So the Monday after Easter was a state holiday here in Germany and as I had the day off and was still located in my 10x10 cell of a hotel room I decided that this would be a great day to take in some of the finer points of the 40+ museums located in the Frankfurt area. So with a quick look on trusty old tripadvisor.com for some reviews I settled on taking in the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt (www.mmk-frankfurt.de), thinking that I would catch a few Warhol's, a Dali or 2, hell maybe even a Jackson Pollack! So after a quick walk across downtown I was at the foot of the MMK and my journey into the German world of fine art began, well after I paid my EUR 8 entrance fee that is.
So as I started to walk in, it became apparent that the MMK frequently rotates their works and sometimes you experience will be based on the luck of the draw and the day I happened to walk in it was at the tail end of an exhibition that consisted entirely of photography. No big deal though, I can appreciate some of the aspects of modern photography and it's contribution to art in the 20th century. I mean one of my favorite exhibits that I took in while I was in Atlanta was on Annie Leibovitz and her exquisite collection of portraits that she has taken over the years. Well as I walked in I noticed a sign that stated that some of the exhibits may not be appropriate for younger audiences, whatever, I'm no parent and what could possibly be that terrible in an art museum? So I ascended the staircase into the first exhibition hall and walked into a room that was filled with photos of what I can only describe as Japanese bondage. Literally, the entire room was filled with photographs of naked Japanese women wound tightly in ropes and the occasional photo after the rope had been removed still showing the impression the rope left on their body. Interesting, sure. Shocking, not entirely. Almost the closest thing to art I felt I saw that day, you betcha.
So after that I ventured into a few more rooms that had nothing spectacular to write about in them and then ascended up to the second floor of the museum. So the first exhibit I ventured into was more of what I thought I would see when I walked in to the museum that day. Actually, this was a really cool exhibit of photos taken from Kosovo back in 1995 around the time of the Kosovo war and UN peace keeping operations there, very poignant stuff showing the displacement of people and some of the atrocities that were committed during that time period. So feeling a little bit better I turned the corner into the next room and wouldn't you know it more nudes! Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against nude photos and their place in the art world, so let's just set that straight, but these were a little disturbing. So like I said, slipped into the next room and started taking in these photos and about 2-3 in I started thinking to myself, wow the girls in these photos look really young, REALLY young. It was about that time that I came across a photo of a girl who looked to be, well at least 18, and after reading the description realized that it was the same girl from a prior photo taken 6 years after the first one. So basically this confirmed my feeling that this room was filled with naked photos of girls from the ages of say, oh 14-20...with more leaning to that 14 side. So as I exited the room I grabbed one of the flyers that gave a short biography on the photographer and was flabbergasted that the photographer was an American. I would like to give more information here but the fear of typing "kiddie porn" into Google and landing on some pedophile list is enough to dissuade me from doing that. Actually, hell by posting this I am guessing I will end up on some sort of you're fucked list. Thanks patriot act!
So a making my way to the other side of the floor passed through a few more rooms of more "artsy" photos and to a work I swear I had seen before, and low and behold I had. Blitzschlag mit Lichtschein auf Hirsch by Joseph Beuys, it appears that he commissioned a few more of these works and one hangs out in Tate Modern in London...which I saw almost a year to the day earlier. This is the original though, at least according to Wikipedia it is.
So after that I walked into the next exhibit entitled "Teenage Lust" and I remember this solely because this was some of the most fucked up imagery I have ever witnessed. Seriously, the exhibit basically consisted of the following sequence. Image 1: Guy and girl preparing to shoot heroin; Image 2: Now naked guy and girl shooting up said heroin; and Image 3: Now high on heroin naked girl giving now high on heroin naked guy a blow job. Seriously. Throw in a couple of random pictures of young guys putting handguns into their mouths, maybe a photo of the high people having sex (I assume after the blow job), or a magazine cover of Corey Haim located next to a blow job picture, and a collage of Jon Voight wannabes from Times Square (if you don't get the reference, please refer to the film Midnight Cowboy) and you have yourself one exceedingly odd exhibit. To make matters more interesting there were copies of pages from the photographers journal also included that graphically described him and his friends gang banging girls in their youth and how this all lead up to his desire to want to do this exhibit. Interesting, yes on a level. Extremely fucked up, holyshityes.
Quick side note...so while I was there, their was this rather cute girl going through the exhibit at the same time, she had an arsty/hipster-ish look to her so the nerd in me was totally into it. Well at any rate I was trying to come up with a witty/intellectual line to drop on her, and wouldn't you know it, that is damn near impossible to do when you are both looking at a blow job photo. However, it didn't stop "Creepy Art Dude" (you know the type, late 40's/50's, ponytail, probably enjoyed the pedophile exhibit a bit too much) from making his move while cute artsy girl was looking at the Corey Haim-blow job montage. This at least made me laugh.
Funny thing is, everything I saw on the first two floors resembled art more so than anything on the third floor of the museum. This was another special exhibit of one artist and from what I could tell it essentially consisted of people moving giant tubs of candy around and then dumping them on the floor. Seriously, I was walking and saw a guy with 3 or 4 huge tubs of wrapped hard candy walking through the hall, then I hear this loud thud and as I walk back I see the same 3-4 tubs just dumped in the middle of the floor, and the crazy thing is people were taking photos of this. I just kept thinking to myself that this is the same thing my two year old nephew Nate would do given a large tub of an inanimate object. Only he refers to it as "dump" and not art. Needless to say I walked out of the MMK that day with a new perspective on what can be considered art these days and 8 Euro less in my pocket.
Now I would feel remiss if I didn't provide a few updates on my experience with the MMK. Last weekend when my good friend Pete came to visit, he requested that we go to the weird museum as he had already heard this story. So we decided to check it out and 1. it was open house day so entry was free! Score! and 2. the exhibits had rotated. So on this trip I found basically what I expected with my first adventure, call it MOMA light. A few Warhol's, a Lichtenstein or 2...you know stuff like these:
See you on the flip.
Housekeeping note: please note that I use parentheticals in lieu of footnoting things. If footnotes are possible on here and someone knows how to do it, please educate me! Thanks.
Education on the artists: Teenage Lust was by an American photographer named Larry Clark who came to prominence with his first book of photography entitled "Tulsa" and appears to be a critically acclaimed guy who has gone on to direct a few films, most notably a 1995 film called Kids, which was pretty controversial at the time of its release if I remember correctly.
After reviewing the MMK's site, the other dude is named Jock Sturges - his wiki page is not as flattering and in 1990 the FBI raided his studio, however charges were eventually dropped against him, I agree with the FBI on this one.
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