Interacting

with contemporary art. Crouching under the Bourgeois spider; offering a counterpoint to this familiar representation of maternal ambivalence. Rolling about on a grey upholstered bench in a room full of etherial Agnes Martin work. They want to touch everything. They try to touch everything. The do not touch everything, to the relief of dozens of black-clad gallery attendants.  In this context it seems very strange, how nearly all of these objects strongly invite the very thing that the institutions that elevate them strictly prohibit. On the one hand I strongly support these prohibitions. I'd like these works to endure for others to enjoy. And John and I diligently curb the curious and destructive fingers of our three gleeful children. Except the one time Zephyr breaks free and runs smack into Untitled, c. 1959. Maybe on purpose.  And I'm horrified. And I angrily drag her out of there. And I think about the immense contempt we must invoke in museum staff--we desperate people who bring our children here. There must be so many meetings about what to do with us. (Besides, of course, dip into our wallets.) And yet--it seems a shame somehow. I wish there was a room of aging Sol Lewitt wall drawings smeared in grubby fingerprints.  A warehouse of Bourgeois sculptures bent and twisted and fully altered by little climbing arms and legs. Warhols you could stomp on. I think about the contrast between how I used to experience Untitled  c. 1959 and how I experienced it today. It's absurd. But we are drawn here now, to this museum, on a regular basis, by a portico full of Serra's torqued ellipses in which minds and senses, young and old, can run and delight and get lost.