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Post by htmb on Aug 12, 2015 1:25:55 GMT
I've visited a lot of art museums over the years, but I don't think I've ever experienced a situation where so many people of all ages were enjoying the art together and having a great time. Granted, it had been a very rainy day and many people, like me, had the idea to spend the afternoon inside the Museum of Modern Art rather than out in the lousy weather.
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Post by htmb on Aug 12, 2015 1:37:35 GMT
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Post by htmb on Aug 12, 2015 1:53:19 GMT
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Post by nycgirl on Aug 12, 2015 3:21:08 GMT
I love MoMA. When I first visited it, I wasn't into researching the hell out of everything the way I do now, so I didn't know what to expect. I literally gasped with delight when I stumbled upon favorites of mine like Starry Night and The Persistence of Memory.
Nice shots of the crowd. I like how you captured moments of stillness, like that last shot of the young girl taking in Miro.
I should take the little one to her first museum soon and I think this would be a good one. She actually loves to stare at bright colors and shapes. She'd be quite content to gaze at some of the large paintings.
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Post by htmb on Aug 12, 2015 12:01:13 GMT
I've never much cared for Yoko Ono, but since MoMA was featuring her in a one woman show I figured I should at least go take a look. In reviewing my photos I can see she still doesn't do much for me since I walked through a whole section without taking a single photo. At the end of the first area there was a sound proofed room and here I took my first shots. There were photos and album covers under glass on a coffee-like table, and music was playing for the pleasure of lots of very young people who obviously knew nothing about how Yoko broke up the Beatles. Farther along there were a few videos which were interesting for historical reasons. I've left off the video of the flies buzzing and alighting on her nipples, but this photo was taken from the video where audience members cut off Yoko's clothes. I kind of wandered around a corner and found the only thing in the show that really caught my attention. There was a human shape under a heavy cloth and it was moving and changing in form. Very slowly, the person inside changed shape and shifted into different positions. It was fun to watch the surprise of other visitors as they came around the corner. Many were taken off guard. Others didn't react. I had observed a smiling man dressed in black and standing off to the side, and I assumed he was one of the artistic performers. Actually, he was there to facilitate, and it was the museum goers who were the performers, not the professionals.
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Post by htmb on Aug 12, 2015 12:21:57 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2015 2:07:05 GMT
A splendid report HTMB. One of my favorite museums in NYC to be sure.
My last visit there was for a Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit, circa 2010ish.
What I most recall was in 1998 an exhibition of Pierre Bonnard's paintings. Hands down one of my all time favorite artists.
Agreed, the Yoko exhibit so appears pretentious and boooooooring.
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Post by htmb on Aug 13, 2015 3:33:27 GMT
"Boring." Perfect description.
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Post by nycgirl on Aug 13, 2015 3:47:34 GMT
I'm interested in migration stories, so I definitely want to see the Jacob Lawrence exhibition. It's nice that all of the panels in this epic work have been reunited.
I feel like I should applaud MoMA for showing a solo exhibition of a female artist (something that still doesn't happen often). However, I wish the honor was bestowed on someone with more credibility than Yoko Ono. Oh well, I'll probably take a peek while I'm there, but my expectations are not high. I do like the shots you took of the shape-shifting black robe.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2015 5:41:57 GMT
This is such lively, sensitive coverage of the museum that it really is just like being there.
One of the things I loved about the MOMA when I got to go (a long time ago) was the minimal use of explanatory material, letting the works speak for themselves. That meant I was a little surprised by the captions beneath the Jacob Lawrence works. But then I realized that those really minimal captions were the kind of thing that kept the younger museum goers -- those who couldn't be expected to automatically know about that migration -- engaged and enriched.
I adore the way you put in the "best of the best" and was excited to see the portrait of Joseph Roulin. I wasn't familiar with it before seeing it in person at the MOMA and was completely mesmerized by it.
Yoko Ono actually does have excellent credentials as a female artist and a long history of working at it. But really, her major fame is for other reasons. Because of that, it seems a little unfair that she got this major slot when it could have gone to some other popularly unknown female artist. (although I guess Ono shouldn't be penalized for her fame, either) The shape-shifting piece using the audience is great, but I am not drawn in by most of her work.
I can't say enough about what a great report this is -- excellent presentation of the museum spaces, wonderful people shots, super photos of the art -- marvelous all the way around!
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Post by htmb on Aug 13, 2015 11:30:45 GMT
Bixa, I have assumed the captions placed under the Jacob Lawrence paintings are a part of the artist's work and meant to be displayed with each painting.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2015 13:39:01 GMT
My jury is still out on Yoko Ono. Most modern artists take at least 50 years for people to start appreciating their work, unless they suddenly die of course. I still remember how people despised everything by Andy Warhol 40 years ago.
I've never seen the modern art museum in the Pompidou Centre quite that crowded, but it has always seemed too crowded in any case, especially when you have to overhear people talking about how they don't understand most of it.
I'm surprised that Impressionism is still considered to be modern art. Do you have any idea what the oldest work in the museum is?
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Post by htmb on Aug 14, 2015 14:39:59 GMT
MoMA was founded in 1929. I don't know the age of the oldest work in the museum, but Starry Night, for instance, was acquired through a gift in 1941. I don't suppose museums have plans to sell off or toss out prime pieces of art just because the work has become less modern due to the passing years. From what I can tell the oldest works in the museum are from the 1880s. Founded in 1929, The Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan was the first museum devoted to the modern era. Today MoMA’s rich and varied collection offers a panoramic overview of modern and contemporary art, from the innovative European painting and sculpture of the 1880s to today's film, design, and performance art. From an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing, the collection has grown to include over 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings, and design objects; approximately 22,000 films and four million film stills; and, in its Library and Archives, over 300,000 books, artist books, and periodicals, and extensive individual files on more than 70,000 artists. Collection highlights include Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night, and Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, along with more recent works by Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Murray, Cindy Sherman, and many others.
The Museum presents an active schedule of modern and contemporary art exhibitions, over 1,000 film screenings a year, and a wide range of educational programming, from artist talks to family workshops. Architect Yoshio Taniguchi's new MoMA building opened in 2004, nearly doubling the space for the Museum's exhibitions and programs, and enlarging the beloved Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Today, the Museum welcomes approximately 2.8 million visitors every year and has nearly 130,000 members.MoMA
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Post by nycgirl on Aug 14, 2015 15:00:24 GMT
I, also, am surprised at what is considered modern. When I was in my 20s, I took a course in Modern Art that opened with the Impressionists, who aren't any young person's idea of "modern." But they are, indeed, considered modern because they challenged the rigid notions of the time that dictated what art should be.
According to MoMA's site, they collect work made after 1880, but I don't what what the oldest is.
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Post by htmb on Aug 14, 2015 15:09:51 GMT
Oh, that makes sense, Nycgirl. Thanks for that clarification. Here's a blurb from Wikipedia: Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era.[1] The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation.[2] Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called Contemporary art or Postmodern art.
Modern art begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Henri Matisse's two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting.[3] It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism. WikiI did read somewhere that the Tate and Pompidou collections do not go back any earlier than 1900.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2015 4:15:35 GMT
Well, Paris just keeps building new museums and moves the paintings around as necessary. The Jeu de Paume used to be the museum of Impressionism, and the contents all got moved to the Orsay when it opened. The Orsay houses art from 1848 to 1914. Meanwhile, the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (Centre Pompidou) begin in 1905. The Jeu de Paume has become a photography museum.
There are still a few paintings in the "wrong" museums here and there because certain donations were made on the condition that a painting be exposed in a certain museum. That's why all of those paintings are "stuck" in the basement of the Orangerie because the Walter-Guillaume collection was donated to the State on the express condition that the paintings not be dispersed. They must all be shown together.
I have no idea how any of the American museums work and what entities control them since there is no Ministry of Culture.
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