in late january i made my third trek to the mecca. my mecca at least. the holy land of decoscrapers, nyc. official order of business being the robert irwin opening of “red drawing, white drawing, black painting” at the 22nd street pacewildenstein gallery. unofficial business for the trip…well, just to be in the city i suppose. but mainly my big plans were to scour the chelsea streets for any and all galleries. i wanted to overload myself with as much art as i could find. and i did get overloaded with art, but it wasn’t in chelsea. it was in midtown. at the moma.
the moma. it was my first time being there, and i was definitely overwhelmed to say the least. the almost six hours i spent there over 2 days wasn’t nearly enough time as i would’ve liked to have. i say 2 days because the first time i went i got cut short and had to leave. it just didn’t occur to me that a museum of that size would close at 530. pff. just as i was getting to all the good stuff (i could see a fernand leger off in the next gallery) they announced it was closing time. luckily, we had a few more days left of our trip and we made time to go back on friday night – when it’s free! i could’ve spent all my time on the 4th and 5th floors (where all the real action is. at least for me) but i decided that on this trip i’d just try and get through everything so i could see it all. next time i go back i’ll spend more time studying some of the pieces that blew me away. like this one:
or this one:
or this one:
oh, that’s the other thing. i tried to take pictures of every piece that i liked so i could bring them back and share them with you, or whoever hasn’t been lucky enough to go to the moma. as with all art, the photos don’t do even a shred of justice to the experience of seeing the pieces in person. they are merely a representation of what i saw, so that i could better express to you the pieces i loved. like this one:
man, all that futurism and cubism. i could hardly contain my overwhelming glee! plus the temporary exhibitions they were having. like the one on architectural experiments since the 70’s:
or the one on 20th century industrial design:
sigh.
now, there were a few other cool experiences on this trip. like the bob irwin show at pace, going to dinner with bob and and my good pal j.henry huppert (bobs assistant) on the first night, and getting to hang out with edith and jack brogan (jack “master fabricator” brogan (he made the black paintings for bobs show), and edith, jacks wife and an artist herself, are both fine human beings). speaking of the black paintings, here’s a shot of one. this is one of my favorite shots of the show:
those paintings are amazingly flawless. they have to be seen in person to truly appreciate their craft and presence. and speaking of craft, check out the fancy wool dress my doll trista made specifically for the irwin opening:
on our last day we dicided to check out one more museum. the museum of the city of new york is free sunday mornings. which worked out great for us because we were due to leave that night. the show they were having couldn’t have been more suited to trista and i. it was called “Paris/New York: Design Fashion Culture 1925-1940″. it wasn’t a large exhibition but it held a few very choice gems from my favorite time period of design. like this:
or this, an actual sketch by one of my all time favorite industrial designers, donald deskey:
unfortunately it was really hard to take photos of the things in that show due to almost everything being behind glass. plus my camera battery died before i could shoot everything i liked.
but, if you’d like to see more of what i did shoot on the trip – like the 2 fat pastrami on rye sandwiches i ate, or the squirrel that tried to climb me like a tree in madison square park, or more views from the robert irwin show – just click below to go to my flickr site.
new york trip 2009
in late january i made my third trek to the mecca. my mecca at least. the holy land of decoscrapers, nyc. official order of business being the robert irwin opening of “red drawing, white drawing, black painting” at the 22nd street pacewildenstein gallery. unofficial business for the trip…well, just to be in the city i suppose. but mainly my big plans were to scour the chelsea streets for any and all galleries. i wanted to overload myself with as much art as i could find. and i did get overloaded with art, but it wasn’t in chelsea. it was in midtown. at the moma.
the moma. it was my first time being there, and i was definitely overwhelmed to say the least. the almost six hours i spent there over 2 days wasn’t nearly enough time as i would’ve liked to have. i say 2 days because the first time i went i got cut short and had to leave. it just didn’t occur to me that a museum of that size would close at 530. pff. just as i was getting to all the good stuff (i could see a fernand leger off in the next gallery) they announced it was closing time. luckily, we had a few more days left of our trip and we made time to go back on friday night – when it’s free! i could’ve spent all my time on the 4th and 5th floors (where all the real action is. at least for me) but i decided that on this trip i’d just try and get through everything so i could see it all. next time i go back i’ll spend more time studying some of the pieces that blew me away. like this one:
or this one:
or this one:
oh, that’s the other thing. i tried to take pictures of every piece that i liked so i could bring them back and share them with you, or whoever hasn’t been lucky enough to go to the moma. as with all art, the photos don’t do even a shred of justice to the experience of seeing the pieces in person. they are merely a representation of what i saw, so that i could better express to you the pieces i loved. like this one:
man, all that futurism and cubism. i could hardly contain my overwhelming glee! plus the temporary exhibitions they were having. like the one on architectural experiments since the 70’s:
or the one on 20th century industrial design:
sigh.
now, there were a few other cool experiences on this trip. like the bob irwin show at pace, going to dinner with bob and and my good pal j.henry huppert (bobs assistant) on the first night, and getting to hang out with edith and jack brogan (jack “master fabricator” brogan (he made the black paintings for bobs show), and edith, jacks wife and an artist herself, are both fine human beings). speaking of the black paintings, here’s a shot of one. this is one of my favorite shots of the show:
those paintings are amazingly flawless. they have to be seen in person to truly appreciate their craft and presence. and speaking of craft, check out the fancy wool dress my doll trista made specifically for the irwin opening:
read more on that over at her sugardale blog.
on our last day we dicided to check out one more museum. the museum of the city of new york is free sunday mornings. which worked out great for us because we were due to leave that night. the show they were having couldn’t have been more suited to trista and i. it was called “Paris/New York: Design Fashion Culture 1925-1940″. it wasn’t a large exhibition but it held a few very choice gems from my favorite time period of design. like this:
or this, an actual sketch by one of my all time favorite industrial designers, donald deskey:
unfortunately it was really hard to take photos of the things in that show due to almost everything being behind glass. plus my camera battery died before i could shoot everything i liked.
but, if you’d like to see more of what i did shoot on the trip – like the 2 fat pastrami on rye sandwiches i ate, or the squirrel that tried to climb me like a tree in madison square park, or more views from the robert irwin show – just click below to go to my flickr site.