columbia spectator.

SO I got to write an op-ed piece for the Columbia Spectator on art outside of the University. I think it was supposed to be about art internships but I don't know much about those. Hopefully after this summer in Armenia (crossing my fingers!) and then maybe a curatorial internship at the Met, I'll be more familiar with the subject. It felt great to have my work published again, it reminded me of high school and YB and Journeys and the Crescenta Valley Sun... and how I was so determined and convinced that I was going to be a journalist for the National Geographic and travel the world. And here I am now, an undeclared Architecture major failing Calculus. Anyway, the article:

"Under the Artistic Influence"

I introduce myself as an artist, but “art addict” might be a more suitable term. I am a slave to the blogs and books and the artists at work in the studio upon whom I spy from my window. And so, in the same breath, I am a slave to my internship.

Every Friday and Saturday, I force myself out of bed at some unreasonable morning hour and take the M86 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the Thomas J. Watson Library is located. Processing, labeling, and shelving books is not exactly a glamorous job; I’m just a library paige. But that has probably put me in contact with a more diverse selection of art than I could ever have imagined. In fact, art outside the University is perhaps more a part of my education than the slew of art history and theory courses that I am taking.

In the Watson stacks I experience first-hand where all my professors’ lectures come from: treatises, criticisms, journals, auction catalogs, museum publications. True, my interaction with the artistic world is technically still being mediated through books, which does not seem that much different from flipping through my course reader. But an important note must be made: these are original pieces of literature, not textbooks. They are art history made tangible. I once stumbled upon a dusty old box marked “FRAGILE.” Inside it was a miniature art journal from the early 1800s, on the verge of falling apart. Ignoring the clear warnings, I decided to look through it; one of the pages cracked in two under my touch, abruptly putting a stop to my exploration. But I remain in awe of the discovery. I could have in no shape or form come close to such an artifact in the lecture hall, or even have come to know of its existence. University classes tend to focus on the masterpieces, the da Vincis and Rauschenbergs of the art world, the big pictures and big ideas that impacted the course of history. But what of the eclectic collections of once-prominent art patrons? Or the artists who never had their names in lights but nevertheless produced art worth highlighting? An let us not forget the lesser-known contributions of art to the world – while preparing auction catalogs to be shipped offsite, I learned that one of Paris’ famous auction houses, Espace Pierre Cardin, had held a sale in 1989 to benefit child victims of the devastating Gyumri Earthquake in Armenia. In class I learn that art played a role in almost every historical social movement, but rarely do I hear of its importance in humanitarian causes. That crumbling art journal is in ways a symbol of the significant yet forgotten figures of the art world, of the people and pieces without which the famous artists of any era could not have been. And of the librarians (and paiges) who make sure that their additions to art, however small, are preserved and readily available for discovery by the curious student.

***

I wish that I could check books out of the Thomas J. Watson Library; it would definitely make me a more productive intern. I estimate that 40% of my time there is spent flipping through and reading the books that I am supposed to be processing and labeling. But through my unproductive habit I have recently been introduced to Cecily Brown, Prudencio Irazabal, Arijs Skride, Jörg Lozek, K.O. Götz, among many others. And it never ceases to strike me that I probably would never have known the names or works of these extraordinary people had it not been for my quite ordinary post – not to mention my location in the city of New York. As much as the following will resound of college recruitment literature, here, the city is your classroom: it has to be. What is taught in an art history lecture is only a small proportion compared to what the city has to offer. So take what you can, whether it means you’ll be stuck in a dark basement of a library or be rubbing shoulders with up-and-coming artists. Volunteer at an art festival, apply for internships at museums, auction houses, or print-making studios; what you learn in all your classes combined is nothing compared to first-hand experiences in the city.