The old becomes Neue

At last the subject matter of art includes the simple intimacies of everyday life in its repertoire.

– Edmond Duranty

It took a chair to snap things into focus for me. A Marcel Breuer designed chair to be exact – the “Wassily.”  I had grown up with those chairs and before I knew anything of their historical significance, they were just the chairs in our living room. The chairs were easy on the eyes, but a bit tougher on a squirmy little kid trying not to slide through the empty spaces. As I got older, I began to encounter the chairs in museums and the Design Within Reach catalog, but they still remained a welcome reminder of home.

My friend Edward was in town this weekend to help me celebrate my birthday. If you were telling our story in the 1980s, the last frame would probably include a choreographed dance number coupled with a declaration of love at a high school prom or Edward hoisting a boom box outside of my bedroom window.  But, our story is unfolding in a post-80s world where we are reliving the 80s by playing table tennis while wearing Bjorn Borg-inspired sweatbands and dancing at clubs where Madonna, New Order, and Michael Jackson are being recycled for the discovery of a generation born in the 90s.  They don’t make the types of movies I grew up on and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t make the story of me and Edward.  Our platonic love plot isn’t easily narrated, especially with our aesthetic affinities veering in the same direction when it comes to oxford shirts, sneakers that are hipper than our oxford shirts usually allow, and women. 

But even with these narrative complications, Edward remains my knight in shining armor.  He can be counted on to ply me with the poems of Auden and Rilke, to take me out dancing when the mood strikes, and to move me through the disappointments that crop up every now and then. This weekend’s disappointment was minor in the scheme of things.  Due to a family emergency, Morgan had backed out of our plans to see the Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity preview at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Edward, a fan of German Expressionism, and ever attuned to my tendency to ratchet up even the smallest of slights – unintentional as they may be, suggested that we make a substitution and visit Neue Galerie instead. 

With that invitation in hand, I felt less fragile about Morgan’s absence (defensible as it was) and decided to visit the Met before meeting Edward at the Neue. I was less fragile, but still distracted by the absence of Morgan’s fashion-oriented eye and acerbic wit. In the past few months, though her absence had grown more familiar than her presence, I still wasn’t wearing it all that well. Leaving the Met and joining Edward at Neue, I found myself in front of a Wassily chair and next to Edward. Edward had been there before I knew the presence of Morgan and he will be there for the moment when I finally figure out how to fit comfortably into the spaces caused by her absence.  Edward is home and it took a chair to remind me how lucky I am to have him.

-Ara Tucker, 2013