What Art Feels Like to Someone Who Feels New to Art
“I can tell you’ve never hit a woman in your life.”
I said this in front of my whole NYC acting class.
A classmate ended a scene where he was an abusive boyfriend visiting his victim girlfriend and the way he laid his hands on her was completely unreal. They had physical contact but I could tell in his way he withheld strong force and moved too slow, I wasn’t sold.
After I finished saying it, I knew that comment said more about me than about him.
That's what I feel art (including theater) does.
It exposes to us and others parts of ourselves that we had but are now being brought up to the surface.
At times I feel sadder and uglier about my life. At times I feel more beautiful and grateful about my life.
“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Last Night, I went to Futura Seoul for their latest solo immersive art exhibition by Es Devlin, a famous international designer of concert stages and spatial art. After the Infinite Library, the tall bookshelves in front of us opened up to a bright mirrored room, introducing Mirror Maze.
I was one of the first people to walk in.
I felt dizzy from all the sudden bright reflections and angled mirrors.
I couldn’t tell what was in front of me. It reminded me of the carnival fun house mazes. Except this one had no clear windows to try to fool you. All mirrors.
This would typically scare the hell out of me but the warm glow lighting and hearing everyone ooooooh and aaahhhhh prevented intrusive thoughts about horror movies.
At first, I felt wonder. It was luxe.
Then I noticed a woman cleaning.
And she kept cleaning.
Everyone around was smiling, in awe of the exhibit. I can hear the Korean phones camera apps shuttering picture after picture. People are laughing about feeling dizzy and catching their reflections.
The cleaning lady is still spraying windex and wiping away smudges. Bent over the stairs removing any debris with the sticky roller.
“Does she look at herself in all these mirrors?” I wonder. “Or is she like me today avoiding our reflection on days without makeup and red acne scars showing.”
I can’t take my eyes off her cleaning like that. Her hunched posture and begrudging movements reminding me of Kreacher cleaning Sirius Black’s house. For a second, I started to wonder if she’s part of this immersive experience.
Probably not.
She’s still cleaning the same set of stairs and her steps are heavy when she goes up one by one, wiping.
I catch two guys across the maze looking at me, and their eyes dart away when I meet them. They’ve been watching me watch her, which I was doing for a bit. I felt shy so I started to walk up another level of the maze.
All these mirrors to look at ourselves and we looked right at each other.
The higher I go up, the less dizzy I feel. I’m standing on the highest floor in the maze and notice the maze walls when I look down, like a scientist admiring his rat maze. This exhibition can make parallels to personal inner worlds, socioeconomic levels, caste systems.
From where I’m standing, I can’t see the woman cleaning anymore.
But I can hear her.
Chh, chh, chh, chh the spritz of her windex then silence as the microfiber cloth is probably being used, then a couple seconds later—
Chh chh chhh
The two guys are suddenly to my right.
I leave the Mirror Maze to walk through the rest of her exhibition before I start to cry.
Earlier this summer in NYC, I got to see clinamen at the Park Avenue Armory, a meditative art installation.
As someone who is new to art, I stress about stressing too hard trying to understand it.
Do I feel something?
Should I feel something?
Fuck, I still need to book hotels for SF *takes out phone and sets reminder*
Inhale, exhale, this is nice.
I like it here.
When I sat on the floor and watched the porcelain bowls float and listened to all the chimes, I couldn’t discern if I was feeling the calm energy of the exhibition which is what I imagined the artist, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, intended or if I was feeling a reflection of my own energy that day.
The way we recognize things in others is often because we have a bit of that thing in ourselves
Does that apply to art?
Am I looking at art or am I looking at myself?
When I look at a painting up close, I feel like I’m looking at someone’s decisions and microdecisions whether they’re conscious, subconscious or intuitive.
It’s 10,000 gallons of water with variable speed pumps in each pool and 258 bowls in total. Watching these bowls drift in a circle, I noticed that some travel solo and never collide with other bowls. While none of them stick together, a lot of bowls cluster and float that way for awhile.
One of the pools had bowls colliding more than the other two.
Perhaps the pumps.
It made me think about how a human could be a bowl and the pool is the universe they end up in. In one life, you’re colliding often and in another, barely at all— whether it be conflicts, opportunities, loves, creations.
In each pool, the speed of the bowls was different and like a museum artifact, I had the STRONGEST intrusive thought wanting to touch the bowl, give it a little push and interact with this sound healing universe.
I didn’t.
Because I’m not a child.
I sat and journaled and then I went to dinner at Cafe China.
