It's an irregular reality on this blog... But that's how life is right now.
Today was the first spring-like day. 13 degrees and sunny. And it's a Monday. And Mondays happens to be free entry at the Deutsche Kunsthalle (prior to this it was the German Gugenheim). So I decided to take the opportunity and go have a cultural exprience with the kids. I did my homework, I had a look at what's being currently exhibited and saw that the current exhibition ends this week, meaning it was either today or never. The exhibition looked interesting on the website, but turns out that I didn't do my homework properly...
I picked up the boys from their respective places of daycare, we had dinner, took our big red bike out of storage, drove to the bike shop accross the street to pump up the tires and made our way to the gallery. There we had to give up our helmets and backpack upon entry, but then we were set and ready for absorbing artistic expression. As I was reading the opening blurb with Tom on my arms, the words "male form" and "revolutionary gay" stood out to me. We procedeed to look at the first painting which had a lifesize naked man leaning on a balcony. There wasn't anything particularly alarming about it, so we went into the main hall.
On a sidenote - an art exhibition is a completely new domain for both boys. I had Tom by the hand, but Tim wanted to wonder around, so I explained to him that it's important to keep a distance from the paintings and not to touch them. So naturally after about a minute or two he calls me to take a look at a painting he found and what does he do - comes up and stabs his finger in the canvas! Ooops... retribution came immediately in the form of a strict watcher-lady, who told him in a stern voice not to touch the painting and gave me a nasty look. hmmm ... parenting isn't always easy.
And so we proceeded. Shortly thereafter the stern lady came up to me again and said that the last room has "very free men" on display and that it's up to me to decide whether it's child material. When I asked her what exactly did she mean by "free", she said ... "well, naked". So I asked it it was paintings or photographs. She said paintings. And then added "I just wanted to tell you in terms of the kids... obviously it's up to you, whether you take them there or not". Obviously...
As we were going from painting to painting the inner voices in my head were having a conversation of their own:
Voice of a Conservative Mother (VCM): "The lady said that there is inaproppriate material for children in that room. Do you really want to take your children there?"
Voice of a Free Liberal Mother (VFLM): "They're just paintings. How traumatising can it be?"
VCM: "What if they're pictures of intercourse?"
VFLM: "Tom wouldn't understand that much and Tim has a very detailed book with pictures about how children are made anyway."
VCM: "But this could be gay intercourse. Do you really want to start explaining to your son about anal sex?"
VFLM: "But I'm a modern psychologist mother. I can explain everything to my children."
VCM: "Well... if you say so..."
VFLM: *confused why VCM gave up the arguement... feeling very insecure and uncertain.*
In the meantime we approached a painting of a naked man with his legs spread. Between the spread legs were 3 penises and what looked like two bananas. Upon closer inspection they were not bananas but actually 5 penises. The title confirmed the suspicion - "Old Man with Five Penises". Tim stood for a while in front of it somewhat confused. Tom looked at it, confused, looked at it closer and then asked what that was supposed to be. I couldn't come up with anything better than "Well, sometimes this kind of thing happens...". I was already trying to come up with various possible explanations including radiation exposure, phallic focus in psychoanalysis, but it all seemed like way too far fetched for 3 and 6 year olds. I also realised that perhaps I'm not that well equipped for spontaneous answers to these kinds of questions after all. And so we fled...
As we got home I wanted to read a bit more about the painter and stumbled upon an article in the Guardian about him. This is where I read the following - "Yet his depictions of arses and cocks don’t seem at all shocking or provocative, probably because his renditions of human flesh are so drab and vague. If you don’t believe in the reality of a painted body, who cares if it is naked? " At least the tires in the bike are pumped up and ready to go! And we took a photo at the gallery mirrored wall ...
How do you deal with things like this with your kids? Would you have continued with the exhibition or like me, walked out prematurely?
.................................................
In other news... We're going on our traditional annual (we did one last year, so now it's traditional, ok!) road trip. This time to the north of Italy. We'll try to do regular reporting from there, and here's the map of our planned route.
Today was the first spring-like day. 13 degrees and sunny. And it's a Monday. And Mondays happens to be free entry at the Deutsche Kunsthalle (prior to this it was the German Gugenheim). So I decided to take the opportunity and go have a cultural exprience with the kids. I did my homework, I had a look at what's being currently exhibited and saw that the current exhibition ends this week, meaning it was either today or never. The exhibition looked interesting on the website, but turns out that I didn't do my homework properly...
I picked up the boys from their respective places of daycare, we had dinner, took our big red bike out of storage, drove to the bike shop accross the street to pump up the tires and made our way to the gallery. There we had to give up our helmets and backpack upon entry, but then we were set and ready for absorbing artistic expression. As I was reading the opening blurb with Tom on my arms, the words "male form" and "revolutionary gay" stood out to me. We procedeed to look at the first painting which had a lifesize naked man leaning on a balcony. There wasn't anything particularly alarming about it, so we went into the main hall.
On a sidenote - an art exhibition is a completely new domain for both boys. I had Tom by the hand, but Tim wanted to wonder around, so I explained to him that it's important to keep a distance from the paintings and not to touch them. So naturally after about a minute or two he calls me to take a look at a painting he found and what does he do - comes up and stabs his finger in the canvas! Ooops... retribution came immediately in the form of a strict watcher-lady, who told him in a stern voice not to touch the painting and gave me a nasty look. hmmm ... parenting isn't always easy.
And so we proceeded. Shortly thereafter the stern lady came up to me again and said that the last room has "very free men" on display and that it's up to me to decide whether it's child material. When I asked her what exactly did she mean by "free", she said ... "well, naked". So I asked it it was paintings or photographs. She said paintings. And then added "I just wanted to tell you in terms of the kids... obviously it's up to you, whether you take them there or not". Obviously...
As we were going from painting to painting the inner voices in my head were having a conversation of their own:
Voice of a Conservative Mother (VCM): "The lady said that there is inaproppriate material for children in that room. Do you really want to take your children there?"
Voice of a Free Liberal Mother (VFLM): "They're just paintings. How traumatising can it be?"
VCM: "What if they're pictures of intercourse?"
VFLM: "Tom wouldn't understand that much and Tim has a very detailed book with pictures about how children are made anyway."
VCM: "But this could be gay intercourse. Do you really want to start explaining to your son about anal sex?"
VFLM: "But I'm a modern psychologist mother. I can explain everything to my children."
VCM: "Well... if you say so..."
VFLM: *confused why VCM gave up the arguement... feeling very insecure and uncertain.*
In the meantime we approached a painting of a naked man with his legs spread. Between the spread legs were 3 penises and what looked like two bananas. Upon closer inspection they were not bananas but actually 5 penises. The title confirmed the suspicion - "Old Man with Five Penises". Tim stood for a while in front of it somewhat confused. Tom looked at it, confused, looked at it closer and then asked what that was supposed to be. I couldn't come up with anything better than "Well, sometimes this kind of thing happens...". I was already trying to come up with various possible explanations including radiation exposure, phallic focus in psychoanalysis, but it all seemed like way too far fetched for 3 and 6 year olds. I also realised that perhaps I'm not that well equipped for spontaneous answers to these kinds of questions after all. And so we fled...
As we got home I wanted to read a bit more about the painter and stumbled upon an article in the Guardian about him. This is where I read the following - "Yet his depictions of arses and cocks don’t seem at all shocking or provocative, probably because his renditions of human flesh are so drab and vague. If you don’t believe in the reality of a painted body, who cares if it is naked? " At least the tires in the bike are pumped up and ready to go! And we took a photo at the gallery mirrored wall ...
How do you deal with things like this with your kids? Would you have continued with the exhibition or like me, walked out prematurely?
.................................................
In other news... We're going on our traditional annual (we did one last year, so now it's traditional, ok!) road trip. This time to the north of Italy. We'll try to do regular reporting from there, and here's the map of our planned route.
