museum – daydreampilot

May 28, 2008May 28, 2008

A day at the MET

Spent the day yesterday walking the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 81st and 5th Ave. Its been over 10 years since my last visit (god I feel old), and I forgot how HUGE that museum is. I tried to go through the whole thing, but it must be about a weeks worth of walking….So pretty much just walked around and stumbled into places and eras that seemed interesting.

Loved the Victorian rooms:

Saw plenty of sculptures and paintings. Saw my favorite painters and also took detail pictures of their brushwork. Painters such as Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne really get me in the mood to paint. I love their colors, the richness of the paint, the brushwork and subject matters. I adore the tropical still-lifes and landscapes. They remind me of Venezuela and my godmother, who’s first oil paint lesson for me was a mango still-life on her backporch over-looking the Maracaibo Lake.

Detail of Van Gogh’s ‘Shoes’ 1888

Also swung by the SUPERHEROES exhibit, which was surprisingly small and overly hyped for what it is..as well as the Jeff Koons sculptures on the Rooftop garden. the view was great…the sculptures… meh. I did get a kick of the reflections.

I love the MET. one of my favorites. So much history and so much art. I need a free week to walk it all.

March 22, 2008March 22, 2008

Design and the Elastic Mind

I had a chance to go to the MoMA exhibit ‘Design and the Elastic Mind’ this past weekend. The museum was packed with people so it was hard to really appreciate the work and take time to view things. I will need to return. But at a first glance, the work was super interesting and out there. Some of the concept pieces where beyond my imagination. Not so much out of this world or futuristic, more abstract and real than expected. I posted a bunch of photos I took, so feel free to check them out on my flickr page.

January 6, 2008February 12, 2008

Kara Walker (and others) at the Whitney

I went to the Whitney this past Saturday to view the Kara Walker exhibit, and also ended up viewing other exhibits as well. But I’ll only chat about hers right now. The show is titled “Kara Walker, My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love.”

Wasn’t sure what to expect, until my friend Ivan warned me before hand. Controversial. Thats the word I would use to describe Kara’s work. The content is a bit disturbing to say the least. And it will stir up your emotions. Supposedly she is not liked by many African Americans, even though she is herself black. And I can see why. She touches on social and political views on racism and slavery with blatant raw imagery and crass humor. She uses all mediums to convey her message; from cut out silhouettes to paper on canvas, drawings, ink, video, projections and collage. Her work also ranges from words on paper, to narrative video using her silhouettes. Here’s a quote from “Conversations with Contemporary Artists: Kara Walker“, a MoMA Online Project.

“I knew that if I was going to make work that had to deal with race issues, they were going to be full of contradictions. Because I always felt that it’s really a love affair that we’ve got going in this country, a love affair with the idea of it, with the notion of major conflict that needs to be overcome and maybe a fear of what happens when that thing is overcome. And, of course, the issues also translate into [the] very personal: Who am I beyond this skin I’m in?”

In my opinion, when something triggers raw emotions and thought, I believe its true art. This exhibit is definitely not suitable for everyone, but a must see.

note: click on the image above to view more images from my museum trip.