I don't like museums. Or, more accurately, I didn't like them. Until one evening, when I entered a white hall in which there was... nothing. Only light, emptiness, and a mirror on the floor, and on the mirror - a tiny white stone. That's it. At first I got angry. And then I caught myself: why am I angry? Because I don't understand? Because there is no caption, no explanation? Because I don't know where to look?

Contemporary art is like an awkward silence with a stranger. It brings out something personal. And sometimes - nothing. And this is perhaps the most interesting effect.

A week later, I went to the gallery again. This time, a video installation: a woman slowly peels an orange, but everything is filmed very close, and you hear every crunch, every breath. It was so close, so physical, that I walked out as if I had been inside someone's head.

I began to notice that contemporary art does not ask for admiration. It is not always beautiful. It is often strange, incomprehensible, irritating. But it is like a mirror: it reflects, but does not say what you should see in it.

Sometimes it is a shock. Sometimes it is a feeling that you have seen something that you did not know about yourself. Once I saw an installation of old children's shoes hanging on ropes. And I suddenly felt uneasy. I remembered how I lost my favorite things as a child, and how hard it was to say goodbye. Why did such a trifle cause such a storm?

Maybe contemporary art is not needed for beauty, but to open. Not wounds, but depth. To feel. Or - to feel nothing and also admit it.

I can't say that I understand everything now. But I don't laugh anymore when I see installations made of rusty pipes and glass jars. I think: what if this is about someone's pain? Or love? Or just a way to let go of something?

We don't have to understand to feel. And that seems to be the whole point.