red balloon

Ignoring my humble nature and easily-feel-guilty selfishlessness, I asked Yang for help (perhaps she has been used to my request). Her work ID got me a ticket to MoMA for free (as if she did not give me a valuable xmas/birthday/new year present, which in fact she did and did a lot).

Ignoring the long lines and messy crowd, I insisted to enter the museum. No one could stop me.

This was not the best time of the year to visit MoMA, or anywhere in Manhattan. Tourists were e-ve-ry-whe-re. I could hear all kinds of languages and hardly English with a New York accent. Thus, the background noise (i.e., all kinds of languages but English) could not be automatically processed by my language system, and actually my mind reached a peaceful state of quietness.

From time to time, I heard Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent, and I would smile a bit in my head. The voice just simply chimed with one of my silent voices.

A long ladder and other "sculpture" pieces from Martin Puryear were first things people and me noticed. Sculpture is quoted "" because I am now very confused by the term "sculpture". If anything hand-made in a 3-D way could be categorized as a sculpture, then this category was so unnecessary. But art is art. The ladder moved me, so it was art.

It reminded me of an old dream I had. I had had this dream many times before, if my memory was correct and conscious about dreams, college years. The dream was about climbing stairs. Up and up to somewhere high. The situation or story lines might be different each time, but the stairs would appear at the end of the dream. I would wake up and wonder " Why am I always ended up at the stairs? This is so boring." I don't like boring dreams. Anyway, some time later this dream stop repeating.

Also, size does matter. The movement of heads enhanced the appreciation of this particular art piece.

I stayed and stared at the ladder for minutes and decided to head to my favorite place: where Miro, Piccaso, Monet, Hopper, and Klee's works are.

But I did not remember where the place was. I only remembered all I wanted to see were on the same floor.

So I walked up floor by floor. I skimmed through gallary by gallary on each floor.

I did not just get an exhibition paper but wanted to give the contemporary modern art a chance to impress me.

The more floors I climbed up, the more I was eager to see Miro, Piccaso, Monet, Hopper, and Klee. I realized my preference: dead people made classic modern art that moves my heart.

The fifth floor of MoMA is where I wanted to be. The heaven of my visual sensation.

It was very crowded but not annoying. No one pushed over if I stood in front of one painting for more than 15 minutes.

What was I thinking when staring at a Picasso?

Nothing. The beauty of nothing-ness is the purity of beauty.

And I smiled and moved on to the next nothing-ness-creating painting.

I sat down in front of Monet's water lily pond.

I remember the day I first saw it was a great romantic day. It was the day I found the floor of MoMA perfect for tango. That was a memorable day.

The key of being classic is being timeless.

Everyone should visit Frank Lloyd Wright's houses in Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob. These two houses were built separately in time (20 years) and in distance (about 15 miles). You don't feel you are younger than these buildings. Fallingwater was designed in 1935. You don't feel disconnected from these buildings. There is no age. There is no time.

That is what I felt when I visited the buildings in the middle of nowhere of Pennsylvania.
That is also what I felt when I was on the fifth floor of MoMA.
There is no time. You just want to be surrounded and be a part of the classic modern art.

I stared at Miro's red balloon. Actually it is called The Birth of the World, but I prefer to call it Miro's red balloon. It reminds me of Klee's red balloon, which should be stored in Guggenheim. At least, that's where I believe I saw it.

I stared at Miro's red balloon and thought about Klee's red balloon and wanted to become the red balloon. I cannot find any image (poster or postcard or e-images googled) comparable to the original paintings. I also knew I would not take a good picture of them. So I am not going to post the copies here.

I just stared and immersed in the imagery of me being the red balloon on Miro's canvas, sometimes flying to Klee's. There was no time. There was no me.

What does it mean being the red balloon? How did I feel being the red balloon? Nothing. Nothing. You know? Or you don't have to know. It's nothing, which means something to me, which is the point.

And I felt satisfied and smiled and left the 5th floor. That was a warm sunny afternoon of Dec 29, 2007.