solo scenes...

I have been meaning to write about my most recent trip to the MOMA but with all the going on in my life it just has not happened but I am finally starting to want to revisit that trip. Often I struggle with the MOMA it rarely moves me. But it seems that they recently did some re -working of a lot of the permanent collection especially in the most contemporary galleries. I will be re-visiting many of the works I saw while there as I was super pumped the entire visit.


But one piece that moved me A LOT was unexpected. I walked towards the end of the contemporary galleries to face a crude scaffolding wall holding 131 video monitors. Easy to walk by and think of as boring, anti-aesthetic, video art. That is exactly what I did. Then I read the nameplate and saw that is was the last work of Dieter Roth. An artist that I have always been perplexed by but drawn too. His work seems lost in questions of identity and self and has been work that has moved me. So I thought--- Ok I am missing something here.
I went back, sat down on the floor, and watched.


In essence it is boring footage of Roth living his daily life for 6 months, you see him in his small, crowded, minimal live-work space, sleeping, eating, drawing, writing, making work, packaging work, organizing, reading, speaking on the phone. Beyond banal. But when you let your eyes open to see. You see a poignant portrait of the artist alone in his studio, alone in his mind, never escaping the artist's mind that is his. To me it ended up being a raw and honest portrait of the artist- stripping the romanticism, the fame, the prestige away and seeing all that was left. An artist that must make.


I wanted to write about the piece because I already know some people who have been to the MOMA while it was up and did not give it any attention and I just wanted to give my thoughts. That way if you visit while it is up you can stop and take a minute. Or 10. To me it is time worth spent.

Of course some people will not appreciate it in this way but to me it was a truly moving, beautiful portrait of a man.