Eric McCollom: "Flayed Rabbit at The Barnes"

"Flayed Rabbit at The Barnes"

I stumble around these small hallways in a haze, bombarded by vaguely familiar names from Art History classes long since past,
Jostled by art buffs squinting thoughtfully at the hardened brush strokes laid down by Monet
100 years ago,
The room is silent save a few whispers. No one speaks to each other; Most wear the same museum-distributed headsets, listening to the same calming narration about each famous work, hearing the same tidbits about the history, the cultural context, the style and technique, the weirdly transparent celebrations of Mr. Barnes himself, and

As is often the case, I'm caught between a genuine desire to understand the high-minded conversation in my ears, to douse my ignorance with dates and names of movements and ironic titles from abstract expressionists, to understand influences and make connections and draw a clear line of lineage from that Van Gogh of the postman and to understand "culture" and

The snarky sarcasm that seeps in like an unwanted virus or a growing mold... Sculptures with comically enormous ears, overweight nudes, onlookers with silly beards, dayglow color pallets and lazy natives from Gaigain, a friend who squats to inspect a small sculpture of a bird and looks for all the world, from my vantage point, to be investigating the nearby exit sign and

Then, just before a doorway, there is this: There is violence in this figure. There is this casual act of brutality, there is this small evidence, an unknowable backstory
 and blood.
There is flesh torn open to the world, vulnerable
A pallet of reds, small body prone, a visible rib cage and groin, a pig-like head atop a body with little scale to tell its size,
 Dead and open and

For this, I stop. And I stare. And I wonder. And I feel the temperature of the room drop.

And I don't listen to the audio.