The Guggenheim during YouTube Play

On Friday, October 22nd, The Guggenheim Museum held another one of their 'Art After Dark' events as part of an ongoing after-hours series, centered around a current exhibition. The main exhibit was YouTube Play, in which 25 videos selected from thousands of YouTube submissions were displayed in the 2nd level Annex of the museum. Visitors between the hours of 9 pm and Midnight enjoyed a private viewing of the YouTube Play presentation and projections of an assortment of videos on the museum's Frank Lloyd Wright-designed exterior.







An exhibit titled, 'Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936' is also currently on display, through January 9th, 2011.

Weekend Update

Throughout this summer, if you're in New York, you should stop by one of these two museums on a weekend night since their admission fees go down from about $10-15 to "pay what you wish".

On Friday nights, the Whitney Museum of American Art allows you to pay what you wish from 6 to 9 pm. Right now there are some interesting installations on display: mirror installations by conceptual artist Dan Graham and some pop sculptures by Claes Oldenburg. These are beyond worth seeing any night of the week!

On Saturday nights, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has the "pay what you wish" option from 5:45 to 7:45, and a lot of people already know about it. When I got there this past Saturday, I waited in line on Madison Avenue, about 2 blocks away from the museum's entrance. Since it is the 50th anniversary year, The Guggenheim had an amazing special exhibition of its own architect and designer: Frank Lloyd Wright. It included original drawings and ideas for The Guggenheim's exterior, as well as for urban communities, schools and other institutions.

Exterior of The Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue

The line that was two blocks long!

The exterior of The Whitney Museum on Madison Avenue

Cool street art on Madison Avenue at 75th Street

Gustave Caillebotte at the Brooklyn Museum

I visited the Brooklyn Museum and zipped up to the 4th floor galleries to see Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, a permanent installation at the museum in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center's Herstory Gallery. This triangular dinner table is a FAMOUS piece of feminist art. Anyway, that's another post I believe.

Then I went on up to the 5th floor to see what I came to the museum to see, Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings From Paris to the Sea. Yes! I'm a huge Impressionism lover.

It was at this exhibit that I realized: I don't go to museums to see pictures, I go to museums to take pictures of people looking at pictures. It's always great to see the young ones educating themselves, or the elderly taking camera phone pics.

Black and White

This exhibit, on display at the Brooklyn Museum through July 5th, is a site specific work made of black masking tape that wraps around and covers the walls of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery on the 5th floor. The three mile long mural-like display took approximately 280 hours to put up on the walls and visitors could actually see the work in progress, all leading up to the finished installment on March 27th.

Within the gallery there are flowing black lines on the walls all around you. Like zebra paint. And from what I observed, both children and adults loved it!

Sun K. Kwak's Enfolding 280 Hours

Brooklyn Museum

On Saturday March 28th I went to the Brooklyn Museum in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. I'd never been before but I walked past it last year in May when I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens to see the last day of the Cherry Blossom Walk's bloom. The two venues are right across the street from each other.

I was drawn to this museum because I wanted to see Gustave Caillebotte's paintings in an exhibit that had just opened the day before on March 27th. The New York Times covered it and suggested viewing it, but I would have seen it no matter what. Caillebotte was a French Impressionist, and Impressionism is my favorite art movement of all.

It took 5 subway transfers to get me there, but it was worth it to not only see paintings by Caillebotte, but works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Diego Rivera, Judy Chicago, Auguste Rodin, Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley—all artists I studied throughout high school and college.

More to come on this wonderful place of art and creativity!

View from across the street on Eastern Parkway



the lawn out front

1st floor lobby, directing "Everybody" towards the exhibit halls

1st floor lobby looking out onto Eastern Parkway, with sculptures
by various artists including Auguste Rodin!

Contemporary Art in LIC

Here are some more images from the P.S. 1 MoMA: Contemporary Art Center, located in Long Island City. These are all in the same room as part of the Jonathan Horowitz: And/Or exhibit, containing minimalist style sculptures, humanist pop portraiture and video projections. Man, I love going to museums!

Tofu on Pedestal in Gallery, 2002



Go Vegan! (200 Celebrity Vegetarians
Downloaded from the Internet), 2002

and there's Miley...



Recycling Sculpture (World Trade Center Memorial), 2005

The MoMA in Queens

There's a MoMA in Queens! I didn't realize that until now. The venue is called: P.S. 1 MoMA: Contemporary Arts Center.




I've been reading about this awesome installation by Leandro Erlich titled Swimming Pool and was unsure of the piece's ending date (March 09? October 09?) so I rushed over there on Sunday afternoon to check it out and see for myself what it would be like to stand inside of a swimming pool, fully clothed and camera equipped.

Erlich's installation is a full size swimming pool that is actually empty except for a few inches of water on the surface that lie above a full length piece of acryllic. You can enter inside the empty pool by taking the stairs underneath the deck, through a hallway and then into a small entrance way, and look up at the visitors above as they look down at you, standing inside a pool, unwet!

OOFOOFOOF

'OOF' by Edward Ruscha, 1962. Part of the MoMA's, 'Here Is Every' exhibit, 2008

MoMA Walls

Even the walls at the Museum of Modern Art are picture perfect!

From the 'Architecture and Design Drawings' on floor 3 of The MoMA

Gum!?

Created by John McCracken in 1967 this is The Absolutely Naked Fragrance, made of plywood covered with fiberglass and resin. It's Pink. It's at The MoMA in NYC and it looks like a big stick of gum! It is really a laquered monochrome "plank" made to look like a surfboard. McCracken was interested in the 1960's southern California culture and aesthetic.

Modern Art

Modern art is not for everyone, but I think that at The MoMA, there's a little bit of something for everyone!! By the way, this is the place Van Gogh's Starry Night calls home...

Inside The MoMA

Back in November I visited The MoMA with a friend who was visiting me, and I we got excited over the Joan Miró exhibit because we both love speaking spanish! But the Exhibit itself, titled, Anti-Painting, wasn't all that interesting. The entrance was though.

Guggenheim is restored!

The Guggenheim museum's exterior has been restored, finally! I last went two years ago, hoping to get some great pictures of it but it was covered by scaffolding and nets. It was disappointing and it was like that for about 3 years.

July 2008 marked its restoration completion and on Thursday, October 30th, admission was free until 8 pm to celebrate.

Some displays featured were Catherine Opie - American Photographer; Robert Rauschenberg -a memorial, 'Theanyspacewhatever' exhibit and Jenny Holzer - For The Guggenheim.

more pics on the flickr -

The restored exterior! Took this one when it was still light out.


display by Jenny Holzer - For The Guggenheim