To be honest, when I first entered the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, I truly felt that there was a cocktail party taking place rather than an exhibit. Indeed, the scenery on the roof was very pleasant. People can see every building on Fifth Avenue clearly when standing on the roof. With the comfortable weather and beautiful sunset, the roof was really a great place for a cocktail party. For this reason, very few people seemed to pay attention to the sculptures that were being displayed. I, too, was a little distracted by the people and scenery, and therefore, didn’t concentrate on appreciating the exhibit.
However, there was another reason that I didn’t feel I was truly appreciating the artworks that were being displayed. Before I commented on any of Anthony Caro’s works that I saw on the roof, I have to confess that I have almost no knowledge about how to appreciate modern arts. Every time I walked into the modern arts section of a museum, I often felt the arts are overly abstract, which led me to be in a state of confusion. By saying this, I do not mean modern arts are not as good as the classic arts. It was just that I couldn’t always follow modern artists’ logic very well. Therefore, when I asked myself what I thought about the exhibit, I got a very simple answer. When I stood in front of a piece of artwork and took a look at it, I simply wanted to move to the next piece of artwork. When I saw every piece of artwork, I would ask to myself: what did I really see? Again, I do not mean that Caro’s works are not worth appreciating; it was just that I couldn’t follow what the artist’s was trying to convey through these sculptures.
Of course, Anthony Caro’s artworks have enlightened my mind in some very special aspects (otherwise I wouldn’t consider them as arts). First, Anthony Caro is an engineering artist. This was a relatively novel noun to me since I could hardly make any connection between engineering and arts. Yet, his artworks have perfectly combined the strength of steel and the softness of arts. Even though the strength and softness combination was not new in any forms of arts, his artworks can actually bring parts of dull machines into pieces of artworks that people can truly appreciate. Second, the way that Anthony Caro has constructed his works must involve some physics principles. If people can understand the principles behind these sculptures, maybe they can better appreciate the beauty his works.
Overall, the Anthony Caro exhibit was interesting in different ways. First, the location of the exhibit gives the visitors a feeling totally different from the feeling inside the museum. Visitors can enjoy the beauty of New York City while they are trying to interpret the artworks. Second, unlike the other artworks display in the museum, the artworks in this exhibit do not have any descriptions or explanations next to them. This leaves people with unlimited imagination. Visitors can interpret the meaning of the artworks themselves, which, in my opinion, is a significant characteristic of modern arts. Last, although Caro’s works did not teach me how to appreciate modern art, they illuminated the idea of what modern arts can leave people with.
