the ashes and the urn

What about the well-wrought urn? These days, when I'm in the Asian Art Museum (curr. exhibit: Tibet), I often feel sad. Some distance between me and that object that won't dissolve, a sense "this is not the place". Others exhileration at seeing this bone cup, or that lama's mantle, it just furthers a sense of... glumness. Castratation - an object pried from use ("home" - its eco-locale). Familiar to me vis a vis animals at the zoo. Picked up again when noting the clumsy/inaccurate/misleading, if well-intentioned exhibit placards, or hear the uncomfort and limited knowledge of the volunteer-guided tours. The passion and intimacy is as bounded out as the glass binds each piece in.

But when I'm at a gallery or the MoMA, I almost never think of/feel that. What tribal boundaries am I up alongside here? What crossings, and what ferries can't I board? Is it that the work there is not only from a culture/tradition I feel conversant in, but also that the objects are designed for this type of medium, this setting/relation? A painting is meant to hang on a wall and be seen. And some work- installations esp., practically demands a museum or gallery, even this one - site specific.

Sometimes travelling, sometimes at home.