The erotic experience of viewing famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe stunning, homoerotic and widely unseen Polaroids currently on display at the Whitney Museum in New York turns flaccid as the gallery room fills with the nasally obnoxious sounds of a middle-aged woman from upstate New York attempting to remind her deaf mother that she had been a classmate of Mapplethorpe, “Remember I told you about him” she yells. “He was the HO-MO-SEXUAL in my class when I was at Pratt.”
In the audience of her one sided conversation, the evocative images of men in various states of undress mixed with measured shots of objects like matchbooks and curtains, all captured as high art by an artist early his career, become pedestrian, boring. The woman’s voice breaks the bond between viewer and the work, making everything in the room too accessible, public, obvious and mundane. Suddenly it is her and not the pictures on the wall that becomes the art—a performance piece/reality show about a failed artist living with her mother attempting to justify her art school tuition all these years later based on her momentary proximity to greatness.
Later, upstairs in the galleries housing the Whitney’s permanent collection, I sit on a bench to write my thoughts and people watch. A handsome youngish man comes rushing towards the bench and sits down looking slightly bewildered and emotionally distressed. Within a second another man around the same age is standing nearly on top of him. Maybe it’s the gaypri pants or the talking with hands but without even hearing them I can tell that they are gay Europeans in the middle of an argument. After a few furious minutes of frenetic whispering the second one to arrive sits down and they are lulled into a state of silent brinkmanship.
With so much colour and shape in the room no one but me seems to notice the two moody men on the bench and the security guard who is so entranced he looks like he is watching a soap opera.
While in New York City it has been the security guards that have often provided the highlight of museum and art gallery experiences. Their unimpressed attitude towards the art is a refreshing change from the at-times pretentious conversations and faces I encounter. I always wonder if the guards, in between slyly picking their nose, telling people not to take photos and directing people to the washroom, learn more about art or gain an increased appreciation for it. I look forward to the day when I open up the paper to read that the world’s most successful art dealer, gallery curator or art critic started as a security guard.
The first boyfriend gets up off the bench and begins to pace. Both the security guard and I look at him to see what is going on. He catches us and for the first time remembers that they are not alone. He says something to his boyfriend and now as if reunited against the nosy security guard and me they walk together towards the doorway. They get about three feet before they start disagreeing again. The first boyfriend wants to keep looking at the permanent collection whereas the other boyfriend wants to go downstairs to look at the Mapplethorpe Polaroids. They end up going downstairs. I smile and look over to the security guard hoping that we will share the moment; instead I am met with a blank stare and him with his finger up his nose.
I stay on the bench to keep writing. I enjoyed watching the two men have a disagreement. It seemed so healthy and normal and foreign. I feel that in Edmonton it is rare to see two guys obviously on a date together, let alone comfortable enough to have a lovers quarrel in public.
Later on at the Whitney I end up in the same elevator as the boyfriends and a redheaded family. The first boyfriend is still kind of sulking. The second boyfriend has obviously tired of it all and stares off at the ceiling during the elevator ride. The doors open at the second floor. The first boyfriend is quick to almost get out. His boyfriend catches him in before he leaves and points at the lit-up number two above the door. This act of assertion changes something between the two boyfriends The sulking boyfriend moves closer to his boyfriend and begins talking close in his ear as he gestures with wincing movements to his back. The second boyfriend’s face goes from impatience to concern.
As the doors open for the ground floor we all leave the elevator. I trail behind to see the second boyfriend rub the small of his boyfriend’s back. The family that was in the elevator doesn’t blink an eye nor does anyone else in the busy lobby as they make their way to the door. Their unselfconscious display of affection is moving and of course erotic in its own way. In that moment I realize that in some places homosexuality is pedestrian and boring. It is a freeing yet slightly anti-climactic feeling.
With his eye on his boyfriend the second boyfriend goes out into the street and hails a cab. After they have both gotten in but before I loose sight of them into the sea of yellow cabs that makes up Madison Avenue I see the first boyfriend take his boyfriend’s hand and kiss it. It makes me wish I had my camera.
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