Museum moments

“Why not pursue wonder?” suggests a story I once read. A healthy sense of curiosity, the author argues, fosters tolerance, inspires creativity, builds resilience and makes us more “desirous of studying the world around us.”

My being “wonder-prone” perhaps tremendously helped me navigate a 20-plus-year life (and still counting) of geographical impermanence. Chasing wonder comes in many forms and in my case, exploring museums and regularly revisiting my favorite ones, is one of them.

These days I wish I were in the Philippines, especially after receiving emails and messages about free entrances, events and exhibits, October being museums and galleries month. I am grateful to have recently gone home and to have marveled at the grandeur of some of our museums in Manila. This marvelous feeling of rediscovery also reconnects my thoughts to countries we had lived in.

My heart fluttered upon setting foot in Xian’s Terra Cotta Warriors On-Site Museum in China’s Shaanxi province. The sense of awe was absolutely ethereal. Our guide explaining that the original terra cotta icons were painted in blue, green and gold and complexly decorated depending on the men’s rank in the army, roused our then young precocious children to ask endless why’s and how’s. The clay figures, our guide expounded, discolored 40 minutes to two hours after excavation due to exposure to elements in the air and moisture. No two of the unearthed 6,000-plus life-sized clay soldiers look alike, because each statue is believed to had been modeled after their artisans. If that encounter didn’t leave us spellbound, I don’t know what else it did.

While admiring a painting at Jakarta’s Fine Arts and Ceramic Museum, the artist’s name – Antonio Maria Blanco – intrigued me. Could he be related to the renowned Blanco artists of Angono, Rizal? My research revealed otherwise but led to his Philippine connection. Antonio Blanco was born in Ermita, Manila to Spanish parents from Catalonia but eventually settled in Indonesia where he married his Balinese muse. On a summer vacation in Bali, my family spent half a day at his eponymous Blanco Museum in Ubud, to engage in his art and workshop and to satisfy our epicurean adventure at the gallery’s award-winning restaurant.

Here in New York, museum visits are part of my delightful rituals, either with the UN hospitality committee or with visiting family and friends. The foremost ones like MoMA or the Museum of Modern Art, The Met, including The Cloisters where I procured membership, are tops on my list, plus the New York Historical Society, the National Museum of American Indian and the ones in Liberty and Ellis islands and Brooklyn.

Museum memberships are extremely beneficial. Members enjoy year-round unlimited entry; invitations to before opening exhibits, forums and educational events; access to members’ lane (including our guests) especially during peak season when lines snake; free or minimum fee for guests and discounts at the museum shop and café.

More meaningfully for me, it is a gesture of reciprocity, my way of supporting budding artists, art programs and advocacies of our host city, thus substantiating what a New York Times columnist says about consuming culture: “It helps you understand, at least a bit, the depths of what’s going on in the people right around you.”

Consuming culture initiated me to the work of American artist Judith Chicago. Her gorgeous installation, “The Dinner Party, A seat at the table,” reinterprets “the Last Supper from the point of view of women who, throughout history, prepared the meals and set the table.” The astounding triangularly set banquet, now a permanent set-up at the Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, is for me a deconstruction of the traditional view of women’s tasks largely relegated to domestic chores. Ms. Chicago’s revolutionary work celebrates the advancement of women roles evocatively expressed in exquisite embroidery, flamboyant china and fine cutlery. It is for me an ultimate expression of feminist art.

My children spent more than half a day at MoMA, first to admire Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” to appreciate Monet’s “Water lilies,” to see Picasso’s early works before cubism became his trademark and to appreciate the works of multi-generational artists. When they got tired of meandering through the five-story gallery, they devoted the rest of the day at the creativity hub to design their own art. Activities like this perhaps make MoMA relatable to the young versus The Met, which my children think is “for older people like you, Mom.” They say this in an endearing way and I understand their opinion.

I like The Met because of its extensive Egyptian, African, Asian and medieval arts; its newly renovated European Wing and by large it’s very museum feel. Maybe not as grand, but I associate The Met with our own National Museum and the San Agustin Museum, which I had recently revisited.

I specially love The Cloisters. Nestled in Fort Tyron Park with a spectacular view of the Hudson River, The Cloisters transports one to medieval Europe through mystical sculptures, tapestries, stained-glass windows, paintings, frescoes, precious artifacts in silver, gold and ivory, manuscripts and more. Perhaps it’s the provenance of the treasures, communing with sacred art or the serene walk along its charming gardens that make a trip to The Cloisters like a pilgrimage, a transformative spiritual experience.

Because of or despite the similarities and differences every museum encounter brings, they, to my mind, validate what the NY Times piece further says about consuming art: “It furnishes your mind with emotional knowledge and wisdom; it helps you take a richer and more meaningful view of your experiences.”

At every visit I habitually read the names of foundations, organizations or men and women whose financial contributions keep museums relevant, vibrant and afloat. Aside from their philanthropic work, I regard them as guardians of our heritage and the sturdy bridge that links the past to the present. They too are a source of wonder and, much more, of inspiration.