Fireflies at Night, Art Appreciators' Delight

Souvenir was coming to the Grand Met. He was the biggest painter in the biggest gallery and it was just down the road from where I lived. How lucky was I? I couldn’t wait to go. I could feel the anticipation building inside me like bubbles rising and popping in cola. I’d heard excellent things. We all had. It was a paying show and it was notoriously hard to get tickets. I’d secured mine months in advance. People were peddling fake ones on street corners to make a quick buck. That’s how popular they were.

I was going with my friend, Se Yung. She was a modern art fanatic. We’d been to every art show together in the past three years and this was going to be the highlight of our human experience of art. I knew it. I could barely sleep, though I tried to get snatches of it where I could. I had to be alert. I didn’t want to miss the slightest thing.

We were going in the evening, and that was intentional. We’d heard the rumours about Souvenir’s work. You weren’t allowed to bring a camera to his exhibitions, even to take stills for your own personal use. He said it spoiled the art. People used to believe if you captured their photo, you somehow stole their soul along with it. He treated his work the same way. Souvenir was beyond secretive, but rumours always spread once something is introduced into the public consciousness. We had heard about the movement in his pictures. Some interpreted it literally, others metaphorically. I had to see it for myself to gauge which it was.

On the night of the show, Se Yung and I got all dressed up. She came to my apartment and we played around with our clothes, being as brave and performative as we could.

“You look fantastique,” she said, tongue in cheek. “I adore those long lashes you’re wearing.”

They were so long they tickled my cheeks each time I blinked, but they went perfectly with the rest of my dramatic ensemble. Se Yung looked just as striking. If you wanted to see high art, you had to dress for the occasion. I admired her hat. It was so elaborate, my eyes couldn’t keep up with its many facets. It was constantly revealing something new to me. It was a work of art itself.

Truth be told, we wanted to be featured in the city’s art magazine. There were always photographers hanging around in the lobby of that gallery. They wouldn’t be allowed to enter the art room itself, but they’d be taking a multitude of snaps before the event got started, no doubt.

Whenever we went into the building, it was deathly silent. It was like walking into the most sombre of funerals. We didn’t manage to get anything of our visit recorded. It was almost like we hadn’t been there, as far as physical records are concerned.

We followed the ticket collector as he directed us to our starting point. Even with tickets, the line was slow-moving. It seemed that once someone entered the exhibit, they wouldn’t re-emerge for an eternity. It was like they couldn’t bring themselves to leave again. I was impatient as we waited in line. Finally, we were called forward, our devices were confiscated and we walked inside.

The two of us were alone in the grand room. I wondered why they segregated the art lovers. Maybe it was to allow a full appreciation of what they were about to see – or maybe it was to limit the distribution of evidence of the magical phenomenon. It would lose its mysterious edge if it was widely discussed, if it was interpreted as a singular experience. Whenever one person went ahead of another, each saw something different. Maybe that’s just what art is - with or without its magical elements.

My first, surprised impression was that everything in the display was 2D. I had expected huge, avantgarde installations, but it was entirely made up of paintings. The lights dimmed down to darkness and then, the paintings came to life. There was an abstract I was observing that was colourful, but overall, it was flat and lifeless. It wouldn’t have been anything special as a standalone piece, but in the darkness, it started to move, like the path a firefly traces on a navy night. The colours flew out of the painting, like silent fireworks. I spun around to appreciate the full development of it. The painting was moving into every space in the sealed room. The abstract brushstrokes were no longer on the canvas. It was blank and artless, but the art moving around us was something impossible to distil into a single sentence. It was inexpressibly beautiful.

Se Yung was moved. I could tell because she was so quiet. Ordinarily, she was never lost for words. Every time we found ourselves in a silence, however comfortable, she would feel the need to fill it. It was something I knew she did, but it didn’t particularly bother me. I appreciated her silence that night. There was so much to take in. It was like being at the heart of a fireworks display without any of the danger of getting too close.

There was a painting in a loose style of a man in a boat. The boat started to glide across the water on the canvas. The water rippled and twinkled under the sunlight. Then the boat picked up speed and sailed across the room, exploring every crevice with the delight of an adventurer in a place of novelty. It was so moving. The man in the boat’s face changed and took on emotion. He was crying. It wouldn’t have been clear why, had he been static and tearful, sitting in his unmoving boat, but with all the action guiding it, it was truly touching.

We continued to look at every piece for an age, drinking the meaning in like parched desert trekkers. By the time we reached the exit, I felt loath to leave. Se Yung confirmed that she felt the same. There wasn’t anything else we could do afterwards that could begin to live up to it. So, we went for a substandard cup of coffee in the gallery’s cafeteria, a stale bun and a look out the window at the immovable city. By contrast, I thought - what a colourless, concrete, artless day it had become.