It kills me to write this because I love the Museum of Modern Art. Aesthetically speaking it’s where we all come from, where we go to commune with our ancestors and become new again. Yet the more I go to the new MOMA–and I’ve been there over 50 times since it reopened a year ago this week–the more I think this crown jewel is becoming a beautiful tomb. At MOMA the unruly juice of art history, the chaos, contradiction, radicality, and rebellion, are being bleached out. Instead, we’re getting the taming of modernism–modernism as elevator music.
An observation by Jacques Lacan might describe the dire straits MOMA is in: “A madman who believes he is king is no more mad than a king who believes he is king.” Of course, this statement means a king who believes he possesses an inherent “king gene” is implicitly mad. Second, and more pressing, it means that to be king the people must believe you are king. Being king is a relationship.
MOMA is becoming a madman who thinks it is king.
more from Jerry Salz at the Village Voice here.