Anastasia Hayes: At the MoMA

Going to MoMA is always a slightly stressful experience for me, the exact opposite of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Whereas the latter museum is largely an affirmation of my tastes, the former constantly challenges how I conceive of “art.” The exhibition devoted to the Sixties staged some of the strongest assaults: Yayoi Kusama’s Accumulation No. 1, an armchair covered in cotton penises, confronted me, daring me to find something besides shock value in it. I can and appreciate recognize the feminist statement – it is useful to be reminded of the unmarked discourse of masculinity, ubiquitous but invisible. It was telling to learn via the audio guide that male critics of the period were so embarrassed by the piece’s profusion of phalluses that they simply refused to recognize them for what they most obviously are. I think it is important to force these kinds of conversations about gender and I can even appreciate the sloppy grin with which Kusama’s piece opens the subject up for debate. Yet I do have to ask whether the piece’s value is relative or absolute? There is some real wit to the piece but I am not convinced it portrays the kind of mastery as something like Goya’s The Disasters of War (1810-1820). The series of prints displays a technical mastery while delivering a devastating social commentary. Goya confronts the terrors of war with a stark directness, especially when documenting instances of sexual violence. The series’ images are stomach-churning but the impression they leave is more lasting than Kusama’s naughty chair. As Susan Sontag mentions, Goya’s images force his audience to recognize the troubling allure of images depicting Wrong and the necessity of looking at them head on. That is my problem with a significant amount of the Sixties’ artistic output. It attempts to elevate form high above content, abandoning the moral imperative of art. Andrei Tarkovsky, one of my favorite directors, put out Ivan’s Childhood the very same year Kusama revealed her study on phallic ubiquity to the art world. Just four years later, he would release his masterpiece, Andrei Rublev. Though derided in the West for his antiquated conception of the artist’s duty (namely, that they had a duty to disseminate [God’s] truth), I cannot help but respond to this idea of creative carrying with it some kind of moral imperative.