MANILA, Philippines - Everyone has a deep, dark travel secret. I, for one, can’t read maps; or to put it less embarrassingly, I don’t have the patience to do so. I have a poor sense of direction. So, all I do is ask. A friend always looks for a Zara branch overseas, even when the Manila shops are never a season late. Another packs crackers and Reno liver spread for fear he’d go hungry in a place with strange cuisine. Two famous local designers cannot travel without their favorite teddy bears. Some love airline food!
The most common travel secret must be the hatred of museums.
Yet, almost always, a museum is part of a tourist’s itinerary. It’s one “strategy for accumulating photographs,” to quote Susan Sontag. The Facebook profile page must be pretty, must have art, must fake appreciation for a dizzying Pollock.
The fakery belies the torture. The line to the Accademia in Florence is just too long! I’m more interested in the gelato found close to the Piazza della Signoria.
The sense of culture is an imposition. If I don’t get inside the Louvre, they’ll say I’m not cultured and intelligent. Aren’t there enough facsimiles of fine art in the gift shop? That’s where I really wanna go and get myself Mona Lisa ref magnets.
It’s always a case of déjà vu. A calligraphy scroll is a calligraphy scroll.
It gets metaphysical. Will I really find the meaning of life in the Baths of Diocletian?
My advice to the museum-phobic and museum-weary: Just don’t. Ignore you-must-see-this-and-thats from friends and travel guides. It’s your trip. Commit yourself to judgment-free travel.
Travel is not a competitive sport. You won’t get Olympic recognition for visiting the most number of museums. The only collection that matters is of wonderful and enriching memories that don’t have to see digital print.
On my last trip to the New York, I heeded a friend’s advice to visit the American Museum of Natural History. As it turned out, everything I needed to learn about the dinosaur age I could have gotten from Spielberg. Paleontology was not my thing. I swore if I saw another Jurassic fossil, I would rush out of the museum and look for a New York school kid’s Barney doll to decapitate.
So I did flee that museum. From a distance I saw a yellow umbrella. I was hoping it was another of those ubiquitous New York versions of Jollyjeep selling my favorite halal spicy chicken rice topped with overflowing yoghurt. It was a mirage. It turned out to be a makeshift stall of an unemployed African-American artist selling one-of-kind T-shirts. I loved his shirts, bought a few for my friends back home, and spoke with him for 15 minutes or so. It was a lesson in kindness (which New York did not reportedly have), fine art, the failed American dream, and persuasive bargaining with a contrived American accent. I’d bookmark that as a fond New York memory, not the diorama of North American grizzly bears.
This is not a manifesto against museums. I still love them. But I don’t rush to see every piece of art that’s hung on the wall. Pacing helps. One a day, three max for a long trip, would suffice. Save for the dinosaur dive, I’d visit a museum with stuff that interests me, and modern art tops my list.
In one trip to London years ago, my friend and I spent the entire day at the Tate Modern, the one museum I’d visit again and again. We’re both lovers of architecture. The structure that houses the museum is a sight unto itself — an old power station with a turbine hall large enough to show huge exhibitions. My friend filled his sketchbook with impressions of Tate. I took pictures, leisurely, and had American hotdog and Ben & Jerry’s in between. The cold wind from the Thames in October made it more magical. Had I rushed through all that, I wouldn’t have appreciated Warhol’s serigraphs of Campbell’s Soup cans and Marilyn Monroes.
I’m aware that for some who are traveling with kids and teenagers, repetitive silkscreened photographs of dead celebrities could mean boredom and suicide thoughts. Mom and dad would want to see the masters but Junjun would rather go to Toys R Us or the Apple Store. The one place that is pampamilya is the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).
MoMa, located in midtown Manhattan, crashes the museum stereotype. Visiting it is not like going on an unexciting school trip. Neither is it highbrow, nor a “secular church for civilization,” as historians put it. Naturally for kids, the concept of archiving significant objects that connect us to the past would be lost on them. MoMa is a place of curiosities. That’s enough of a hook for kids. It’s laid out like a theme park filled with beautiful objects, some interactive. Must start them young and stimulated by art and beauty. I bet kids who are frequently taken to interesting museums would grow up wanting for more things sublime.
The concept of a museum for modern art may sound like an oxymoron. A museum is usually there for preservation. Yet, modern art is not much of a throwback. It’s happening here and now, and is constantly changing. MoMA embraces this contradiction so well that it makes for unpredictable pleasures.
By looking like a regular office building on West 53rd Street, MoMA is immediately welcoming to visitors who stay away from stuffy and stately structures, replete with Greek columns. The foyer extends to an outdoor sculpture garden that heralds open spaces — it can’t be stuffy in here! A huge helicopter hangs on the first level — you’re in for a wild ride. Wide stairways lead you to a mix of historical modernism (like Van Goghs, Mirós, Gauguins, Cezannes, Harings, Chagalls), sculpture, installations, photographs, cinema, furniture, propaganda, pop art, and a lot of incomprehensible stuff that entertain, at the very least. Each hall or exhibit area does not have repetitive pieces. You see profundity, then eye candy next. Politics segues to humor. Diego Rivera’s Communist statements lead to Jeff Koons’ three Spalding balls submerged in an aquarium. It’s a rollercoaster ride. You’d want to scream in delight, just as much.
MoMA is especially interesting for photography buffs. Everyone is a photographer now. If you think you’ve shot enough great pictures for your online community to see, wait till you visit MoMA. I caught the retrospective of Cindy Sherman, one of the most influential artists in the last 30 years. Her work only features herself in varying states of kookiness, kitsch, self-deprecation and provocation. Photography exhibits like Sherman’s will show cam whores other ways to shoot profile pics.
Even the more serious exhibitions educate both young and old without boring them to tears. For one, the “Born Out of Necessity” exhibition shows hypothetical objects designed to address pressing issues in modern living, like stress and natural emergencies. A nearly weightless Mylar Blizzard Survival Bag; a super scaled-down recreational trailer for weary New Yorkers; a distress-signaling kite; and a tent that doubles as a rubber life raft.
There’s just so much more in MoMA, or in any other museum that interests you, for that matter. Choose your museum wisely if faced with a daunting list of museums. Support the one nearest you in your own community. If we stop hating museums, start enjoying and learning from them, life could be as satisfying as a scoop of gelato.
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