Monet was a genius.

Saturday we spent the day in Chelsea, mostly gallery hopping. We came across two incredible shows. One was a collection of works by Roy Lichtenstein at Gagosian Gallery. After seeing this collection of work, it is easy to understand why Lichtenstein is regarded as a key figure in American Pop Art. I most enjoyed looking at the small preliminary sketches of most of the works in the show. It is always interesting to see an artist's work process. Lichtenstein was clearly very calculating and I imagine he enjoyed having so much control over the paintings he made.

The highlight of my day, and perhaps the whole trip, was a show of Claude Monet's later works also at Gagosian Gallery. The experience of this show is difficult to describe because it literally is a once in a life time opportunity. The paintings on display have been donated by several museums, but mostly come from private collectors. There will never be another Monet show like this.

Upon entering the extensive gallery space, a sense of gravity settles due to muffled conversation, subdued lighting, and shuffling of numerous shoes. The gallery space is crowded, but not crowded enough that the opportunity to be the sole individual in front of a painting is completely denied.

This show accomplished two things for me: allowed me to see a contrast between Monet's earlier style with his later work, and prove to me that he was a genius. Majority of the works in this show use broad, loose brush strokes that are even more expressive than much of Monet's work. In several of these paintings Monet left whole sections of canvas bare, even using the light color of the canvas as highlights. Monet's use of color is also very bold in this collection of work, especially seen in three paintings that depict the same garden path in which the dominant colors are red and orange. While passing from painting to painting I was able to associate a time of day from my own experiences to Monet's depictions. I could imagine the beginning of a sunset when shadows begin to deepen and become gloomy, the pale washed out brightness of a mid-afternoon, and the moments right before night settles when white and bright color flowers seem to glow with light of their own in the impending darkness. The brilliance of Monet was by no means lost on me before this show, but I have been further convinced of his genius.

Sadly, I photography was not allowed in the gallery (I doubt any photo could give the paintings justice anyway). If you're reading this and have the chance to go to this show, I suggest going as soon as possible.

Jellyfish and Humor

Yesterday we had an enjoyable day at the New York City Aquarium at Coney Island. Even though we're all legally "adults", I think the sea lion show still managed to bring out the little kid in all of us...plus the day was a great opportunity to do some sketching and take a walk on the beach:


(Yes, the squid is holding a pickle.)



Today, accompanied by Michael Mcdevitt, we visited the studio of Charles Browning. Charles was extremely hospitable, pulling out several paintings to show us. He told us about a little bit of his history as an artist and gave us deeper insight into the business side of the art world. Charles was very candid with us and told us plenty that most art students don't hear about until they are out of college.

We have noticed several common themes that crop up during our visits with artists. Right on top of the list is the use of humor in art. Majority, if not all, of the artists we have met have agreed that humor should be employed in art to capture the audience, keep their attention, and add to the impact of a work. Charles creates work in a classical style largely influenced by American history which idealizes or romanticizes the influence of the "white man" on the native population of the Americas and his relationship with African Americans. Charles deals with heavy, borderline cruel, subjects. The humor in his work not only hooks the viewer to consider his work further, but it makes his subject matter easier to swallow without turning the viewer away. For some it is easy to ignore that white settlers in the Americas completely ravaged and exploited the native populations (not to mention the slaves they brought with them) as well as the land of the Americas. Charles makes the viewer aware of this subject with humor, and because he keeps his audience laughing, they are less likely to turn away and more likely to think about the subject deeper than they would if his work did not contain that humorous aspect.

Charles speaking to us.

A work in progress.

This Weekend has been FRICKin' MAD

So the past few days have been fantastic. We hit two incredible museums. On Friday we went to see the Frick Collection and today we went to the Museum of Arts and Design. All the art was amazing.




The Frick Collection was outstanding. Housed in the owner and collector's actual housed the atmosphere was completely natural. The majority of the art was from the nineteenth century and blended well with the architecture and furnishings of the time. But there were also some earlier art from Italy that were just as impressive, such as a small piece by Cimabue. The trip was enhanced by the audio tour we took, allowing us to explore the first floor of the Frick house at our own leisure. It was definitely another course in art history that we couldn't get anywhere else. Did you know that Manet cut one of his paintings in half to rework both parts into separate paintings? It's an uncommon practice but not unheard of!



After we made stops at two galleries, one being Hirschl and Adler Modern. This continued on the theme of mostly nineteenth century or earlier art, at least on the first floor. On the second floor was a series of watercolor paintings by an English artist - Alexander Creswell. His stuff was amazing, having a high command and control of the medium. It was also interesting that we've seen a lot of watercolorists in this trip, but it isn't a dominate form. As Tim had mention in a conversation later that day, none are really dominating; at least overwhelmingly so. Video art installations and watercolor have been more prevalent than probably most of us thought though.

Today was just as good, if not a bit better. We went down to Columbus Circle and went to MAD: the Museum of Arts and Design. It was insane. We started from the sixth floor with open studios and worked our way down. In said studios we met a woman names Malika Green who made wearable art in the form of shoes. Her stuff is awesome. It brings together the sculptural arts with fashion in an amazing way. When asked about her aspirations after her residency at the museum, she answered with wanting to perhaps work for Lady Gaga. With her fun and funky footwear, I'm sure none of us would be surprised if that became a reality - working under the Fame Monster or some other trendsetter.

The next to floors below held the exhibition of Dead or Alive and we all have to admit it was spectacular. Each piece was made with some kind of biological material and even with those pretenses the application was vast. There was a lot of crazy and complex stuff such as a pile of rat bones collected from owl pellets to a skull made of scarab beetle shells. I think we all have to admit that one of the most impressive or at least perhaps OCD items was a piece called "Fragile Future.3" done by studio DRIFT. It was a series of LED lights with multiple dandelion seeds individually glued to each light by means of tweezers. It was insane, but the whole exhibition was.


The next floor held a series of woven or wound items as well pieces from the museums ceramic collection, but the second floor was where another heaving hitting exhibition was located. On it's almost closing day - it closes tomorrow (2/5), we saw the works of Viola Frey. Her monumental ceramic sculptures were incredible. Making a lot of larger than life forms she captured the human figure with a splash of abstract expressionism in their coloring. The description of her work on one of the walls explained it as the line between art and craft diverging and also merging in her work. She definitely helped bring the ceramic arts into the fine art world.


All in all it was an incredible day and weekend. Good thing we have tomorrow to relax and process it all a bit before jumping back in . . .

*Note: All pictures found from frick.org or google image search*

The Bruins won today.

A couple nights ago at dinner, Marc asked us if it was possible to pick our top three favorite things we've done so far. It probably is possible, but I can't stick with just three. These are my highlights of the trip so far (with accompanying sketches):

Visit to Ray Smith's Studio:



Metropolitan Museum of Art (particularly the sculpture court and Grecco/Roman wing):



Museum of the American Indian (I was really struck by the beauty and intricacy of the various horse masks we saw here...the reason why all of my drawings from here are of the masks):



Museum of Natural History (an incredible place to do studies and get inspired):


The rain forest replica was one of my favorite displays at the museum.

Getting a "behind the scenes" look.



Brooklyn Botanic Garden:




Meeting Davide Cantoni and seeing his studio has also been a highlight thus far (I wrote about this in an earlier post).

Lastly, a show entitled Dead or Alive at the Museum of Art and Design, which we attended today has made it to my list of favorites. This show was solid, from it's title to the last bit of art exhibited. This show has probably been the most inspiring and thought provoking show we have attended so far. The works exhibited in Dead or Alive incorporated organic matter in some way (dead insects, plant life, bones, feathers, fur, etc.). The artists commented on matters such as the relationship between man and animals, bioengineering, the extinction of animals due to the activities of humans, conservation of natural resources, and the fragility of the environment. The level of craftmanship in this show is impeccable, displaying not only a high sense of work ethic but also well thought out ideas. This show is worth seeing by anyone who gets the chance.

This is like... OCD art

Today was interesting, exciting, and inspirational. As usual, we saw A LOT of art today, and explored much of madison ave. There were several galleries set up in buildings I wouldn't typically expect to see art galleries in. These buildings were fairly "posh", and the walls were lined with marble, with top of the line interior designs that looked and felt marvelous. Although the elevator space was small in some of these buildings, it all screamed of high quality, and many of us were impressed with how much attention to detail the building itself had. And speaking of attention to detail, the work in the galleries themselves were even more detailed oriented. It seems as if detail is even more of a popular aspect of art than ever. Much of the art we have experienced (not all) has been meticulous, and "OCD"-like. Before visiting these galleries however, we took a look at the Biennial. We were really impressed with the variety of work, and again, the attention to detail. It seems that Anna and Shlomi were right when they told our group that Video Art and Photography was really popular. Two years ago when I went on this trip to NYC the first time, the show at the Biennial was generally not liked by the public, and definitely not a favorite of our group.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Natural History

Today we had an anomalous opportunity to get a look behind the scenes at the Museum of Natural History. This is a chance that is rare and that few students will ever see. After we meandered the butterfly observatory, and the lizards and snakes exhibits, we met up with Lou Sorkin, who was our sherpa guide to the hinterlands of the museum--the place that most people never get to go! We were lucky enough to have an "in", as Lou works with Marc in one of his other enterprises, Insects Are Food. Although we did not eat any bugs during this visit, we did get to see tarantulas and other specimens, which the Museum of Natural History uses to conduct research--a rather illusive and unknown property of this prestigious museum. Lou was extremely knowledgeable in all aspects of entomology, expertly answering every question posed and then some. He's a real gem, both in New York and the world over (as a researcher, bedbug specialist, et. all), so we're very fortunate that, on this trip, we've gotten to see the inner workings of various organizations such as this--the unknowns of New York. We walked through hallways that were lined with the special treasures and former exhibitions of the museum. As you may know, certain objects can only be on display for so long until it compromises the work, so it must be rotated in and out of exhibition. These cabinets are where this goes.A special thanks to Lou for getting us a more informed view of part of the art and bug world.