B&W

Nipped into MoMA today and had a look at Take Your Time, the exhibition of works by Olafur Eliasson. Very simple, almost pure. It's about spaces and perception, I guess. (But is it "art"? Can one still ask that question?) I was struck by the effect of yellow neon tubes in the hallway where the exhibition began, though (tellingly!) I first needed a description to tell me what I was seeing! The yellow light washed out all colors, so that everyone appeared as if in a black and white movie (well, black and yellow). It was the strangest thing, especially as one explored the peripheries of this color-free zone - the escalators going up and down, the hallway beyond the lights - where someone's grey teeshirt emerged as red and another's turned out to be blue, while others, entering our space, apparently unknowingly left their colors behind. I was wearing a shirt striped grey and grey, though it had been blue when I dressed this morning - it was like seeing myself in a fantastically sharp black and white photograph. Profound? Maybe not. But cool.