On Sunday 9/7/2025 I went to the Whitney Museum of American Art. I went with some of my classmates and we took the ferry + train to get there. It was really nice to be back in Manhattan because Staten Island does feel kind of uncanny valley sometimes. I didn’t really know what to expect from the museum but I really enjoyed my experiences at various art galleries in Manhattan and I love the MET so I was excited.
Upon walking in we walked into an amazing elevator. It felt like being in the ocean. After getting out we arrived at Christine Sun Kim’s exhibit: All Day All Night. It was about the artist’s lived experiences as a deaf person. I thought it was really funny and enjoyable to read and understand. It was cool to see that someone can vent out their frustration about underqualified interpreters and hearing-people being ignorant and it still qualifying as art. It did make me ask the question of “Does it make it art just because it is hung in a museum?”. I also found it to be especially nice because I have family members with hearing loss and I thought it was wonderful to have this space as representation. Overall though it was enjoyable I was still looking for something that spoke to me.
We moved to floor 7 called “Untitled” (America). As soon as we got off the elevator I saw the painting that spoke to me. A painting of a man and his mother. In a floor named after America, I looked for myself in the art and I was entirely captivated by the eyes in the painting. The artist Arshile Gorky painted the image based on his deeply personal experiences of him as a child with his mother in Armenia. Though their eyes felt sad they felt filled with uncertainty more than anything. I think that mixed with the fact that they were Muslim presenting really felt relatable. I stood in front of it for a solid 5 minutes looking at all the little details.
I found a lot of the art on this floor to be really cool and relatable honestly. There was so much to absorb and even though they weren’t all necessarily part of my personal culture or background it felt like there was a certain sense of experimental self expression that connected them. I think that’s what made me feel like this last art piece that I saw before we left the floor, was that much more outstanding.
The last floor I really was mentally there for was floor 6: Shifting Landscapes. I walked around but honestly I was just looking for a bench to sit in front of. Ironically I found the most amazing art piece to disassociate in front of. The art piece was called BugSim (Pheromone Spa) by the Greek artist Theo Trianatfyllids. This was a digital art piece that slowly moved and depicted bugs moving around rocks with nature sounds in the background. I genuinely could have sat in front of it all day. It was so randomly captivating. It wasn’t just me who thought this though. We all kind of came and sat in front of it for at least like 5 minutes. It was so relaxing.
After this floor we basically started heading down and at the entrance floor there was a mini print vending machine and we all had a go and bought little mini prints of art. I thought it was really cute and a fun keepsake and bonding moment! We got food after in Korea-town and went home. All in all it was a really nice change of pace and I would totally do it again!
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