Nyssa Frank, founder of The Living Gallery
Coming from the Bronx and living a regular public school kid’s life, I didn’t realize the opportunities around me. I had witnessed my brother for years get cool things off Craigslist. I mean, he even bought a car. I was hungry to enter the art world. I wanted to dip my feet into anything I could.
Portrait of Ringo Starr, by Karni Krikoryan
Karni Krikoryan is an artist born in Istanbul and currently living in the United Kingdom. She is also my aunt. Starting only at age five, she began creating art. “I had something to say about everything around me. So my eyes became my words,” is how she explains her early interest.
Growing up in New York City has taught me to always pay attention to my surroundings, as well as to be an open-minded individual. It is a cultural melting pot and an artistic wonderland with an abundance of galleries, museums, graffiti, posters, and people.
The crowds surrounding the Mona Lisa, Louvre Museum, Paris. Photo by Ana Inciardi
People shuffle around the gallery next to priceless pieces of art. Why are they here? Phones brought them here. The motive in going to a museum nowadays has evolved. The camera not only captures the piece of art, but also the wandering aesthete who clutches the camera at an arm’s length away from his or her face.
The inspiration for at least three poems: Jackson Pollock. Number 1A, 1948. 1948. Oil and enamel paint on canvas, 68″ x 8′ 8″ (172.7 x 264.2 cm). Purchase. © 2014 Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
“Hi! So we’re from a program at MoMA called the Cross-Museum Collective and we’ve been asking people to write spontaneous poems about the piece of artwork that they’re currently looking at for the MoMA blog. Would you want to write one for us?”
Every family has its quirks, and you could say that my family wears theirs on their sleeves. I grew up surrounded by tattooed arms—skeletons, hearts, daggers, and snakes.
Luca’s notebook from New Zealand, featuring image of works from MoMA’s collection
Before I moved to New York, I was fortunate enough to take a studio art class in my middle school in my home country of New Zealand. During that class, we analyzed Pop art of the 1960s by looking at small reproductions of famous paintings from the period.
A portrait of “Vladimir,” by Carol Li
Approximately 3.5 million people from all over the world visit the MoMA each year. But who are these people? They all seem like anonymous faces in a gallery, to whom we pay little notice. But just like ourselves, each one of them has their own, unique story.
Installation view of Petra Collins: Discharge, Capricious 88, 28 February 28–April 27, 2014. Photo by Auréole Ribes
Your alarm doesn’t wake you up on time and you have to find the perfect outfit that no one will judge. Your winged eyeliner has to be symmetrical. You see a girl’s Ask.fm profile, where someone is anonymously calling her a slut because there’s a photo online of her making out with someone. Then you check your Facebook to see if you got any more likes on your profile picture.
The author, center, contemplating his next move as an international art thief during his MoMA Security tour
As a student who had visited MoMA many times before, I felt confident that everything I was about to witness during the Cross-Museum Collective’s tour of MoMA’s security system, I probably already knew. To my pleasant surprise, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
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