Once at the Portland Art Museum, I saw a monstrous canvas painted beige, and I laughed at its simplicity. Its composition felt obvious and it seemed to lack originality. Like many other people, I have mocked modern art for various reasons, that I eventually summed up to be an uncompelling argument.

Over time, I’ve learned that contemplating contemporary art can be as rewarding as interpreting a poem or even discussing the themes of a movie. The enriching process of working one’s way through the message about the piece, of coming to suspicious yet possible conclusions without the boundaries of something more telling, cannot be replicated in another discipline.

A couple of years ago, my brother and I saw a fork glued onto a blank canvas, mounted on a museum wall. We insisted that we could easily replicate the work with no prior artistic experience, that if we switched the artist’s out with our own household fork, it wouldn’t even be noticed.

Looking back, I understand our underwhelming reaction to minimal modern art, but now I see the value in considering their assessment of us, the viewer. The artist challenges us to think: if anyone else could have easily done that, then why didn’t they? This is where we learn to question normal things as objects worthy of evaluating, not just as tools for our benefit. It teaches us to take things out of their context in order to understand their limitless intentions, and to employ creativity outside of expected spaces.

In an attempt to reach a larger audience, social media has made modern demonstrations of artwork more accessible. There is a piece that became popular through TikTok by artists Sun Yuang and Peng Yu, titled, “Can’t Help Myself.” It features a robot arm that spills oil, constantly trying to scoop it back into its body. Many commenters felt a sense of pity for the machine, bringing an element of social commentary into the conversation. It is a piece of art that can even blur the line between technology and life.

Not only can contemporary art visually appeal to the observer, but it also offers an opportunity to challenge their mind and inspire conversation. Socrates encapsulated this concept, when he once stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” When studying modern art, the question most often asked is “why?” I can only answer with “why not?”