Reflecting on the MET and the MORGAN

We often see museums and libraries as the storehouses of something ancient, unrelated to our lives and times. However, the Abstract Expressionism exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the manuscripts at the Morgan Library showed us not emblems of a time, but rather, of a place, and that place still exists today. We walk through Washington Square Park with our heads held high as proud students of New York University and residents of New York City. We attend our rallies and chat with our artists, and we have our clubs where we gather to discuss the latest works of art, theater, and music. What fascinates me, as I learned from Marci at the Metropolitan Museum, is that the Greats were just like us, once upon a time.

The Pollock painting at the Metropolitan Museum really had an intense impact on me. As I gazed at the colors strewn across the canvas, I could see all of Washington Square speaking through art. I could see the agony of the poor in the streaks of black, the tired musicians in the thinning lines, and the jagged shapes of artists trying to make a statement and change their molds. It’s everything that I want to do and be. Years ago, Pollock sat on a bench in Washington Square Park and scoffed at the ‘normal’. Life is about change and moving forward. It still is, and always will be. And we, just like Pollock, can move to the future with our own voices of scattered paint.

The Morgan Library struck another chord. Housed in a building that is an architectural testament to the Old New York depicted in Fitzgerald’s short stories, the collection of manuscripts was more of a testament to the past never dying, even as we move into the future. Every word penned by Edgar Allen Poe’s own hand is still intact on fragile scrolls. Though the intended readers are long deceased, the letters remain, and this fact gives us a glimpse at the possibility of immortality. Every word we write on paper can outlast us. Our minds can live eternally. It really makes one reflect upon all work differently. School papers, essays, poems scribbled for a workshop, and even letters to a friend are no longer simple tasks to ‘get out of the way’. They take on a more meaningful quality when we realize that, years from now, someone can discover these scraps and use them as a guide to uncover who we once were. History, even our own, is often crucial to understanding the human psyche. So what is it that we want to leave behind?

~Lara Torgovnik