MoMA’s Most Famous Masterpiece Is Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night.’ So Why Does the Painting Now Have a Big Hair Stuck on It?

On Thursday, the Museum of Modern Art opened its doors
to the press corps after a months-long closure, letting reporters
see the fruits of a $400 million renovation and expansion. It was a
kind gesture to the reporting class, especially considering MoMA
members won’t see the redesigned digs until next week. (It opens to
the public on October 21.)

Surprises abounded at the first press preview for the
new MoMA, including the shock-install of Faith Ringgold’s
stab-happy mural American People Series #20: Die (1967)
next to Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
(1907).

But the most unexpected moment of the morning’s grand
unveiling came when an unassuming curator left me alone in the
19th-century gallery that now houses Vincent van Gogh’s
The Starry Night (1889). “Go ahead,” the
curator said, gesturing towards the masterpiece in the corner as
she left the room. I obliged, indulging in an unprecedented chill
sesh with arguably the most famous painting in the world. Might as
well look at the brushwork. Might never get this chance again.

And what do I see, with my nose nearly pressed to the
glass, amid the thistles of the top-left cypress tree branch but… a
hair.

A long, slightly curling, white hair stuck between the
paint on the canvas and the glass protecting it. Hey! What’s
that doing there!

It was so unexpected that I had to come back again
after, just to make sure I didn’t imagine it.

But I didn’t. And here’s a picture to prove it.

Immediately, I started to wonder how an errant strand
of white hair got stuck to the most recognizable canvas on
earth—and just before its grand debut in the new MoMA, no less. How
did no one notice this when they were installing?

We’d like to be able to give you some kind of
explanation, but alas, I sent a number of questions to the museum,
along with the image showing The Hair, as it will forever be known,
and asked if they were planning to take the work down and restore
it before the public opening.

What I got in response was a series of auto-replies
from members of the MoMA press team saying they were “working
around the clock to respond to an exceptionally high volume of
press requests.”

Hopefully someone is working around the clock to get
that hair off Starry Night, too!

The post MoMA’s Most Famous Masterpiece Is Van Gogh’s
‘Starry Night.’ So Why Does the Painting Now Have a Big Hair Stuck
on It? appeared first on artnet News.