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Couple de Danseurs (Dancing Pair), 1941
Gouache, watercolor, and ink on watercolor paper
16 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris
Chagall is one of my favorite artists. I think it is the whimsy of his images, with a full range of motifs from farm animals to fiddle players, that attracts me. It is also the colors he uses, which as I wrote here, "are deep and saturated." I think there is also an exotic element of Chagall's depictions of "Russian Jewish peasantry" which I find intriguing.
The Art Gallery of Ontario has extended its Chagall exhibition "Chagall and the Russian Avant-Garde" until mid-January, with an unprecedented half-price admission on Wednesday nights. Tickets for the show are not cheap - $25 each. Half that price is a bargain.
I went yesterday to buy a ticket for this evening, to avoid the disappointment of a sold-out show. I walked into the renovated (and ugly) front part of the building to the ticket booth. The woman selling tickets asked me for my name and address. I said I wouldn't give her that private information. She said she couldn't process the ticket without it. I said I wouldn't leave without buying the ticket, but I wasn't going to give her the information. She said she'd have to call her manager.
"Fine."
The manager came.
"I'm not paying by credit card or check. There's no reason for you to have my personal information."
The manager looked me up and down, then said: "Just give it to her."
Then she turned to me and said, "There's no need to be so difficult."
"You haven't provided me with a good reason to give you that information. You are implying that I may be an art thief or something, with your treatment of me, and with your jaded reasons for taking my private, personal information. When I go to Sears and buy a coat, no-one demands that I give out such information, unless I'm paying by credit card or by check."
"You've just ruined the day."
Unbelievable.
The woman was an Ethiopian, by the large silver cross she was wearing. She had the features of the Tigray people of northern Ethiopia. She was short, and dark skinned, with short, curly dyed (brownish) hair.
I've experienced this antagonistic behavior from other Ethiopians. I always attribute it to my own features, which remind people of the late Haile Selassie (although there is no relation). They are of course the features of the Amhara group, the people that led the country for several centuries.
The bitter Mengistu Haile Mariam (thought to be the illegitimate offspring of a southern woman and her northern Amhara master) rose to unprecedented power from a mere corporal to leader of the country. He proceeded to destroy (or try to destroy) Ethiopia's historical and cultural identity, and especially the Amhara. Despite the demise of Communism (and Haile Mariam fleeing the country), the taint of Marxism is still in people's psyche, and those elitist Amhara are still to blame for all that went wrong in Ethiopia.
I think this is where this woman is coming from, since I cannot think of any other reason for her vicious interaction with me. (I get this kind of interaction from non-Amhara Ethiopians relatively frequently).
Needless to say, I bought my ticket, and wrote another one of my "To whom it may concern" letters to the administrators of the museum.
Despite this glitch, I really look forward to the exhibition, and will write a review soon.