I made it to the new
American Visionary Art Museum's new exhibit "Race, Class, Gender (can't make a doesn't equal sign on this computer)Character" on Sunday. I'm impressed that AVAM isn't afraid to get opinionated or political beyond comentary on the art itself (although I could see how others might find it obnoxious), and this show exemplified that without being shrill. Still, there was something strange about watching this exhibit that took a while for me to a finger on. When I entered, there was a work of art that included a large angel decorated in broken glass, dangling as if it was falling through the hall formed by the central staircase. In the background Samuel Barber's
Adagio for Strings was playing, a really sad atmospheric piece that I've seen in a bunch of movies, most memorably Willem Dafoe being shot a billion times in the slow-motion climax of "Platoon". As I walked through the exhibit, the music was loud enough to be everywhere, in every room in the whole museum, on repeat. Most of the exhibit showed happy things - street scenes from a busy city, a smiling Dalai Lama made of glass, paper cutouts on banners and memories of childhood collaged with photographs and paint. Yet, as I was walking through I couldn't understand why I was feeling sad - really sad. I couldn't stop running my mind through the things that bring me down lately - it started with my messy apartment, climbed to stupid arguments with my parents and ran over to the lamer parts of work. Right as I was mentally punching Dick Cheney in the nose in front of a banner depicting smiling children following Josephine Baker dancing with wings on, it hit me - it's the music! It's sneaking into my brain like mopey carbon monoxide. If it had been any other kind of music heavily on repeat, even something I like, I probably would have been quickly chewing on my own arm from the repetition, but this snuck up and infected me so unexpectedly. I couldn't believe it, but as soon as I realized this my dumpy mood evaporated. It only taught me all the more that though I'd like to think I control my own mind, my head really can be a soup of chemicals and flesh, sometimes stirred by whatever floats in the air. So my advice is: definitely go to the new Visionary Art exhibit, but bring your iPod or Walkman, and stock it with a full load of Stevie Wonder or whatever makes you shake it. I think you'll be glad and everybody around you will be jealous, but won't be able to figure out why.
