Okay, this is ironic and kind of sad. After having lived in NYC for one year as a photo enthusiast and having put together that “Guide to NYC” this summer, I had still only visited two museums on Manhattan: the Met and the Museum of Math. My friends helped remedy that by letting me tag along for a flurry of museum outings. I now present you: Peter’s definitive non-artistic guide to museums he visited last month!
Museum of Modern Art
The MoMA has a really impressive permanent collections of really famous pieces. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Dali’s Persistence of Memory (melting clocks!!), van Gogh’s Starry Night, and, uhhh… others. I’m actually really poorly educated in art culture, so those were probably the only pieces I actually recognized. And I still had to google the title of the Picasso.
My favorite room was the one with the enormous Monet Water Lilies canvas. My classmate shared a JAMA article about Monet’s failing vision, which is interesting and illuminating. If he saw his paintings blurry, that may explain why he wasn’t bothered by such crude strokes up close: he couldn’t see them!
The MoMA is free on Fridays 4-8, thanks to Uniqlo. It’s also insanely crowded during that time. Cue the presence of kinda rude people, like this fool who stood inches in front of the work taking 20 sequential tiled pictures. The ushers should have punched him.
In conclusion, MoMA Rating: 5/5, would recommend.
Whitney Museum of American Art
When I googled the Whitney this summer, I didn’t even realize that they had just moved into the new building in May of this year. I still don’t know where the old Whitney was. This new building looks pretty cool though, and it towers sits above the High Line. I was surprised to learn that even though it has floors numbered up to 8, there are no floors 2 and 4, and 3 is a theater. As it gets narrower at the top, the museum was a lot smaller than I expected!
It was cool. There were a few pieces by Edward Hopper (the dude who painted those dudes in the bar at night, Nighthawks). The entire 8th floor was devoted to a solo exhibit by someone who painted New Orleans, and lots of the paintings featured many rich colors, like blues, purples, and pinks. It was neat and a great theme.
I never quite understood modern art, but sometimes people just take it to a whole new level. If you look closely enough at the panel below, you might see it’s actually a 3×3 grid of subtly different blacks. Let me share you an excerpt of the caption accompanying this Abstract Painting by Ad Reinhardt: “Reinhardt focused exclusively on black-square paintings like this one in the last ten years of his life, subtly varying the sheen and undertones of each black square.” Um.
In conclusion, Whitney Rating: 5/5, would recommend.
The Cloisters
The only I’ve been up to the northwest tip of Manhattan was that big pseudo-storm, and so the museum was closed by the time I got there. This time, it was raining. That’s okay though.
The old architecture is really interesting, especially because they brought in stones for many of the pillars from monasteries in Europe or somewhere (I forgot).
Inside the building, there’s also a great collection of medieval artifacts, like suits of armor, coins, and tapestries (cf. Indiana Jones).
In conclusion, Cloisters Rating: 5/5, would recommend
Museum of Natural History
Is the abbreviation MoNH a thing? It’s probably not a thing.
It’s okay, there are dinosaurs. Gemstones too. And the Hayden Planetarium and therefore Neil deGrasse Tyson. I think the abbreviation NdGT is a thing though.
It’s massive. Dinosaurs were on the top floor, but that was just one floor of four. The place is monstrous. Like dinosaurs! Probably need to go back and visit another day.
In conclusion, MoNH Rating: 5/5, would recommend.
