Saw a rather extraordinary thing in the big atrium of MoMA this afternoon, Song Dong's work "Waste Not," which comprises everything his late mother hoarded in her Beijing house. "Waste not," a translation of the slogan wu jin qi gong, is an attitude which lets nothing go which might someday be of some use - a name apparently also used for Song Dong's mother's generation. She passed away this year, but her collection 
had been exhibited before her death, first in Beijing and later in Tokyo; she helped Song Dong lay it out, and enjoyed pointing out that the seemingly useless hoarding had turned out to have a use after all. The exhibition mentions the transition of useless to useful, quotidian to art object, as well as the collaboration of generations, a kind of filial piety. (No mention is made of the transition to being a memorial.) It is 
fascinating, but is it art? I know, that is a meaningless question. I'm not asking about artistry or craft. I'm really asking if it's ethical or at least profound. Thought-provoking it certainly is - though I'm pretty sure the thoughts provoked in Beijing (where it will have represented also the contents of neighborhoods being leveled), Tokyo and NY will have been different, but mostly voyeuristic. It invites voyeurism and then refuses 
it. Her life is here, and it isn't, so don't you go thinking you know her! There's a pathos about it, of course, about a life so haunted by material need that it became a storehouse of useless material. But don't draw any conclusions! These are objects a whole generation hoarded; many of these are things his mother presumably never used. What might such a hoard from our own lives look like? What might seeing it tell us? What 
would others who saw it think? Is it even about us, about art? Perhaps it's profound after all, and even ethical, in another way - more than Song Dong's act of filial piety we are seeing the self-emptying love of a mother for her son and his art. Her bed and stove are here - where did she sleep her last years? Did we kick her out? I'm liking it more as I think about it, but I suspect we're supposed to feel uneasy at our reactions.(I found the pictures in the slideshow accompanying the Times' review; there's also an amusing video of the installation here.)
