The Tino Sehgal experience at the Guggenheim

I got a swaying finger by the guard for taking this photo at the Guggenheim yesterday.

As my fiancé' and I turned one of the bends of the rotunda of the Guggenheim, a little girl with curly hair comes towards us, she looked like a little girl from Les Mis, she was reaching to shake our hands, and she said her name but I was so shocked to see a child asking to shake my hand, the gesture distracted my memory.


She asked us if she could show us the Tino Sehgal exhibit. Aw, how do I say no! We said "sure!" I thought it was cute that the Guggenheim had children direct visitors to the exhibit. But, then she took us aside and into this gallery space and I was expecting to see the exhibit, but nothing...so we listened. She asked "what is progress?" And I said answer her like a student "Progress is what happened when you have dream or goal and you are striving for it." And then added "we are making progress towards this exhibit."

She started to turn her body slightly as we were talking and soon we were moving and she was taking us up the rotunda, we followed like ducklings, and when we got to the next level another girl, in her late teens met us. The younger girl said to her "they think progress is how they are making progress to the exhibit."

The teen girl asked us about our careers, and shared how hard it was to decide who to be, what to do, and she asked us who we planned to be and if we were that person yet. I said "I am still discovering myself and aiming for what I want." My fiancé' said he has a career and was striving as well, and soon we were rounding another rotunda we were met by another person, a young man about 32 or so. He was taller, and I said to everyone "I feel like with each person I meet I am getting smaller and smaller like Alice in Wonderland."

The young man carried on about relationships, and where we were from, living in NYC.

The older man, started telling us a story about noise, and being in Australia and how he was on a mountain with his wife and a loud bird ruined the quiet experience, and that he might as well be back in NYC because noise WAS everywhere. He asked us about noise, and what we thought of it. I said, noise on the subway actually calms me, it is the moment of peace in my day, but he (pointing to my fiancé') thinks the subway is loud. Then I continued liking the question and why not we were almost to the top of the last bend, maybe the exhibit was in sight. "I think there is a lot of noise from the media, advertising, news, gossip, there is a lot of quiet noise full of information, but do we need all of this? We went on about technology for a bit, and then he said goodbye.

We stood there looking at eachother with out eyebrows puzzled for a moment.

Since we did not know what exhibits were on sight that day, we were taken off guard by the little girl, but went along with experience thinking it was an introduction to an exhibit,-- only to find at the top level that THAT was the exhibit! We were a part of it.

So, what is progress to you? I think it happens when you are experiencing self growth while heading toward a dream or goal, and overcoming the ruts, dips, pot holes as something a part of the process to reach progress. Progress is change for the growth and evolve of a person or place...

The Tino Sehgal exhibit is a unique exhibit that isn't a physical exhibit at all. Later when Googling I found that "Tino is been known for making art without actually making any objects," what struck me was the patients a person had to have to experience it, we could have easily just said to the little girl, growing up girl, young man or older man, "sorry we gotta go.", and walked away, so I think the art Tino makes is based on discovering that it is "ok" to be a part of the exhibit sometimes, and it was fun too.