Getting ready for Fall Colors, we took a day trip up to the MoMA a few weekends ago, paid for a full membership (almost cheaper than regular admission) and got high on the art. Of course, we took pics.
The following is our selection of what we loved most on that day, photographed as well as possible (all artists are noted with the exception of Matisse, Picasso, Monet and one Rothko, which we should all by now - and three black and white prints by Jean Arp, which are the only threesome).
We wish many of the pics would have come out better, so we're going to go back with a tripod and a bigger camera at some point and try it again. We invite you to do the same. It's all a part of finding color.
Interestingly, a few things stood out to us.
1. Color in art as a starring element was essentially a modern event. As Matisse said,: "Modern art spreads joy around by its color, which calms us."
2. All the art we liked was really OLD. The stuff we thought was the best was almost all produced before 1960.
3. MoMA's collection of new artists was interesting, but not stunning. They seem to have peaked a long time ago as arbiters of taste.
4. The design collection - which you would think we would have gone to first - is not as impressively displayed as it once was and more dated than we remember. With so much amazing design happening these days, there is a HUGE missed opportunity taking place in this department.
5. But, despite all this, we really LIKED the new MoMA. While we know there have been a few detractors, this new space has a mystique and a grandeur all its own and the way in which it displays the artwork is lovely. We're going back.
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Thanks for the shout out! Please come see SAFE: Design Takes on Risk opening next week (October 16) and buy the fabulous accompanying catalog. (is this shamelessly gratuitous?)
Also, I will say this in defense of my workplace... MoMA decided that they would be a museum dedicated to the Modern Art movement of the 20th Century and not so much a contemporary art museum. This was decided because their early 20th Century art (all that stuff you love from before 1960) was too valuable to sell in favor of more contemporary art (dead sheep floating in formaldahyde, for instance). This change in philosophy has been happening gradually but was decided a while ago and people are just realizing it now that the new building is open.
As for the contemporary galleries... This new reinstallation IS stunning, compared to what they had there last year. It's a work in progress. They are still learning to use the space.
I'll give MoMA a shout out, too...
Without a DOUBT, one of the most stunning and magical spaces now in all of Manhattan is the HUGE room featuring (I believe) a Rosenquist on one side opposite a color-block piece by an artist whose name escapes me. But this space... so expansive, so vast, such an apt home for the two displayed works to grace... is knee-buckling.
In general, and in particular reference to MGR's mention of MoMA relative to color, I think color is used AMAZINGLY well throughout the redesigned spaces.
Also love, how gallery to gallery, some pieces "face" each other in perpetual dialogue. You can surely imagine the nightly conversations between the Jackson Pollack in one room with the Lee Krasner in another.