1297 Masses of Moca

Monday, June 11, 2007

So, Roman and I went to Mass MOCA yesterday. He came here and then we took my minivan, because the a/c in his car is on the fritz. Turned out we didn't need a/c anyway - the day was cloudy and cool. Mapquest said it should take us a little over two hours to get there. It was actually more like three.

The "CA" stands for "Contemporary Art". Turns out that's pretty much the same as modern art, which we have already determined I don't fully appreciate.

One room absolutely cracked me up. It contained several large framed sheets of plain white paper. Plain, as in pristine. Little labels described the "art". One sheet had been exposed to full sunlight for several hours. One sheet had had a few snowflakes land on and melt on it. One sheet was titled a self-portrait - the artist had positioned his face 14" from the paper and stared at it motionlessly for a while. And so on.

OMG! I cracked up. Literally. The cognoscenti were frowning at me because I was laughing so hard. You've got to admire the salesmanship, anyway.

I ended up admiring the buildings instead (an old textile factory complex). Beautiful craftsmanship and artistry in the exterior brickwork, unexpectedly powerful yet delicate interior trusses.

I could have passed on the factory theme in the restrooms, though.

This is the place that has the trees growing upside down in the courtyard. They don't look at all like the photo any more. Two of the six trees are dead, one is dying, and the rest are almost leafless, struggling, trying to cope. Their "tops" and branches are curving up, twisting, trying to grow up. They look terribly unbalanced, desperately unhappy.

MOCA should do something about them.

We closed the place down, drove back to the Hudson valley, and had a very good dinner at a restaurant near Bard College.

A few weeks ago, we had attended a seminar on Asperger's Syndrome, at which the speaker had recommended the movie "Napoleon Dynamite", for examples of an Aspie's reactions. Roman mentioned that he had borrowed the movie from the library and had meant to bring it to me.

So we went to his house and watched it.
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