I could do that.

A week ago I went with my mom to the Columbus Museum of Art. Since Columbus really grew up in the past 30 years there was very little old money to spend on great works of art at the turn of the century, in the 50s or even in the late 60s. So the art collection at the museum is fairly weak. They've found a something of a niche focusing on George Bellows (a Columbus native). So that's nice. Good stuff, sort of transitional work late 1800s early 1900s, mainly city scenes.

Given that I wanted to see, Early christian art, Van Eyck-like stuff, Flemish art (breugel, etc) or modern sculpture--it was sorely lacking. But that's fine. It was nice to be out with my mom and she was thrilled about all the Buddist art. I on the other hand just cannot seem to like Buddist art. I want to, I really do. I recognize that it's well crafted-but I find it boring to a degree that words fail to capture. So of course they had a touring exhibition of Buddist art (160+ pieces). Yeah.

Finally we moved into the modern room (yep one room, a small one at that). On the floor was a cardboard box, painted blue with black lines silk screened on it. Knowing that I usually like modern art and "sculpture" (broadly defined) she asked "Why is that art?" "Why do you like that?" and the classic anti-modern art comment of "I COULD DO THAT." In the interest of full disclosure---I thought the piece was shit. I didn't like it. But I took up the challenge to defend its type. After a long and really pleasurable argument I settled into the notion that maybe the point of that kind of modern art is to challenge people to think "I COULD DO THAT." Maybe that's the goal. Breaking down the notion of art as something that exists outside the realm of everyday life, something that is beyond the capacity of the viewer (nearly by definition). Granted none of these are groundbreaking thoughts. Nor do I claim them as such. But it was nice to realize that maybe the best argument against "I COULD DO THAT" is 'right, you could. That's the point.' Further still, maybe for all its flaws the CMA succeeded. It created conversations and prompted people to consider the role of art, and the place of art in their lives. As the shitty blue box is to modern art (a crappy representation of the power of the genre/form but a conversation starter all the same, a departure point for intellectual discourse) so the CMA is to museums (ill kept, and sparse, but all the same capable of generating thought and insight and hopefully action).