Going to the MoMA for the first time was a really cool experience for me, because for the first time there was art displayed that I was a little bit perplexed by. For example, the exhibition that I completely blew my mind was Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938. As I read in the description, Rene Magritte was a surrealist, and wanted to challenge the real world. I think he does a really good job in doing so, because a lot of his paintings have obscene material, like nudity, which is brave of him for doing so in the early 20th century. I’m not even comfortable looking at nudity now, and its the 21st century already!

Take a look at this image. It surprises me. After seeing all those naked people in his drawings, all of a sudden, Magritte wants to hide the faces of these two lovers. He is trying to invoke a cinematic cliche of a close-up kiss, and he is attempting to capture the audiences attention by masking these two people. Now that the lovers are masked, the audience can have questions, and want to find answers to satisfy their curiosity: who are they? Are they embarrassed by the love they have for each other? Why do they have to the masks on? This is a painting of the year 1928, and the norms of that time were quite conservative compared to the norms for our society today. Magritte is challenging the norms of his society, and asking for people to unmask their love for each other and be more liberal. Otherwise, they’ll end up looking just as ridiculous as these two lovers.

In French, the message on this image translates to “This is not a pipe.” I, as the viewer of the image, disagree with that statement. So what the hell is it? But Magritte responds to my concern saying, ” Who could smoke the pipe from one of my paintings? Nobody. Hence, it is not a pipe.” Magritte says that people saying that this is a pipe is simple error and misuse of language. I thought this was an interesting analysis of his painting. Nobody would even think of such an explanation, so again, that’s another example of Magritte challenging social norms and ways of his time. I enjoyed this exhibition, more so reading the descriptions than looking at the nudity in most of the images, but I won’t deny the fact that the painting were indeed exceptional. See, I like people like Magritte: people that go out of their way to make a case and challenge want the society throws at them, and people who are open to think out of the box.