An LSD-like Experience at the National Portrait Gallery

Do I get an award for “Longest Blog Post Title, Ever?” (Or, every writer’s dream, “Most Verbose?”)

Of all the exhibits showcased at the National Portrait Gallery, the “American Cool” exhibit (open now through September 7) was my favorite. I think it even ranks amongst some of the most memorable galleries I’ve yet seen—which is no surprise given my affinity for people and their stories. Biographies are my favorite genre, after all, and I know for a fact that if I wasn’t so aware of social etiquette, I’d all too easily be the weird girl approaching strangers at quirky bars. Tell me about yourself, I’d ask without abandon.

When I was younger, “cool” was the kid who wore ripped, low-rise bell bottoms and Abercrombie and Fitch tees. Highlighted streaks and frosted tips were all the rage, and the more obvious, the better. That rule applied across the board: whatever you did (hair, eyeliner, the tightness of your baby tee) was done so you looked like you tried. You just couldn’t act like it.

In high school “cool” was the crowd that just didn’t give a shit. Caring was emotional baggage. Undesirable. Uncool. Sarcasm, however, was welcomed with open arms. Just not too open—lest you thought someone would see how much you cared.

It was only when I entered my 20s that “cool no longer mattered to me. It was without definition, probably because I just didn’t care. (Not like before though; I like to think I’d simply become immune to groupthink.) “Cool,” to me, was an unattainable ideal that shifted every few years, and therefore exhausting. I came to see it as effortless. Je ne sais quoi. Asserting yourself without having to or needing to. “Cool” was simply being.

And it was simply by being that all these figures made the “American Cool” hall of fame. Of course, each had to fall under some sort of “historical rubric,” where each had to at least have been three of the following:

1. “An original artistic vision carried off with a signature style;
2. A cultural rebellion or transgression for a given generation;
3. An iconic power, or instant visual recognition; and/or
4. A recognized cultural legacy.”

“Cool” meant singularity. Individuality. Ingenuity. This was the definition I’d been striving to find my whole 22 years of life.

Here, “American Cool” was a celebration of the zeitgeist embodied in human form and carried forth cultural movement and progression throughout U.S. history.

There’s the obvious face: Billie Holiday, Elvis Presley, Jay-Z, Johnny Depp. Actors and musicians—celebrities who owned both their industry and the spotlight, and therefore dictated the culture. Then there’s the not-so-obvious figures who lent America their voices, albeit a little outside the scope of the limelight. They were a different kind of celebrity, but each celebrities in their own right. There was Jack Kerouac and On the Road. There was the incredible Georgia O’Keeffe, whose beautiful paintings of flora and fauna, reflected her independent lifestyle. Then, of course, there was Joan Didion leaning against her beloved Stingray, whose lyrical prose reverberate far more powerfully than her tiny stature seemed capable of producing (never underestimate a woman, much less a petite one at that). Instantly I’m reminded of how many people’s’ biographies and works I want to read and understand.

I’ve been inspired.

Or, rather, I am inspired.

Click for the complete list of “cool” figures and their featured portraits.

.  .   .

After wandering through floor after floor—each getting more exciting (or more objectively, modern)—I found myself at the modern art exhibit of the top floor. It had been a gradual progression from prim, presidential portraits (with JFK’s—though a personal favorite—sticking out like a sore thumb) to the release of impressionist and pop art works. From one extreme to another, from the past to the present, from the ground floor to the very top: there we found ourselves in a wash of cool whites and blues. High-ceilings, bright from natural sunlight and white everywhere, glowing with blue and purple neon lights—just as one would expect in a modern art exhibit.

Here’s the thing with modern art. It either elicits immediate obsession or an upturned nose over pursed lips muttering something about how “even a child could do that.” I take horrible offense to that as a former child. Children are magnificent, magnificent creatures with boundless imagination! You should be so lucky you could have unadulterated (note the root word, please; the irony) perspective.

Do rephrase, please. Yes, even you could have splattered paint over a blank canvas—but you didn’t. Are you sputtering still? Hush now, we’re in a museum. Inside voices only, please.

But leave it to me, the journalist major, to not dutifully write down the name of the artist or the names of the works I specifically meant to document. I only remember the general idea. The first was a TV installation arranged and outlined, in neon lights, in the shape of the United States. TVs found within each state replayed clips—some relatively innocuous, others just deranged—that represented the region. Idaho, for example, replayed potato stills. Iowa had GIF-like video of presidents seemingly melting into one another, eventually becoming chaotic, neon shapes. Was that Malcom X we heard? Dorothy and poor Toto running away from the Wicked Witch? Stare at the exhibit long enough and you’d become convinced you were being bombed with subliminal messaging from the creator… So many things happening at once. Fifty different things, multiplied by however many photos or scenes on replay.

But sensory assault occurred on the other side, within a dark, carpeted room. The best friend, the boyfriend, and I resigned to one black corner—fortuitously by the speakers—where neon cartoons and maybe-not-so-random shapes and captioned scenes and naked women and cats and other things were set to a music set so dissonant we couldn’t help but just stare. We shut down (from general exhaustion, but mostly from all that), eyes locked ahead. Legs frozen. All in some state of awe and disgust. What was the meaning of this? Was there meaning to this? Is this art? Or subconsciously inserting propaganda that would later haunt us in our sleep?

It was a miracle we left such induced, drug-like state at all.

.   .   .

Visit the National Portrait Gallery.

xx