
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
IN 1980, I logged a series of firsts: my first flight on an airplane; my first trip to New York (from Los Angeles); my first visit to the Museum of Modern Art. It was all things modern. Everything was new to me.
I was there for the Picasso retrospective, but really only to see Guernica, 1937, before it was shipped off to Spain for good. At the time, no other work in the museum’s collection could have inspired such a journey. I’ve read that Guernica was Faith Ringgold’s favorite Picasso, too. Since then, I’ve been to the museum many times. Some days, when I lived in Harlem, I would visit just for