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I have a confession to make: I once touched a Jackson Pollock. I'm sorry. That makes me sound like some sort of perv. The thing is, though, it was asking for it. Okay, now I sound like a horrible, creepy asshole perv -- again, my apologies. Maybe I can explain.
It was maybe twenty years ago and I was walking through a museum in New York when I happened to find myself in a room full of Abstract Expressionists. There, before me, the Pollock hung on the wall -- maybe twelve, maybe fifteen feet high, and almost as wide across. Most people when they hear the name Jackson Pollock immediately conjure an imag of layers upon layers of lines, streams and splatterings of paint, and that's what this was except that in addition to the paint Pollock had thrown in nuts, bolts, nails, screws, and all sorts of pieces of tiny hardware.
I stared at the painting, moving my eyes over the textures and layers and lines and forms, and drinking in everything I could visually from the image before me. The fact that there were so many layers and textures, though -- that made it different -- and part of me wanted to know what it was like to touch that painting and actually know how it felt.
I looked around quickly and saw I was the only one in the room. And then surreptitiously, I reached out my hand, hoping not to set off any alarms, and carefully ran it along the surface of the painting, feeling the contours and ridges beneath the tips of my fingers. Then just as quickly, I looked to make sure no one had seen and left.
Now I know that it would be impossible to allow all the museum patrons to do what I had done -- I've seen what fossils left out for people to handle look like, and I know how quickly stone steps can wear down beneath a steady stream of feet. Yet, at the same time, I wish there was some way we could appreciate certain works of art on more than just a visual level. There are some pieces that almost seem to demand that they be touched and handled and turned. Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel, for instance, pleads with you to turn its wheel that takes you nowhere, and Meret Oppenheim's Object -- a fur covered teacup and saucer -- begs you to pick it up so you can feel its soft sensuality in your warm hands.
Though there's no way we could preserve those artworks if everyone did pick them up, I still can't help wishing there was a way we could. There in a museum there's a certain sterility to art -- almost as if it's some organic specimen cured in a bottle of formaldehyde -- which renders the object lifeless. Perhaps one day there will be some sort of technology that allows us to virtually experience art however we like. Until then, though, I suppose I'll simply have to live with the memory of my stolen brush with a Jackson Pollock.
It was maybe twenty years ago and I was walking through a museum in New York when I happened to find myself in a room full of Abstract Expressionists. There, before me, the Pollock hung on the wall -- maybe twelve, maybe fifteen feet high, and almost as wide across. Most people when they hear the name Jackson Pollock immediately conjure an imag of layers upon layers of lines, streams and splatterings of paint, and that's what this was except that in addition to the paint Pollock had thrown in nuts, bolts, nails, screws, and all sorts of pieces of tiny hardware.
I stared at the painting, moving my eyes over the textures and layers and lines and forms, and drinking in everything I could visually from the image before me. The fact that there were so many layers and textures, though -- that made it different -- and part of me wanted to know what it was like to touch that painting and actually know how it felt.
I looked around quickly and saw I was the only one in the room. And then surreptitiously, I reached out my hand, hoping not to set off any alarms, and carefully ran it along the surface of the painting, feeling the contours and ridges beneath the tips of my fingers. Then just as quickly, I looked to make sure no one had seen and left.
Now I know that it would be impossible to allow all the museum patrons to do what I had done -- I've seen what fossils left out for people to handle look like, and I know how quickly stone steps can wear down beneath a steady stream of feet. Yet, at the same time, I wish there was some way we could appreciate certain works of art on more than just a visual level. There are some pieces that almost seem to demand that they be touched and handled and turned. Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel, for instance, pleads with you to turn its wheel that takes you nowhere, and Meret Oppenheim's Object -- a fur covered teacup and saucer -- begs you to pick it up so you can feel its soft sensuality in your warm hands.
Though there's no way we could preserve those artworks if everyone did pick them up, I still can't help wishing there was a way we could. There in a museum there's a certain sterility to art -- almost as if it's some organic specimen cured in a bottle of formaldehyde -- which renders the object lifeless. Perhaps one day there will be some sort of technology that allows us to virtually experience art however we like. Until then, though, I suppose I'll simply have to live with the memory of my stolen brush with a Jackson Pollock.
