOMA, trying to look inconspicuous as he fired a small digital camera from between his knees. To my left, a boy posed from our side of the glass. As it turned out, the seventh member of the line had no intention of attending the lecture at all, but instead had infiltrated our group for the sole purpose of participating in an exercise in public bystanding. When the photo-shoot ended, they were both off.(I half expect to accidentally find those photographs on flickr one day.)

Needless to say, I made it into the lecture hall that night, but in the end it was Louis Aragon who provoked my "Dangerous Daydreams: a twofold mythical feeling that is quite inexpressible. First, there is a the sense of intimacy in the very centre of a public place, a powerful contrast that remains effective for anyone who has once experienced it; secondly, there is this taste for confusion which is a characteristic of the senses, and which leads them to divert every object from its accepted usage, to pervert it as the saying goes. It is not easy to decide what motivating factor is uppermost here..."

posted by XX at 6:14 PM