An old, decaying piece of wood with a gash through the center is art.
No, really, I swear.
At least that’s what a suggested donation of $25 to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art convinces me is true.
As I prepare to move back to Colorado this month, I have a few last minute dreams I’d like to see come true. Visiting The MET was one of those. To be honest, after watching six seasons of "Gossip Girl", seeing the infamous MET steps is a rite of passage for me.
After spending my past four years as a New Yorker, the time had finally come. While walking through the museum, I was impacted, inspired and sometimes scared (those masks in the African sections really get to me).
First was a long gaze into the broken face of Kaipunesut.
Kaipunesut is a wooden sculpture of a man crafted almost over 4,000 years ago. One of the few wooden pieces from the era, the sculpture adorns the Egyptian art section.
As beautiful as it is, I couldn’t help but notice the huge gash running along the sculpture's body besides its missing arm. The damage is hard to miss. I had to ask myself, “Did I really just pay money to see a sculpture missing half its face?”
Yet, the longer I looked into the eye(s) of this sculpture, the harder it became to look away. Somehow this piece of seemingly damaged goods had captivated me. It is broken but beautiful. In fact, its damage adds to its beauty.
Something caused the gash. I seriously doubt the artist woke up thinking, “Let me cut a huge chunk of my hard work away.” The original sculpture is not what stood in front of me — that I knew. Still, the damage makes it different and unique compared to the more well preserved items (so much so that I’m writing about it now).
The funny thing about museums is you often find the same stuff over and over again. There are paintings, and then there are copies of paintings. There are masks that look like masks you looked at five minutes ago, and there are dresses that look like they came from a scene in a children’s movie.
I came mostly for the Greek and Roman stuff. The Manus X Machina was great, but I really just wanted to see the statue of Perseus chopping off Medusa’s head.
Still, as I spent my time roaming through the gala of Greek and Roman sculptures, I experienced a similar fixation as I had with Kaipunesut.
Sculpture after sculpture was a damaged masterpiece. From the infamous Roman “Torso of a Youth” to the colossal broken head at the beginning of the exhibit, the Greco-Roman section is full of cracked, crumbling works of art.
At the end of the day, I realized we are very much like those fractured works that fill New York’s infamous museum.
Few of us stand strong and unaffected by the world. Most of us, I would argue, feel like broken reflections of what we were. Many days I find myself asking, “What happened to the old Austin? Where is he?” I feel tattered and broken. But, those crumbling statues taught me something.
Damage does not take away beauty.
In fact, damage actually offers a certain peculiar elegance like nothing else can. No one is happy that the once virgin graces produced by the world’s artists now sit decaying and broken behind glass or provide entertainment in foyers. Yet no one looks at the broken pieces and says, “You’re not art anymore.” People still shell out millions of dollars for a fractured segment of an ancient work. Damage does not detract from beauty. It makes it different, sure, but it doesn’t take it away.
I learned all of us are crumbling, decaying and broken pieces of art.
We’ve been through trials and tribulations that have left us maimed and shattered. Still, we are art. We are masterpieces all the same, and our damage gives us a certain charm that perfection cannot. At the end of the day, damaged art is still art.
As I sit here in the sweltering New York heat reminiscing on my time at The MET, I find myself utterly thankful.
I am thankful that though I’m a broken, tattered (and sweaty) piece of work, I am also beautiful. No matter my damage, no person or thing can take away my beauty. You and I are the same — no matter how broken we are, we are masterpieces.
So, go out there and own your damaged masterpiece.
