Once in a while I wander into a museum and gaze longingly at something displayed in a particular gallery. That is perhaps one of the few times I wish that I had all the money in the world, at least enough to be able to take that piece home with me. It happens very rarely, but that impulse has been known to rear up in my head and bat me between the cerebra as if to tell me to wake up and get with it, get real, get back to reality. Not too long ago, maybe six or seven months before today, I looked lecherously at a delicately coloured print of a very pretty teenaged Krishna, lounging languorously as if he were aware how attractive he was. I am still working on the owner of that piece, but I am not sure I will ever get my greedy little paws on it.
But this acquisitive impulse has been mine ever since I can remember going to a museum. When I was about ten, I was taken by my mother to the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, where I fell flat in love with the wonderful bust of Queen Nefertiti, her proud head lifted slightly, that gorgeous nose straight and slim, the cheekbones sharp and the chin a statement to her power and confidence. I wanted her. I prowled around the not-very-big statuette many times, attracting the attention of the guard, who came over, all smiles, to agree with us about the lady’s undoubted beauty. My mother beamed fondly and bought me a print of the queen’s head, which did not quite make up for not having the real thing, but it did ok.
Some years later, we went to see the sculpture garden at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. I took one look at Henry Moore’s Moonbull and was enchanted. It was all soft sweeping curves and wonderful dips and hollows, all invitation to touch and feel and stroke. I wanted it; I asked for it; I demanded it. I got photographs of it, perhaps even a postcard. But it was obviously out of reach, as much as it was out of touching reach – when I reached out, a security man in typically American heavy armoury grinned and said, “Honey, don’t touch!” Many years later, I went back to visit the Moonbull and had that same impulse and was frowned upon by a guard of the same ilk, though a couple of generations younger.
Calder is another artist who invites a tactile exploration of his work. I dragged my Soul Sister Karen clear across San Francisco one chilly afternoon to see a special exhibit of his work when we were there for a week-long trip a few years ago. We gaped upwards, mouths ajar, eyes round and tearing with focus on the gentle movement of the pieces that hung at various heights from the ceiling of the gallery. They spun around and round, slowly, sometimes faster, occasionally turning to travel the other way for a while. My hand went instinctively upwards, my touch thwarted by the distance between me and the work. But then later, in the museum store, I found a replica, one that spun as whimsically hither and yon, as seductive even in its scaled-down form. “You wanna pay how much for that?!” a totally aghast Karen dragged me away, her practical streak overtaking my impulse and perhaps making me regret it for ever more. Though the jury is still out on that one.
There have been many instances of this since, from the Scythian gold from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg that Mum and I drooled over to the Nizam’s pearls at the National Museum in Delhi that I instantly demanded money from my parents to buy. There was the painting of circus acrobats at the Jeu de Pomme in Paris, the Brancusi head at the Guggenheim in New York, the antique red heels at the London V&A's costume gallery, the sleek, supercilious cats at Steuben and the wonderful old-gold brocade sari at the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. And each time I had that urgent desire for money, money, money, lots and lots of it….
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