What we're speaking about is not something that's actually tangible.
My personal experience with it was when I first arrived at MoMA years ago.
It's been more than two handfuls of years.
When I first arrived, I had heard of the stories of the MoMA ghost if you will.
MoMA being as old as it is and having as many changes that have taken place here
you expect these things to occur, I imagine.
Let's make our way inside...
Right here, in this specific space
I remember...
it's just like right on queue.
What's to say that there isn't a whole other world that maybe we can't see or we don't want to see?
It was just here about the figure of an average-sized man I think
but it was just this grayish embodiment of something spectral and I won't forget it.
It was very clear, and I did this doubletake.
And when I looked back, that's when the projectionist said to me, "Did you see it?"
And I said, "Yeah, I think I saw a shadow," and he said, "That's the ghost."
I believe there is an area of the museum; I can't remember which gallery specifically
but there used to be a hotel in that location and that there is a "lady in white" that security
has encountered late at night.
Dave?
Yeah?
Oh, good, you're here.
We have some people inquiring about the MoMA ghost.
I've seen ghosts.
You know, there's this theory that ghosts can't cross water.
So I grew up on an island off the coast of Maine, and so if you live on an island
all the people who've died there are trapped on that island because they can't cross water.
So, it was pretty haunted island.
That's all I'm going to say.
Yeah, I was pretty much down here with a Cimex machine which is used to clean this.
And for some reason in the middle of it I looked up and the person was standing right
there on the top looking just down.
It was like an old lady dressed in white.
I looked back again and then I just went downstairs.
I didn't even wait for the elevator I just ran down.
Security was making the rounds, and one time late at night a guard apparently saw a ghost.
It was up in this area and apparently they left the building and quit their job at that point.
My sense is that this is related to the liquid nitrogen because it's not a familiar sound
and so I think somehow my tank of liquid nitrogen actually played a role.
And it looks a little bit like a ghost, too.
If you believe in something, it will happen, but if you don't believe in it, it's not existent.
So, Mike Moen was an official.
He used to work here.
That's a long time ago.
I used to have hair in my head then.
So he told me that this curtain at night, it opens and closes by themselves.
Close and open, close and open.
The reason why I kind of believe what he said to me because no one is here and there was
no one to turn that on back and forth.
I would be running!
It was only myself and a gentleman by the name of Sixto
only persons who have access to this.
As I stand on that side of the door, you'll hear a bunch of banging and commotion going on.
This door but from the inside, and that was the scariest thing when those doors start shaking.
It was almost impossible.
As big as I am, I ran out of this building.
It is very creepy because one does feel a kind of presence, and I think that has to
do with the fact that the building was built over 100 years ago.
It was a school for decades and decades, and then all of a sudden it wasn't a school
and it was abandoned.
And all these experiences and memories kind of accumulated in the crevices of the building.
And one can actually feel that especially when you're here alone and sometimes at night.
All art has to do with ghosts in some ways because art is about persisting past the life
of the person who made it.
So you're feeling the presence of something that should be absent or is absent, and that's
really what a ghost is; it's when something appears that shouldn't be there.
This is not something that you can actually discuss unless you have some experience in it
or unless you know people who have because I've known people, but...
[nervous laughter]
Whatever the entity is, it has a sense of humor.
And if that is the case, I'm okay with it!