Sunday, March 4, 2012

A tour through MoMA


Let me introduce
your MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) tour guides: Marcia (Art is Basic), me (with Mr. E), Erica (Art Project Girl), and then me again with Janis (Dream Draw Create) begin by posing in front of Monet's Waterlilies.


Above, Marcia points out a lovely Kandinsky, while a sideways Erica ponders Frida Kahlo. (Sorry Erica; Blogger is playing games tonight.)

Janis brings Mr. E to see her favorite Starry Night, and Marcia compares hands with a Miro painting.

Here, I contemplate The Persistence of Memory, while Erica reaches out to a painting by Rousseau.

Above, I become one with Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The next image is a Vik Muniz collage, and finally a sculpture from the contemporary galleries.

We end our tour in the contemporary galleries after visiting a Jackson Pollock painting.

What I couldn't show you: photography was prohibited in the Cindy Sherman Retrospective show. I doubt I would have posted any of them anyhow. I was not previously familiar with her work, and it wasn't really my 'cup of tea'. Look them up and decide for yourself.

Meanwhile - for those of you who have NEVER been to MoMA - after looking at these pics, are you surprised by the small size of Dali's drippy clock painting?

And who else remembers when Picasso's Guernica was at MoMA? I remembered it being vandalized while there. Turns out MoMA gave it up to Spain in 1981. You can read the whole story of this HERE.

One more question for those of you who have been to MoMA over the years. The museum had a huge renovation which was completed in 2004. Am I the only one who preferred the museum prior to the renovation? I've been to MoMA many times both before and after, but it always seems to me like there is so much LESS there now than there was before the renovation. Just an opinion.

14 comments:

  1. Awesome work tour guides! Thanks for taking us around! :) Yes, Totally surprised how small the Dali painting is!

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    1. The Frida painting is really small too, isn't it? But the Monet waterlilies are so huge they take up a whole museum wall. Guernica used to have its own wall too and I remember a Chuck Close painting that used to be there that was also wall-sized.

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  2. Thanks for the little tour! It is interesting to see these pieces photographed with people to give a better idea of their size and impact, rather than in a text book or neatly cropped online. I hope I can go one day!

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  3. I learned about Cindy Sherman when I took my photography class over the summer. I appreciate that she was telling stories, but to borrow your phrase, it's not my cup of tea! I was surprised by the size of the Persistence of Memory and also that there weren't like ropes and chains around Starry Night! I guess I always pictured it being guarded like the Mona Lisa since it's one of the most famous paintings in the world. I really felt a pang of jealousy here, seeing you all by artwork that someday I hope to see in person!

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  4. Matisse and Van Gogh are two of my fav(color color color!!!!!)...glad I got to see the van Gogh! ha ha I do love seeing the works in relation to people...gives you such a different perspective.

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    1. Mr. E, you got to see Matisse, too! Check out the email I'm sending to you for proof.

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  5. Thanks for posting all these.. what a fun day and the photo tour is great. :) My camera died and I have only one picture from the MOMA, sad face. I'm so glad I met you guys!

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    1. Marcia, give me a couple of days and I'll email you a bunch of pics from MoMA, OK?

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    2. Great to meet you too Marcia!

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  6. Great job Phyl on all the posts from the Convention! No wonder you have so many followers! We did have a fun time at MOMA didn't we? And Erica I love the picture of you pointing to the women in the Rousseau picture, you look great reaching for her uh, hand:)

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    1. this is all too funny! and i love the Flat Stanley aka Mr E, ...yup phyl, as soon as I saw the Dali I thought to myself, "it's that SMALL?!" Looks like you all had a blast-- I actually considered going from here but tickets from here to NYC are just too pricey. Will definitely be hitting MOMA when I'm in NJ this summer visiting my folks. :)

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    2. Janis it was fun to meet and hang out. Goofing around with the Rousseau nude was the beginning of a silly series through MOMA!

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  7. I'm really jealous of all of the bloggers hanging out at the convention. I hope you all had a lot of fun and learned something cool. I missed the deadline for my funding request to go this year. Hopefully I can make the convention next year!

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  8. Love the great posts from the conference! It has definitely motivated me to join you all next year! Art Educators are certainly a fun bunch to hang out with! And thank you for bringing Mr. E with you! I was bummed that he couldn't go but it's nice to see that you took such good care of him in abbreviated form--I'm sure he had fun! Side note: the Mona Lisa was pretty disappointing to me when I saw it in the Louvre--all that trekking around flying past great artwork desperately tryibng to keep up with the tour guide to see a tiny painting behind bulletproof glass and 100 other gawking admirers. SIGH. I should have brought binoculars! Oh well! There have also been times when I've been in awe standing before a painting I thought I'd only ever see in books...the Van Gogh I reached out and tried to touch without even thinking because the paint was just so beautiful. THAT makes up for the "Mona Lisa's!"

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