MUSEUMS & GALLERIES

In 1909 Arnold van Gennep wrote The Rites of Passage. In it, he outlined three phases of transformation – preliminary, liminal, and post liminal. Major life transformations such as baptisms, bar mitzvahs, weddings, and retirements each has these phases, and each is marked by a rite of passage ritual. There are also minor life transformations. For me, a trip to view art can be one. When I ascend the steps of a major art museum such as the Philadelphia or the Metropolitan, it is as if I am ascending the steps to a temple. It’s not accidental that the Philadelphia Museum of Art is designed to look like a Greek temple. 

As I ascend, I am leaving the hubbub of contemporary society in the preliminary phase. Politics, worries, fears, plans are set aside. Within the art museum I am transported to another time and place by art that was created hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, by artists from around the world. This is the liminal phase. On exiting the museum, I integrate back into society, altered by my experience, the post-liminal or re-entry phase. So, for me, viewing serious art in a museum or gallery is a spiritual practice. When accompanied by my muse, rather than passively viewing the art, we interact with it, expanding its nature, meaning and ourselves in the process.