MoMA Mixtape: Can a Trip to the Museum Be Miraculous?

“It was such a cozy feeling to walk among the art, to take in work that moved, provoked, and even at times perplexed me, and to contemplate my place in it all.”

Sol Libsohn’s Untitled (c. 1940) + Sam Cooke’s “The House I Live In”

I stared at this untitled photograph by Sol Libsohn for some time, wondering about the life of the woman in this image. With her Worker’s Alliance sash and her hopeful eyes cast upward, I couldn’t help but think about the promise of America, which it has yet to keep, and the utility of hope as a tool for protest and defiance. “The House I Live In” is a potent protest song because of its hopefulness—and no one has sung it with more care and more beauty than Sam Cooke, in my humble opinion.

Archibald John Motley Jr’s Tongues (Holy Rollers) + Quincy Jones’s “Maybe God Is Trying to Tell You Something”

There’s something cinematic about this Archibald John Motley Jr. painting. I found myself watching it for quite some time, as if expecting its subjects to start acting out a narrative. I imagined what came before and after the scene, reveling in the theatricality and the full-out commitment of the holy rollers. It’s a moment of spectacle but also a moment of heightened emotion, which makes me think of the “Maybe God Is Trying to Tell You Something” scene in The Color Purple (1985). So many things, happening at once, coming together in a crescendo of faith and production.

Michael Jang’s Study Hall + The Kinks’ “Picture Book”

There’s something so funny, cute, and familiar about this shot by photographer Michael Jang. In 1973, Jang stayed with relatives in the Bay area of California, where he amassed a collection of family photos that reportedly ended up in a cardboard box in Jang’s home along with the work he made during his school years. What I really respond to in Jang’s work is that all of his images seem to vibrate with nostalgia, documenting not just the moment but the feeling of a moment. That’s why I’ve always loved “Picture Book,” by the Kinks, a song that manages to be uplifting and wistful at the same time.

Henri Matisse’s maquette for Nuit de Noel + Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”

These beautiful cutouts by Henri Matisse got me together in the best possible way. Stepping into the chapel-like space that holds this stained-glass maquette felt like a little pilgrimage. It was made in 1952 to be exhibited at Rockefeller Center during Christmas. Matisse once compared it to “a musical score and its performance by an orchestra.” Which makes me imagine standing alone in that chapel-like space, taking in Matisse’s colors and cutouts, and listening to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s equally colorful and even a little holy score for “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”—particularly the title song.