Smack In The Pulpit

About a month or so ago, I went to see the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art. I went on a Friday night, because that's "pay-what-you-wish" night and I'm a cheap/broke bastard. I'd never been to the Whitney before, and I was expecting to just show up and stroll on in, so it was a little disconcerting to get there and see a line of people waiting to enter snaking around the block. Apparently, "pay-what-you-wish" night is a big draw.

I've always loved Georgia O'Keeffe artwork. I've had the same "Dark Iris" and "Red Amaryllis" posters on my bedroom walls since college, and every year, my mom gives me a new Georgia O'Keeffe desk calendar for Christmas. It's the gift that keeps on giving: flipping the page to the next stunning, vaguely sexual flower is like opening a brand-new present at the beginning of every month.

This particular exhibit, though, is focused on her early abstract work. I'm really only familiar with her flowers, so I'm a little nervous that I might find these paintings disappointing and they might spoil her for me (I hold my heroes to very high standards). Exiting the elevator on the third floor and coming face-to-face with a giant oil-on-canvas mural of clouds and blue sky is the first indication that I have nothing to fear. I'm already hooked.

My relief, however, is short-lived, and by no fault of Ms. O'Keeffe. The adjacent elevator opens behind me and disgorges a motley, murmuring guided-tour group. Groan. I enter the gallery in an attempt to head them off as the tour guide begins to cheerily corral her charges.

Unfortunately for me, I'm one of those people who stands and stares at paintings like Cameron in the museum scene of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so the tour group overtakes me by, like, the fourth painting. There's a moment of panic when I find myself adrift amidst them. I manage to pull my little journal out of my bag and escape to a bench on the other side of the room to write down some impressions and the titles of the works that I like until the mob is safely out of earshot and the room feels spacious again.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm really fun at concerts.

So now I'm back to comfortably strolling, staring in dazzled, slack-jawed awe, and being reprimanded by museum security for getting dangerously close to the paintings and occasionally and hypnotically reaching out to touch one. I'm like a 13-year-old boy who's just discovered free Internet porn — I'm that entranced. Whoa...look at those colors! OMG, I can actually see the brushstrokes!!!

I'm rooted in place in front of these two paintings:

when I eventually sense another presence. The tour group has dispersed (how long have I been standing here?), and there's a trio of former tourists who appear to be a father and two daughters now standing behind me (how long have I been blocking these poor people's view?). "Oh! Excuse me," I apologize and step aside. And then Dad lets loose with this declaration:

"Now, see, this is finally a good one! It's got bright colors; it's got energy! This one is just all white and boring. It's depressing."

"It's not depressing!" I retort in mock-anger, valiant defender of my artistic idol. "It glows! It's angelic!"

Now, it wouldn't have been so bad if the guy had then said, "Well, I think it's depressing because..." No, what he instead chose to say — and in a very let-me-lecture-this-poor-ignorant-fool-who-doesn't-know-any-better tone of voice — was: "No, it's not. It's just depressing." And this is when I must fight the seether.

Sir, I am a college-educated, self-sufficient, grown adult, fully capable of forming my own opinions, who — if I may be my severely elitist and judgmental (not-so-)hidden self for just a moment — by the looks of it, has been to far more fine art exhibitions than you (that number being "4"). I'd appreciate it, especially since you just emerged from a tour for which you willingly signed up and in which you learned the background and significance of each piece from a professional art historian, if you didn't dictate your daughters' perceptions to them or attempt to school me in the respected tradition of "I Don't Like It Because It Doesn't Match My Furniture" art criticism.

I only say this in my head, though, because I'm already on bad terms with security. Instead, I stare unblinkingly at The Professor and smile malevolently until he backs away with his progeny and I can go back to gazing in peace.

To quote an exchange from The Corrections:

"Well, everyone is entitled to their own taste."
"Yes, but some people's tastes are better than others."