Now you can share what you have learned here with others when you return home to the trailer park.

~Frist Art Center Docent after giving a lecture on two african ceremonial headpeices

I wouldn’t use quotes if there was a symbol at my disposal that expressed the idea of not exactly quoting word for word but really close, minus a pronoun or slightly shifted. When you hear something you didn’t expect everything just kind of grinds to a stop like a wrench in the teeth of gears. So with humility and 20/25 vision I relate what to many could be a serious issue in a social institution but to me is another day in the arts.

The quick and the dirty of the story is that I and a friend went to the Frist Gallery (I thought of changing the names to protect the innocent but honestly that’s annoying) on a Sunday afternoon since we were in the Nashville area due to a old friends wedding. Having a free day we decided to see the many attractions there (Built-to-Scale Parthenon, Old Family Cemetery, Vanderbilt Art Gallery & Jack-in-the-Box since there are none in Chicago).

While visiting the Frist Center (which opened in 2001) we walked around enjoying the 2 rooms of impressionism that were made when Cubism was king. Also the 2 rooms of art nouveau silver were quite nice just very simular as if they were all donated by the same family. In fact the most impressive works in the collection were not hanging on a wall at all but the wall it self. The building was lavish in a faux art deco way that you don’t see enough of today unless you drive the new Cadillac XLR, live near a old WWII federal works building or watch Brave New World esque films like Gattaca or Equilibrium. When we got to the African series we noticed a tour was going on and bent a ear to hear what the guide (or Docent as I was later told) had to say. He was regarding a rather uninteresting outfit and much of what he said didnt stick except for two points where he repeated you could

Tell others about this and you can impress them

That really didn’t make a difference other then I laughed and knew in reality most people could care not one bit if you told them you went to an art gallery and saw a item that meant something. Having been the excited party to that conversation and seen the dead look in the eyes of friends I always find that assumption to be naive and fun. It wasn’t till he got to the Male & Female African Headdress that his tale locked my attention. Weaving a story of fertility and male/aardvark to female/antelope dance I caught every word until he with his glasses sliding down his nose stated

Now you can share what you have learned here with others when you return home to the trailer park.

Now I thought, man he didn’t really say that. Looking around no one seemed shocked or outraged. They just hung their heads with heavy shoulders and shuffled on to the next pedestal. All except for one, he looked at me who I can only image had his jaw a good distance from my upper lip and gave me a wordless look of frustration and was just about to say something when my friend walked up to me and we began talking about the item before us. Part of me wondered if they were a visiting group from a mobile community? I honestly humored the idea for a second before the odds of that and the tone of the Docent/Guide who said it brought that idea into serious doubt.

My friend said I should complain, but I didn’t feel it was my place. He didn’t say it to me and I have learned that complaining does little to no good since in reality no one is going to do anything since who they have is the best they can get and replacement is so hard. People just don’t wait in the wings to be a tour guide no mater how elite the name you give them. I also figured that someone in the group would wait till the end and make a statement. How could they not? A man just fulfilled the middle class American vision of the arts by being both disrespectful and elitist in one breath. So we left and in time I began to drive the 8.5 hours to Chicago. After 5 hours and talking on my cell to a few people I felt I should atleast let someone know regardless of the outcome. So while driving up Interstate 57 I began to make the call to Frist to let someone know, 3 transfers and 1 disconection later i had the assistant since the director was off. The assistant was polite and quick, generous in tone and wording and everything you would want out of someone who had no power whatsover and was basically jotting info down for someone else all without appearing to do so. I was asked if I would tell this to the Director when she got in and I said yes and gave my contact information.

Tuesday afternoon I got a warmup call from a handler who told me the director wanted to schedule time to talk, I was out of my office but told them the number they called was my cell so just whenever she got time was fine, Five hours later it was her. I said hi, as did she. She asked if I was the person who called about the comment and I said yes, she wanted to know more so I asked what had she been told? Basically she said

Well it all sounds like gossip talk doesn’t it

And that’s when I knew this was a cover your arse complimentary call without the compliments. I told her what she was missing in her synopsis and she said thanks. I asked if there was more she wanted to know? Nope was the reply and the conversation ended in less then 4 minutes. That’s what I love about the arts, its oddly chaotic and yet constantly predictable at the same time. I knew nothing would happen, I knew even before I looked around after he said it that no one would speak, you don’t speak in museums out of fear of being hushed. It’s the odd world that I love and find infuriating at the same time, its “The Arts” and honestly business as a whole nowadays.

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