Overheard at the museum- Detroit.

I sometimes write things here I don't have the time to fully flesh out (plus, I am a one-thumb-typer  on the phone which is slow going) but want to remind myself about later.

I went to the Detroit Institute of Art yesterday. It was lovely. Architecture like the Chicago Firld Museum and a smaller but carefully considered collection similar to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. 

Both stories were overheard. The usual way one gets stories when traveling alone. 

The DIA had on loan Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles. They own 3-4 Van Gogh's so put the group together during the loan in a remote and private room. One of their pieces is Van Gogh's Self Portrait in a straw hat. Beautiful. This room had its own guard. A small group of school children came in the room, walked quickly around, proclaiming, "these are the originals? How much do they cost?" before rushing out. I leaned in to peer at the brushstrokes and look into Van Gogh's eyes. A smaller group of children ran into the room up to the painting, screamed "It's 1887!" and ran out as they scribbled the number on their worksheet. I looked at the guard. He shook his head. But I still had to say, "they didn't even look at it! Came all this way and didn't even look!" He nodded. And I suddenly was jealous of his job, being paid to stand and look at those 4 beautiful, sad paintings all day. 

The other story. 

I was admiring a Marina Abromovic video-performance piece I'd not seen before. She was dressed in a Victorian style black dress in a white kitchen that appeared to be in an abandoned space. She was holding a pot of milk, filled to the top, and looking down so stilly at it, her eyes appeared closed. The video is 13 minutes long, the amount of time she could hold the pot of milk still. Already, drops were starting to slip over the edge. A docent had been tailing me with an older couple, the man with the distinct cane for the blind. I was pleased to see them in the contemporary wing. "Now this video is 20 minutes long, I think, and shows a lady is holding a pan of water." I winced but allowed the mistakes to pass. The couple looked at the video and the man stepped closed to see it. It was on a flat screen TV turned sideways and glowed beautifully. If his vision was poor, I imagined this might be one of the pieces he could see most clearly. The woman commented on the dirty and decaying kitchen. The docent went on to reveal his feelings for the contemporary wing by saying "and they call this art." Make sure you read art with an italicized emphasis and a little sneer. It was too much. I interrupted. I spoke for several minutes about Abromovic's background and about performance art and the use of milk as an intimate body fluid and the roll if women and the endurance. The couple nodded, leaned in to look at her face, her concentration as more milk slopped to the floor. "That makes sense. The milk." The docent looked at me and said something about how I should have his job. I looked at Marina and thought about art.