July 24, 2007
Summer Trip to NYC: Part 2
I don't know why I feel compelled to take so many photos at museums and why I always want to post them on my blog. But just so you know, this post is all about my visit to the MoMA and most of the photos are of paintings.
Let's just start off with Van Gogh's Starry Night. It is there. And there are crowds of people that want to see it.
I found my way to the front and spent some time with the painting. I have always loved it. During my junior year of high school, Cybill and I recreated it in pastels on a big sheet of paper in the Euphony room at Alta. Here are a few detail photos:
At this point, a man came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and he asked me to please move so that they (and he gestured toward a large crowd of people) could take a picture with the painting. I obliged, but resented it. Now I take my fair share of photos of paintings, but that's not the point of going to a museum. I always see people having their picture taken in front of a particularly famous painting and that's fine, but are they really looking at the painting? Is it art or a tourist attraction? Is it something to just claim that you've seen and bring home a picture like a souvenir? And am I any better? Probably not. But at least I was looking closely.
Moving on. Another familiar piece (and another crowd).
I got lost in the black hole at the center of this piece.
I have always loved the Bird in Space sculptures by Constantin Brancusi. The lines are so simple and beautiful and I love the texture. But seeing it in person, I also loved the shadow it cast and the space it occupied.
I love rounding corners in a gallery and coming across something you've only seen in books. Like Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel.
I guess I was obsessed with shadows and how the pieces fit within the museum because I also found the shadows cast by the bicycle wheel to be the best part.
While we're on Duchamp... Mostly I love the title of this piece: To Be Looked At (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour.
And while we're talking about shadows... I also liked the shadows on the canvas cast by the tools in this piece.
Elvis can be startling.
The representative piece of futurism.
A detail from a Jackson Pollock:
Kirchner's condemnation of the city.
(I really liked the neon orange hat, so garish.)
Klimt's Hope II.
You could stand in front of this forever and continue to find new details.
Some Matisse.
I like how these pieces by Mondrian are bigger than their canvas. There's something more that we aren't seeing.
Sometimes it was nice to take a break from the paintings and look outside.
I also like it when museums are their own work of art.
Back to the art. I love this period of Picasso. The figures are so monumental. There's a sense of stability and peace in them, but also a sadness.
You may remember when I started to change my mind about Gauguin. It was at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and it was a cat in a chair. He's winning me over even more with these puppies!
I can never get over how still Seurat's pointilist paintings are. There are thousands of tiny brushstrokes, which you would think would make the painting dynamic and energetic, but they always seem so silent.
Since I didn't have anyone to take my picture in front of famous paintings, I had to take my own. I just like to know that I was there.
