Freshman Field Trip
Yesterday, I took off work with the express purpose going to the Mueseum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan. This may strike people as being a bit strange for two reasons: 1) why take a day off to see something boring that is open on the weekends and is only 30-minutes away from where you live and 2) why take a day off just to go to midtown Manhattan, a mostly soul-less place where most of my friends spend 40+ hours each week working a day job. My defense is that since the MoMA reopened it's been too packed on weekends to entertain the idea of going, and because my job requires me to spend a lot of time outside in pretty places in Brooklyn and Queens, midtown doesn't inspire the same fluorescent, life-stealing dread that it does for anyone who lawyers or PRs there all week. Also, I have a ton of vacation time saved up and could afford to use or day here or there.
Anyway, it was fantastic. It was my first time in the MoMA, so everything was new to me, but my top priority was just seeing the building, and I wasn't disappointed. The most striking feature of the design is that the building has an assortment of well-chosen openings in the walls which allow bits of the City to sneak into the museum and allow the viewer some surprising and fun views of other parts of the collection as well. My favorite examples of this were the gap in an external wall that nicely framed the gothic spire of a neighboring church and a view from the fourth floor that not only afforded a wonderful view of the large central hall and it's sculpture (Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman), but also allowed some glimpses to a poster on the 3rd floor and a painting on one of the higher floors. And the gaps are small enough that you feel as if you're peeking out of a tiny, private hidey-hole or peering into a keyhole instead of standing on some long, public balcony. It also seems to break up the floors of the museum irregularly, so you wonder not only what floor something is on, but also how you could even get there, even though the whole place is easier to navigate than Macy's. It's a neat trick, and makes you feel like you've leapt into an M.C. Escher painting, which I must confess was always a secret dream of mine.
The only gallery I spent much time on was the Architecture & Design section, which features all sorts of nifty chairs, posters, motorcyles and assorted other things that were designed to be functional as well as nice to look at. Even my own second generation iPod was there. In fact, there was a part of the gallery that almost looked like an Apple store, with a notebook, and several speakers complementing the ubiquitous mp3 player. In fact, many of the items on display have become commonplace, which has the odd effect (as my girlfriend pointed out) of making them seem cheap, in a way. There were definitely a few pieces of furniture that may have once been daring but now look like something you could get from Target that you'd have to put together yourself. I had a similar feeling wandering through the Cezanne vs. Pisarro cage match upstairs (in which Pisarro gets his derriere handed to him). The Impressionists have been so successful that nowadays all you can think of is Hallmark cards or girl's dorm rooms when you see one of their landscapes.
Inadvertently continuning with the theme of art and design, later that night I went to see the movie Proteus (not the gay, interracial love story set in 18th century S. Africa, although that sounds awesome, too), which is about how Ernst Haeckel's twin obsessions for exaggerated form in art and fundamental order in science led him to dedicate his life to studying and painting pictures of radiolarian, single-celled organisms that secrete a mind-blowing variety of silicon skeletons. The movie made liberal references to Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and the history of alchemy and ended up being surprisingly (and not at all cloyingly) spiritual. I highly recommed the movie, especially if you're thinking about how you're going to fill up a fake city with form and structure, because it will fill your dreams with stuff like this:
Anyway, it was fantastic. It was my first time in the MoMA, so everything was new to me, but my top priority was just seeing the building, and I wasn't disappointed. The most striking feature of the design is that the building has an assortment of well-chosen openings in the walls which allow bits of the City to sneak into the museum and allow the viewer some surprising and fun views of other parts of the collection as well. My favorite examples of this were the gap in an external wall that nicely framed the gothic spire of a neighboring church and a view from the fourth floor that not only afforded a wonderful view of the large central hall and it's sculpture (Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman), but also allowed some glimpses to a poster on the 3rd floor and a painting on one of the higher floors. And the gaps are small enough that you feel as if you're peeking out of a tiny, private hidey-hole or peering into a keyhole instead of standing on some long, public balcony. It also seems to break up the floors of the museum irregularly, so you wonder not only what floor something is on, but also how you could even get there, even though the whole place is easier to navigate than Macy's. It's a neat trick, and makes you feel like you've leapt into an M.C. Escher painting, which I must confess was always a secret dream of mine.
The only gallery I spent much time on was the Architecture & Design section, which features all sorts of nifty chairs, posters, motorcyles and assorted other things that were designed to be functional as well as nice to look at. Even my own second generation iPod was there. In fact, there was a part of the gallery that almost looked like an Apple store, with a notebook, and several speakers complementing the ubiquitous mp3 player. In fact, many of the items on display have become commonplace, which has the odd effect (as my girlfriend pointed out) of making them seem cheap, in a way. There were definitely a few pieces of furniture that may have once been daring but now look like something you could get from Target that you'd have to put together yourself. I had a similar feeling wandering through the Cezanne vs. Pisarro cage match upstairs (in which Pisarro gets his derriere handed to him). The Impressionists have been so successful that nowadays all you can think of is Hallmark cards or girl's dorm rooms when you see one of their landscapes.Inadvertently continuning with the theme of art and design, later that night I went to see the movie Proteus (not the gay, interracial love story set in 18th century S. Africa, although that sounds awesome, too), which is about how Ernst Haeckel's twin obsessions for exaggerated form in art and fundamental order in science led him to dedicate his life to studying and painting pictures of radiolarian, single-celled organisms that secrete a mind-blowing variety of silicon skeletons. The movie made liberal references to Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and the history of alchemy and ended up being surprisingly (and not at all cloyingly) spiritual. I highly recommed the movie, especially if you're thinking about how you're going to fill up a fake city with form and structure, because it will fill your dreams with stuff like this:
posted by Arazu at
12:52 PM
3 Comments:
Dude! When coming to soulless midtown, you should call those of us who are stuck working here. We all enjoy the lunch.
Good post today. Please fill your city with those geodesic baubles.
By
Anonymous, at 8:46 AM
Manhattan is not soul-less.
Those who consider Manhattan to be soul-less are themselves soul-less.
Hmf!
By
k, at 10:06 PM
It isn't Manhattan that I think is soulless, just midtown. In fact, I think that parts of Manhattan are very nice and make for excellent tourist destinations!
By
Arazu, at 8:12 AM
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