Martini’s and Some Scrap Metal

When we visited the Met to see Anthony Caro on the roof, I expected to be humbled by intricate, beautiful works of art. Instead I was privy to…scrap metal? At first I believed there must have been some sort of mistake, I must have been missing the rest of the exhibit. Call me uneducated, but I was rather unimpressed by the jumbled heaps that littered the roof. There were, I will admit, some pieces that were nice looking, but certainly nothing to write home to mother about. There was actually one particular piece, a garish banana yellow monstrosity, that I considered more of an eyesore (or an unfortunately colored bench) than a piece of art. I simply didn’t understand it; it didn’t evoke a single feeling inside of me, possibly because I didn’t know what purpose Mr. Caro could have possibly had for creating these pieces other than he had nothing better to do with some scrap metal.

But, I will admit, I may have been too disgusted (and albeit intrigued) with the pretentious display of over-privileged Manhattan-ites swilling martinis or too distracted by the gorgeous view of Central Park to give the proper credit due to Mr. Caro. The view of Central Park was honestly breathtaking, the fact that the sun was just setting simply added to the effect; Manhattan and Central Park in all of their glory against a pinkish-purple sky. I couldn’t help but glue my eyes to the scene, to lean over the railing and focus all of my energy on this view. So, maybe the roof wasn’t exactly a good place to put the exhibit. When given the chance to look at the sunset over Central Park, or to glance at some hunk of metal, the choice is rather obvious. The sunset was so incredibly amazing that the juxtaposition simply took away any artistic value that the Caro sculptures may have at one point held.

What was equally as entertaining however were the people swarming around the roof, cocktails in hand, hobnobbing with the other guests and every so often throwing in a casual comment about the artwork. And when I say every so often, I mean exactly that. I believe these people were only attending this exhibit (in addition to trying to gain an image of being “intelligent” and “artsy”) so that they could drink overpriced alcohol at this cocktail party taking place on the roof of the MET. These people weren’t art lovers, they weren’t even art appreciators- in fact most of the people were, like me, looking past the art at Central Park. There were others however, who were just rude. I mean, I don’t care if the sculpture looks like a strange table, it is not a place to rest your rum and coke!