when i go to museums, on principle i try not to be the “sort of person” constantly taking pictures of the art – instead, i take close-up photographs of the labels of pieces i’m interested in, with the thought that i’ll eventually refer back to them. of course, i never do, and the effect this ultimately has is that my phone fills up with a bunch of photographs of text i never look at, and if i ever do look at them, it’s always completely decontextualized – did i even like the art, or was i just curious to look further into the artist for whatever reason? why? what did it look like? ultimately, the practice is totally useless and i would probably be better off taking pictures of the art too, but i am the “sort of person” inclined towards inconveniencing myself on inscrutable matters of principle (a much worse sort to be, quite frankly), so still i persist. in an attempt to get these photographs off my phone i am going to put them on the website for my benefit and, less likely, yours. some of them are labels for pieces i loved, others are for pieces i hated, others still are bits of curatorial language that rubbed me the wrong way, but i have not looked at any of them since taking them or cross-referenced with the works themselves so i couldn’t say which is which.
san diego museum of art 5/19/24
whitney museum of american art 7/11/24
metropolitan museum of art 7/13/24