The Stories of Us

8월 23일 AJ 미디어 루키즈 ariel의 기록

Story 1: In a Time of Uncertainty

Richter has engaged uncertainty through a variety of other methods as well, as seen, for example, in the fleeting reflection cast on the surface of Mirror, Blood Red. - Gerhard Richter, Overview

I am lucky enough to find myself in the MoMa in a time of doubt.

Like any young creative, I am struggling with my voice. My Rookies application had been a candid confession of my difficulties in writing; in saying not only what I wanted to say, but what needed to be heard. In a world consisting solely of stories, where did mine stand?

My reflection, painted entirely in red, seems to whisper a reply.

This is a hall full of mirrors. Everywhere you look you will see yourself. And also the people standing beside you, behind you, even the phantoms whose feet have long left.

Though carefully melded by other hands, the looking glass serves as a means of looking back at myself. The artefacts here never hold a single form - they are fluid, flowing in through my irises, writhing and twisting to fit themselves into the nooks and crannies in my own life. A letter from the maker to me, in which the text swims and rearranges itself. A passage of scripture up to my own interpretation.

If uncertainty is what the maker had in mind, now my own mouth opens to transmit the message.

Story 2: Twin Scars

Acquired through illness and injury, scars are often private and associated with pain. Yet, they are also testaments to a person’s past, traces of time that resonate with the nature of photographic images… While a person hopes to remain unblemished through life, we must all sustain and live with wounds, visible and invisible. - Emilia Mickevicius on Miyako Isiuchi’s Scars #22 (1996), #12 (1994), #7 (1995)

In the MoMa, brushing shoulders with strangers that come to absorb beauty, pick up insights on technique or simply come for the thrill of being seen, I stand before each piece to ask after its meaning.

A voice strains out of a wooden box in a corner, much like an old-fashioned jukebox. I stand close by to hear it, and find instead a story that streams through my eardrums, flowing straight to my heart.

Look, these are the four walls that make up the confessional. Here is where you think about your sin, your blessing, your wrongdoing. Here is where you speak, where you are absolved, where there is no one else to hear the plaintive note in your voice. You know there have been other people here, other stories and other sins that have passed through the same walls, but at the moment there is only you, and the blessed voice you imagine, which promises to take away your pain and bestow understanding.

Do you do this too? Cry at a story so familiar, even the author’s voice seems recognizable?

It’s a selfish thing, visiting art museums only to find yourself. At the same time, there is nothing more valuable to be found.

Story 3: Where We Go from Here

I want the spectator to be reassured that something he values within himself has been touched and found a kind of correspondence. That being alive… is worth the labor. - Clyfford Still

Visitors lean into glass-covered panels. In the light, every object is reflective, worn smooth with time and expectation, turned over again and again in the palms of strangers. Although they strain inwards to hear the voices, the only one that rings out is a familiar one. You can only see as much as you already know, says the maker, even though he has his own stories to tell.

Some think of the artist as all-knowing, with wisdom to impart from their own corner of the world. Yet, their voices spread through their own creation and dissipate in thin air. You see what you want to, ignore what you can’t, remain blissfully unaware of the difference between the two.

Regardless, nobody leaves empty handed.

Maybe I’ll always walk away from a museum chanting only the stories I have already known. Maybe I’ll leave myself behind, in front of where it stands still before a canvas, and come out a brand new person.

Maybe it matters not what they mean, or what I understand - but what our own ideas combine and form in that blessed space, charged with chance and promises.

As the refrain goes, you can find the entirety of humanity in an art museum. Time has been here, and continues to dance around you and I.

Meanwhile, we move onto newer exhibits.