The Museum of Modern Art in New York is severely overrated. Don’t go, don’t waste your time, there is better art out there available with more dignified treatment with more democratic access. Washington, D.C.’s Hirshhorn Museum is free and has a better viewing experience than MoMa, the Art Institute of Chicago has cheaper admission considering the breadth of American art in its collection, and the Detroit Institute of Arts has a far more iconic collection of modern American art and its impact on the country’s consumer products.
You can tell it’s overrated by the type of visitors they attract—basic, faux urbane, and wannabe sophisticate who hasn’t the foggiest about art. The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh has been reduced to an instagram attraction while a Gustav Klimt two frames away had hardly any attention despite being painted by the man who also created Woman in Gold whose tale got turned into a Helen Mirren movie. I spotted the Klimt from about twenty feet away, I wonder how many of those like-chasing idiots realized what they were standing next to at that same moment.
Like a good boy, I purchased a timed ticket to avoid disappointment at the door. I was still disappointed. The museum was crowded to the point where I had trouble seeing art unobstructed from one metre away, there were auxiliary lines for special exhibitions without an SMS virtual line system, and about 20% of the floor space was dedicated to a gift shop that didn’t even stock the nice items that were available online. If you really like art, you’d go somewhere else.
A phrase printed on MoMA’s wall was right: it’s about the fickleness.
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