Mouth to Mouth

I went to the MoMA museum branch PS1 in Queens last weekend. There was an exhibition featuring 45 years (since 1965) of performance video and it was comprised of many, many art works made specifically for video. I expected that the TVs would be higher quality, but it sort of fit in with the video since many of these were probably shot on VHS. I had seen a lot of the videos before, but there was also some incredibly captivating works that I had only read about before that were definitely worth seeing.

One of the works I liked was by the Glasgow based artist duo Smith/Stewart. I wasn't previously familiar with their work, but typically use their own bodies as the source for their video installations and single-screen works which allow them to explore gender interaction, and the works often have a threatening sense of imminent violence. In Mouth to MouthStewart lies in a bathtub fully clothed and completely submerged in water while Smith kneels at the tub's edge. Each time he signals that he is out of breath, she bends down and exhales into his mouth.

Preparing for Water Lilies

Workers install the signage at the Museum of Modern Art for the upcoming Water Lilies exhibition by Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926) who devoted the last twenty-five years of his life to the portrayal of the Japanese-style lily pond on his property in northern France.

This forthcoming exhibition of important paintings by Monet were created from 1914-1926 and it will feature the entire set of Water Lily paintings together with other related paintings loaned to MoMA from various museums around the world.

MoMA Cafe Lunch

I went to the Museum on Monday and had lunch in the very cool Cafe 2 restaurant. It's located (obviously) on the second floor of the museum and serves delicious and seasonal foods including panini, handmade pastas, salumi, artisanal cheeses, salads, and soups, and desserts.

You wait in line and then place your order and pay for it at the counter. Then they give you a flag with a number to place at your table and you wait for your food to be served. The tables are long communal tables and after a relatively short wait a waiter brings you your food. They include the tip (10%) in the price of the food so you don't have to worry about that. The food is really good. I had a Panini with prosciutto cotto, arugula, provolone cheese, and spicy mustard. It also comes with olives and pickled tomatoes. Delicious.

The Business of Art

The selling of art at the Museum of Modern Art. Artwork by Angus Fairhurst (1966-2008).

Big Seed Drawing

Today was my third time cruising through the Compass in Hand exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. My approach is just to walk around until something catches my eye. It's great to have a membership to the museum and live so close because I don't feel any pressure to see everything and I can go back any time I want. I see something different that I like every time I check out this exhibition which runs until early next year. It's a good thing because there's plenty of time for me to go back several more times and find lots more art to like.

The work on display is from the Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection, and was acquired by the Museum in 2005. It is an extraordinary collection of over 2,500 contemporary works on paper though only 250 or so are on display which kind of sucks because I am sure there are so many more great pieces that will never been seen. I guess that's what the catalog is for. If I had a couple million dollars I'd love to acquire a huge collection of art, but I don't so I'll just have to pretend. I do have a couple of excellent pieces of art by Ian Burns and Fred Tomaselli in my small art collection. I just looked and found that Tomaselli piece has increased in value almost 20 times. I need to buy more art.

Anyway, at the MOMA today I decided to pick out one work and it's one that has been catching my eye on every visit. It's called "Big Seed Drawing" and is by an artist I really like, Mark Grotjahn. He made this one with ballpoint pen, color pencil and linseed oil on marked paper. It's fairly large at 29 x 23" (73.7 x 58.4 cm). Grothjahn usually works with colored pencils and makes work that's geometric and fairly formal in composition. This ones a bit looser than other pieces I've seen, but I like the messy surface and personal touch to his work. The colors remind me of some of Frank Stella's colorful work from the 1960's.

High and Low

Leaders from the one hundred ninety-two members of the United Nations gathered in New York this week for the new General Assembly. There were parties and events all over town. Traffic was a mess and many streets were closed and cars and pedestrians redirected.

One of the events may have been at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) the other evening. The important people ate at nicely appointed tables upstairs in the beautiful museum while the caterers ate the same food a few feet away in the loading dock.

A large green Andy Warhol "Flowers" painting hangs above the museum information desk. A large overflowing coat rack is situated in the loading dock area. If you really think about it, the coat rack is perhaps a slightly more interesting piece of art. Andy once said, "Art is anything you can get away with." I'm calling the "Coat Rack (found jackets, uniforms, and two coat racks, 2008)" art. Consider it a temporary installation.

Art Rack

This appears to be one of those times when you notice something and then you start seeing it everywhere. I saw another one of those ridiculous David Byrne-designed red bike racks in front of the Museum of Modern Art on 54th Street today. It doesn't look like anyone has ever used this bike rack even though it makes a nice marker for the local hot dog cart. Who is going to use this as a bike rack with a hot dog stand right up next to it? There were lots of tourists buying pretzels at 10:30am.