With our art loving friend visiting (and working on a Coney Island hospital project), we bought our timed tickets, donned our masks, and ventured to both the Metropolitan Art Museum and the new and improved Museum of Modern Art. The MOMA had been working on a two year expansion thanks to the purchase of the adjoining building at their 53rd St. location. Now, it's 'stretched' and thus expanded. The permanent collection fills three floors shown in chronological order. The remaining two floors house the temporary exhibitions.
The most talked about exhibition in the City is the 278 Cezanne drawings at the MOMA. They were a fascinating look at an artist's process. However, there is something to be said for selection and brevity, and this exhibition is really overwhelming. I felt like I saw everything and nothing. Many of the drawings were obviously 'practice' in the how to process. It was pretty interesting to see him refine his fruit. He also drew himself repeatedly. (The full front face is his self portrait.) I wondered if he spent a lot of time looking into mirrors.
He also practiced drawing his art friends' pictures, sculptures, as well as copying classical sculptures he admired. This is "Olympia", his friend Manet's famous picture which was a reinterpretation of Venus of Urbino by Titian.
While Cezanne was fascinating, the OTHER exhibition was the one which I really enjoyed. It was an Alexander Calder exhibition. Calder has been involved with the MOMA since 1931 - the year of his first exhibit by the MOMA. "Lobster Trap and Fish Tail" was specially designed for the new MOMA building - in 1939.
At the dinner commemorating the 10th anniversary of the opening of the new building in 1939, Calder also designed the ten foot long candelabra decorating the table
The current exhibitions is full of wonderful examples of Calder's art from large floor pieces to small whimsical wire sculptures as well as his signature mobiles. If you love Calder, this is the exhibition for you.
The third exhibition was a bit of a dud in my opinion. It's called Automania, and it was designed to show how detrimental the automobile has been on the urban landscape. Not terribly successful. My favorite piece was a Judy Chicago painted automobile hood, (outrageous at the time). The Jaguar was also so beautiful, and the chrome on the Air Stream trailer was a mirror finish.
I also picked and chose some of my 'fave' pieces from a couple of floors of the MOMA collection. I loved the new expanded MOMA. Hope you like my pics!
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