Alon Z / Art / Tate modern

Growing up I frequented religious institutions more often than museums, proportionally the ratio favored them in my nearby surroundings and it seemed natural to me at the time. It was supply and demand that created this reality, more people in the area where I lived wanted to visit these places of worship, combined with a fear of modern influences and the unknowns they provide, museums or artists were not something that people felt comfortable with in that community.

It was long after my upbringing, in one of my first visits to NY that I made my way to the Museum of modern art. Crossing 6th avenue to enter a wide lobby area where I purchased my ticket and taking the escalator to the second floor, where any minute a world known masterpiece will be revealed to me, I remember not knowing what to expect the first time being face to face with a Picaso, Sol LeWitt or a Mondrian, part of me assumed that some form of enlightenment will take over me as soon as I step into the room, or that I might be transformed into a different level of perception of reality, but that never happened and I left feeling somewhat disappointed. It was only in the weeks and months following the event that I started realizing the influences it had on me and how my own thoughts started reflecting the visuals I witnessed.

Twenty years passed, living in NY I was successfully able to reverse the initial ratio and visiting museums became a normal part of my life, in fact being in one became a casual activity I would perform when I had nothing to do, before a dinner, on a date or when friends were visiting in town. I wouldn’t think much of it, and the stuff I’ll see there was desensitized enough to protect me from any suffering the artist may have gone through to create it. It was safe to consume alongside anything else that the city has to offer.

Visiting the Tate Modern earlier this year, I remember having similar expectations, I was yearning for a stronger sense of connection and meaning. Crossing the river on a gray London day, appearing again at a vast industrial lobby, most of the shows I wanted to see were sold out, but I was still able to spend a large chunk of the day strolling the museum from one room to the other, covering floor after floor, section after section, flooded with visual information I become numb to to it. Perhaps these too will have a delay effect on me I wondered, or maybe it's that I don’t have the capacity to process more than a few pieces of work. How can one survive being thrown into so many directions? I asked myself, realizing that maybe visiting a museum like many of the important things in life is not about what you’ll find there, but about what you’ll bring with you and the people who’ll be surrounding you. This understanding enabled me to peacefully go back to my previous state of consuming, blending in the crowd. I made it to the cafeteria and before I knew it the gift shop door was open right in front of me, to make any part of it mine for as little or as much as I wanted to spend.