MoMA PS1: The Good, the Bad, and the Misunderstood

Upon reaching MoMa PS1 one can tell how different it is from its much bigger and sophisticated counterpart MoMa. The place gives out a vibe that its willing to put out pieces that will make you question whether what your seeing is really considered art. Going in with the mindset of revisiting my opinions of good,bad and misunderstood art, made this trip interesting. Due to this mindset i spent a lot of time on each piece , more than I usually would because I was trying to really understand them, even though that didn't really happen most of the time.

As i walked throughout the different rooms looking for something to catch my eye I was pleasantly surprised when I entered a room with speakers set up all around it. The room was Janet Cardiff's "The Forty Part Motel", the speakers were set up into section around the room making a circle of sound, the interesting part of this exhibit was how each individual group of speakers were emitting different sounds. You could only hear this if u walked around and stood in front of the speakers, but at any moment you could take a step into the circle and you would hear this Chorus singing a beautiful song. Personally the song relaxed me so much that I wouldn't have minded getting a bed in there and taking a nap. At that moment I realized this is good art, it not only sounded good but it made me think beyond what I saw like how this was set up and does this song have some sort of meaning. On a final note the amount of planing and details needed to set this up in order for it to work properly has to be considered a work of art on its own.

After going around the museum i couldn't really find any piece of art that made me feel "wow this is art" until the people i was walking with reminded us of the exhibit that on the third floor that was deemed graphic. I could honestly say the entire exhibition of Clifford Owens : Anthology to be bad art. The subject matter didn't bother me but it made me keep asking why is this art, the one piece that caught my eye was and made me shake my head was "Anthology (Glenn Ligon) " it was literally a photography of a man urinating , i tried to look at it in many different ways but all i came out of it was someone using the bathroom and taking a picture. That to me is the perfect defection of bad art because one an try to understand it and try to formulate why but in the end its just a guy pissing on the street.

After that exhibit, I made my way back into Darren Bader : Images exhibit. The room with the Iguana blew my mind trying to understand it, inside the room theres am iguana its cage and thats the only thing that made sense but around it there was a oven or dishwasher with a melted pizza inside of it next to it there were two small statues of what looked like Buddha's. That alone was worth of it being my misunderstood piece but to solidify its hold on that theres a croissant on the floor as well, I keep asking my self and people around me if this was one whole exhibit or were they different. Honestly it wouldn't have helped to know thats how confused that room was to me. The artist him self could explain it and I think still wouldn't be able to fully grasp it.

Overall this was an experience that will stay in my mind for some time. While not everyone will agree with my choices for good, bad and misunderstood art, thats okay. The point of any art is to evoke emotion and not everyone is going to feel the same way since we as humans have experienced many different things that will affect our view of the world.

Works Cited

Janet Cardiff

" The Forty Part Motet"

40-part sound recording (14 mins) 40 speakers

2001

Clifford Owens

"Anthology (Glenn Ligon)

3 C-prints

2011

Darren Bader

"Iguana Room in Images"

(Forgot to copy info)