Subjecting Myself to the Subjective

Let’s hope groundhogs can be wrong every once in a while, because I don’t know how much more of this cold weather I can take.

My wife and I have an infant at home. The plan all along was simple: get out of the house as often as possible and smell the daisies instead of the diapers. We were going to take long walks every day and make sure we all got some fresh air. Man plans, God laughs.

New York has been teleported to the North Pole at the absolute worst time. Walking outside has become a fight for survival. This is no longer weather; these are the elements. Venturing beyond your front door now requires a certain bravery.

With outdoor walks clearly off the table, we had to get creative. And by creative, I mean Googling things like: “Best places in NYC to walk indoors with a stroller?”

One place came up over and over again: The Museum of Modern Art, or to those in the know: the MoMA.

Let me get the positive out of the way first: Yes, the MoMA is indeed a good place to walk with a stroller.

With the pleasantries out of the way, let’s get down to business.

They say art is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. I think they’re full of it.

Here I am, yet again, preparing to complain about something most people already agree on. Sometimes I feel like a broken record. Incredibly enough, I am actually writing this on Groundhog Day … the irony is suffocating. Will it stop me? Certainly not.

Now, where was I?

I think modern art is absolute balderdash. Let me emphasize the word “modern.” I’m by no means a classical art fanatic, but it’s easy to appreciate the “Mona Lisa” or “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” These are, without a doubt, works of art.

The MoMA, however, is … different. I found that exhibits there often resemble kindergarten art projects or a collection of tchotchkes from a Salvation Army. I was often left wondering: where did society take a wrong turn, and is it too late to make a U-ie before we face eternal damnation for how badly we have corrupted and warped the word “art”?

Sometimes you enter a “gallery” and see nothing but large stone blocks in an otherwise empty room. Other times, there’s a chain-link fence with wires looped through it and a few hanging lights. One exhibit? Just a neon sign. What makes that art? I have a neon sign at home that says “The McVeighs.” Should I be worried that Danny Ocean and his ten closest friends might be plotting to steal it?

The thing about the MoMA is that there are some real treasures tucked away on the upper floors. Vincent van Gogh’s “A Starry Night” or Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” are delightful to behold. But getting there means wading through plenty of other pieces of junk “art” along the way.

As we walked through the first few galleries, I began, as I often do, complaining to my wife in a style not unlike this column. (She almost always gets the first draft verbally.) Before I could finish, she stopped me. “We didn’t come here for the art,” she said. “We came here to walk the stroller and not freeze.” She was, as always, correct.

Objectively, the MoMA is a great place for stroller walking. Subjectively, it made me feel like the inspiration for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”