Visit to the Stedelijk Museum
Fred and I spent Sunday afternoon at the Stedelijk [stayed-uh-lik] Museum, which has been temporarily moved from it’s home on Museumplein in Amsterdam to a building near Centraal Station. The new building used to be the main post office and also houses Club 11, which is supposedly the best view of Amsterdam that one can get while enjoying a cocktail. The Stedelijk is the Amsterdam museum that is dedicated to modern art.
I was an art major in college and I saw a lot of art, and I watched a lot of art being made. I also lived in New York City for many years and visited lots of museums Consequently, I have an opinion on art. I really enjoy art. Mostly I enjoy more traditional, figurative art. Modern art? Not so much.
The following is an account of my experience at the Stedelijk.
As we walked into the museum, we were directed to an elevator, which took us to the floor on which the museum begins. On our way from the elevator to the entry hall, we saw several posters with names like Picasso, Nauman and other modern artists who would not be featured in the collection. Visitors are informed that these artists will be shown again when the museum reopens at its regular location in about 2009.
The first exhibit that we saw was something called Cruel Bonsai. It’s a collection of sculptures that are made of resin, wire and other stuff that look like somewhat like bonsai trees. It was fairly interesting, but the explanations on the walls were so full of blah-blah that it made my head hurt. There was another exhibit of the Best Designed Books of 2006. More interesting and very hands-on. You can actually pick the books up and look through them.
As we ventured into the main halls, we were treated to many, many video works that were just a lot of…bull. Here’s a synopsis of a few of them.
• A fuzzy video of a woman with what appeared to me to be exposed breasts. She was jumping around chanting, “I’m not the girl that misses much.” Her voice was synthesized a bit so that it wasn’t clear what she was saying, which was fine as she was only saying the one line. It was a statement on feminism. God bless the feminists with her as a spokesperson.
• Clips of an old (what appeared to be French) film projected onto a wall that had some abstract black lines (read: art) on it and a voice over of a woman speaking in French like she was chatting with someone or telling a story. This got its own little room and the room was carpeted!
• A circle of about seven monitors suspended from the ceiling with lots of old, naked people holding hands walking/dancing in a circle. I was heartened because in the museum, this was the only full frontal nudity that was featured. It’s strange in this country to not see naked people in art, dance, theater.
• A video called “Pursuit,” which was showed people running, both women and men. They were shown full body as well as with just parts of their bodies. Were they being pursued or doing the pursuing? Discuss.
There were also a few other pieces that gave me pause. There was a piece that had several barrels that were overflowing with green muck. Atop the barrels were boxes, and on top of the boxes were sketchbooks. Behind these, were videos of people flipping through the sketchbooks. This had to be cordoned off as some visitor-numbskulls had ventured in and stepped into the green muck, which was still wet, placed there by the artist-numbskull.
There was a video of some paper moving around the screen, opening up and closing. It was shot in freeze frame. It was pretty cool, but what irked me was the youngish guy (probably an art student), who sat straight-baked on the floor entranced with the projection on the screen. Intense, over-serious art students. (Sigh.) I spent too much time around them in both undergraduate and graduate school. I have no patience for them.
There were also lots of things to listen to (headphones provided) mostly waves and stuff that completed the piece as you gazed upon it. And there were rooms of installations that looked like someone had just left during the making of art and they would be back after their pee break.
There’s so much crap in modern art museums. I would like to say that I like art and that I can appreciate anything, but it’s so often full of stuff that just seems like a joke. Are these people genuine in their apparent need to express themselves? Does it really mean anything or is it just something thrown together in an effort to make people stare and nod? It reminded me of David Sedaris’ piece entitled “Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist” where he tells a story about being a performance artist who does lots of speed and makes art that’s purpose is to shock and be weirder than other artists.
Maybe I should take a course on modern art to learn what all this means. Maybe I should just steer clear of the Stedelijk. However, in December there’s going to be an Andy Warhol exhibit. Now that’s some modern art I know I’ll enjoy.
