I must admit that even though I generally enjoy sculpture I did not particularly care for Anthony’s Caro’s work, although I did enjoy viewing them on the roof of the Met. I might have been able to appreciate them more if there had been explanations next to each piece to say what Caro was trying to convey through them, as I felt that the pieces were too abstract to stand without some sort of an explanation. I definitely enjoyed the pieces more because they were on the roof, because although I had been to the Met several times before I had never been up to the roof (I actually didn’t even know that a person could go onto the roof!).
I thought that the atmosphere of the exhibit was quite interesting—as most of the class observed, there was nobody else on the roof that was actually looking at the sculptures! Instead the people seemed to be using the sculptures to cater to their needs. There was one group literally having a picnic inside the large grey sculpture and several people were resting their overpriced drinks on them, but nobody was actually looking at them. Perhaps this is because they appeared to be composed of scrap metal and concrete—maybe if they looked more like traditional sculptures people would have taken them more seriously. Because of people’s general disregard for the artwork, I found the scene to be much more interesting than the artwork itself (and it was also pretty amusing that we were the only ones told not to touch the artwork). You would think that the people at one of the world’s greatest art museums would care more about the art! It seemed to me like people use the roof more as a place to socialize than as a place to seriously view artwork.
