A rather pleasant day

I want to tell you about my day because it was incredibly wonderful, considering I've been having some not so comfortable days lately. Why? Because it's cold, because I've got the winter blues, because I feel lonely, lost, abandoned, bored by this world and want to be out in the universe, floating in space, travelling to other galaxies... basically, the norm of my inner feelings toward the universe.

Today though! I don't work on Tuesdays so I took this opportunity to go to the Art Institute for free (that would be the Art Institute in Chicago) and look at some art. Now, I've just been to this museum about a month ago and I was there for a long time and looked at a lot of things thoroughly, so this time I just went wherever I fancied, or to see my favorites.

The day started off quite nice, it was very sunny, although still freezing cold. I went to Belmont (because I hate the Addison red line stop) and got on the train, and got off at Jackson. Immediately from being at the Jackson red line stop I came up with a new idea for yet another short story, so that was good.

I walked to the Art Institute slowly right past the DePaul Loop campus and silently laughed at all the funny students walking around there. Classes just started last week I believe, and I inwardly mock college students now, I am not really sure why, probably because they make me feel ancient.

There were few people at the museum because it's the middle of the week, so I was mostly undisturbed except for a couple of workers there that tried to start a conversation with me, this always happens.

I started with photography because I am still trying to understand it and develop some sort of critical opinions about photographs. Alison Rossiter's "Acme Kruxo" was very interesting, here is an example:

These photographs are about the development of photographs, expiration, digitalizing the whole photo process. I don't want to get into technical talk because there is little I understand of photography in those terms, but either way, those works were really quite incredible to think about and look at.

Next I really enjoyed studying Gary Winogrand's "Women are Beautiful". The concept, on the one hand, is very primitive, but on the other it goes so deep. Every photograph is unique and fantastic, but altogether the collection gives a sense of something powerful, not in an emotional sense, but from a philosophical and aesthetic point of view. Women are traditionally worshipped by men for their beauty, which in term is replicated in all forms of art. Here it is a similar idea, but it's different. These women are not posing, they are not beautified. The femininity is raw, and that is what makes it enormously powerful and long-lasting. Here are some of my favorites I could find on the internet:

Then I stumbled upon space photos, from the moon expedition. I stared long and hard into the helmet of one of the astronauts and tried to imagine what he was feeling, and I think he was happy, beyond anybody's comprehension. I think behind that helmet he was laughing, and they all were, because they were so far away from Earth, the first people to venture out so far and step on a different world. Wow, it is truly amazing to think about that. When I studied those photographs I actually started tearing up a bit. One day I will follow in their footsteps and reach space, I promise. That is why I cannot die until I do.

Then I went and saw the usual what I always go to see: American contemporary art. Robert Mangold's "Green/2 Orange X Painting" from 1983 that hangs there always captivates me because every time I see it there I forget it is a cross, and just look at the thin line running in the middle of the really long and thin canvas. Then I notice the color, so beautiful and pure. And when I start reading the description, it finally hits me: it's a cross! I always forget!

Cy Twombly's big paintings that face each other in this one room at the Art Institute always make me stare at them for a long time. His works are strange to me because I feel like there is a whole universe in every single one of his works. Every scribble is just another planet or star system or galaxy or perhaps every scribble is another dimension and another time. It's amazing how his paintings are incredibly chaotic and yet so still and lonely with all that vast space that feels like the void to me.

But then you see the Mark Rothko's on the other two sides of the room and you realize everything you ever felt or known or imagined is contained within each Rothko painting. Whole civilizations and time, centuries, landscapes, cliffs and oceans, and also emotions and people and stories and death, all of those can be seen in a Rothko work. It's as if your soul leaves your body and plants itself in those pools of color, softly intersecting each other, borders playing tricks on your eyes and colors mixing and creating new ones. If you stare long enough, it will bring you peace to your mind.

Looking at art calms me and unsettles me at the same time but in different ways. I feel peaceful, introverted, reflective but also lonesome, melancholic and all wrapped up in my head so that it's hard for me to talk or listen or do anything other than write, think and walk. What sort of power is it that can make a person feel so confused?

Something strange happened at the museum today: when I was walking around, for some reason I was somehow convinced that I was in London, not in Chicago. I have no idea why, I was really spaced out and I kept looking at all those American photographs and thought to myself: "Why are there so many American photographs, I wonder how the Brits feel about that. I guess there is a lot of New York and people say New York is a bit European in a way..." and then suddenly I realized I was in America and the amount of American photographs was absolutely normal. Then I got dizzy because I legitimately thought I was in Europe for a few moments. Then I felt as if I wasn't me at all, but removed from my body with my thoughts. It was such a strange feeling that it made me feel really unstable. Then I started wondering if I am actually going insane, bit by bit, my mind just becoming something scary weird. I have all these thoughts in my head that run on forever, and I disconnect from the world for long periods of time, without even noticing it. It makes me feel so disoriented and not really a part of the world at all. It's as if I am floating or dreaming...