NEW YORK - IN WHICH I SEE ART AND I CAN'T HANDLE MY SHIT

Somehow it happened that in all my years of living in Brooklyn, I'd never been to the Upper East Side. But when I heard that there was a place called "The Metropolitan Museum of Art," I decided it was as good an occasion to venture beyond Houston as any. I loved art. Art was one of my favorite things! I'd loved art ever since I saw a Takeshi Murata video piece on Vimeo, and this noise show at Goodbye Blue Monday last year only made me more excited to visit an entire non-warehouse building full of "art." Little did I know the horrors that awaited me.

So on Thursday night I boarded the L train (heading away from Morgan Ave.) and made my way to socialite-town. But apparently this museum closes at night?! So the following afternoon, after brunch, I tried again.

I'd heard from some kids I knew who went to Bard that the Upper East Side is a charming neighborhood inhabited by ancient, well-appointed relics of a glamorous bygone era, or like a Woody Allen movie maybe, with jazz and tiny dogs. And a park almost twice the size of McCarren Pool. But I'm what you might call a bona fide Brooklynite, in that after I graduated from Hampshire I moved into the McKibben lofts, after the first time but before the second time New York Magazine mentioned them. I've been to Park Slope—how exotic could the Upper East Side really be?

Perhaps my kiffiyeh and bespoke Air Force Ones weren't the best choice for the day, but I overcame the fact that I was a total Park Avenue misfit and hoped my foreigner status wouldn't be glaringly obvious to the natives. (It was.) After narrowly escaping death by dog-walker on the 86th Street subway platform, I made my way to a castle in what felt to me like Connecticut. (It wasn't.) Dozens of signs directed me toward a grand hall that reminded me of nothing so much as that new Trader Joe's on Atlantic Ave, where campus security promptly pawed through my messenger bag and asked to take my BAPE hoodie.

I'd planned on paying, perhaps, an optional five-dollar cover that entitled me to a Bud tall boy or two, since I hadn't brought my usual 40 of OE, but instead I was told the suggested donation was $20—twenty dollars!—and they didn't so much as explain if it went toward the band's gas money to get back to Baltimore or whatever. Fuck Bud, they better have some fucking vodka, I thought, as I handed over the "emergency" AmEx my dad pays for.

I went upstairs and waited for something to happen. I began wandering through labyrinthine rooms looking for the art, but I couldn't find a single found-object installation. Not one collage applied directly to an exposed brick wall, nothing incorporating a cavernous former industrial space, nothing even vaguely graffiti-inspired. It took me an hour to realize that the "art" was the Holiday Inn paintings and Pier 1 sculptures everyone was staring at.

Most of the "art" was on the walls. Not projected on the walls, no, but actually just hanging there, static. Hardly anything looked as if it'd be awesome to stare at while shrooming. None of the artists were even there, as far as I could tell! Without forcing the audience to become an active and integral part of the installation, how would these jokers ever shock me out of the waking dreamstate of late capitalism? With a fucking painting of Jesus that didn't even look like it was made by a schizophrenic homeless dude? No one even touched me! I was flustered beyond belief, but the setting was so impersonal that there was no escaping without seeming totally intolerant and disrespectful.

Jacob van Ruisdael was a Dutch landscape painter, meaning that he drew a bunch of pictures of trees. "Wheat Fields," as the little card warned, is a "monumental" and "ambitious" 1670 oil painting of some wheat fields with a "centralized recession into space." I guess I should've taken it seriously. The painting was more than a yard long, and it made me feel small, and sad. The clouds were kind of scary. It made me want to listen to music that sounded like Arthur Russell programming a Gameboy while watching a light show instead. This was just a big empty landscape of some grains and trees and clouds!

I'm not passing judgment. Really, I'm not. But I couldn't shake the creepy feelings inspired by the massive landscape. It was almost as if I was being encouraged to contemplate an awesome spectacle over which neither I nor any of my socioeconomic peers had any authority or authorship. It seemed absurd that this crazy notion of my own grand unimportance could possibly be sparked by a drawing of some lame trees and grain. Crazy, right?

I have no doubt "Wheat Fields" will appeal to a certain subset of museum-goers, many of whom no doubt will find it illuminating and inspiring. But for the more alt audience member like me: don't be fooled by naked pregnant lady performance pieces or awesome stencils: art is a more unsettling and much more boring experience. (Did I mention that there was no beer?)

I left the giant castle slightly shaken up and eager to get back to The Wreck Room. After this experience, I'm fairly certain that's exactly where I belong.

ALEX PAREENE

(image of Jacob van Ruisdael's "Wheat Fields")

Comments

[Seizures R. Fake]

Stay in Brooklyn. Please.

[bootyclap]

he wears a bape hoodie and AF1s. i can already almost paint a clear picture of this guy

[bootyclap]

yanno that just might be the first and last time you're ever in the upper east side. i mean you've seen the met right? there you go...

[John]

I laughed my ass off. Great piece!

[anan]

genius. all you commenters please read the last hotlink.

[Otis P. Lord]

I like the painting. It's not Mars-1, but it's cool. Good article.

[hank]

This is a funny satire, but the original article is even funnier.

[DPMT]

SHREDDED.
fuck mckibben and all that new-bedford shit.

loved it

[Jason]

Pretty great article--but I gotta admit it the overt pretentiousness got to me at first. I'll assume its a sign of a convincing and good writer...though you might want to be less subtle next time. Cheers.

[yikes]

I hate the satirized Brooklynite Pareene's channeling more than the real Manhattanite that wrote that ridiculous linked article. Maybe I'm getting old, but I feel like the yuppie is less evil than the hipster.

[cinco boy]

Shitty satire.

[discojerk]

I had the same experience when I first visited the Rijksmuseum, and I left with a gigantic headache!

[George Trakl]

This is really, really funny.

[Britle]

Bape hoodie?? Seriously???

[nbm]

Here's the deal: Alex is right, this is a seriously great painting. Anyone, hoodie-wearer or not, who gives it space and time can be moved by it.

[Frank Booth]

Was not into this at all until I read the link at the bottom. Then it was just like "oh."

[anna l. fortenight]

totally into it.

[907]

So many jokes, so few people getting them.

[booboo]

The painting would not appeal to a 'subset of museum goers'. After all, what do you define by a subset? In fact, the only clearly defined 'subset' is your own oh-so-cool-and-too-cool-for-you crew who rock the labels that make you street. The mastery and the patience to sit in a fucking field and paint every detail with a devotion to capture that detail with a photographic hand, as opposed to photographic apparatus, is what makes us feel small (or maybe its the fact that you had to rinse your dad's money to get into the place. It's not like you don't have the money; how much does a BAPE hoodie cost?)

Looking at that painting, who has the patience for that today? I think anyone could appreciate that, unless they have a beer bottle (possibly from the Wreck Room) shoved up their popper-laxed ass.

[sdfghjkl]

smashhr . the Vanity fair one was a satire, right ?
then , this one stomps that one .
poodles vs skateboards
choose the right team

[dissertation writing]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!

[Archimboldi]

I always think these satires are too harsh, like they set up strawman hipster idiots, and that it's too easy to make fun, like trampling down high grass. Then I read the comments. Not only are people dumb, they are self-righteous.

There's no escape

[Paul B]

Way to copy the VF article line for line, but just in case any of your article is serious people should take note. There is a found art installation surrounded by a moat on the first floor. It's called the Temple of Dendur and it was found in Egypt. Almost directly above it is an interactive full room installation labeled Chinese Garden although none of it moves at a visible pace.

[peepoop]

this is hilarious and surprisingly original. all of you idiots who didnt get the joke but rather instead use this as an opportunity to espouse your boring hipster hatred need to fuck off.

[pollywog]

BRILLIANT!!