Museums and Culture

Thanks to Professor Healey of Introduction to Theatre Design at Queens College, I know of a really quaint museum in NoHo: The Merchant’s House Museum.  “The Merchant’s House Museum is New York City’s only family home preserved intact — inside and out — from the 19th century. Built in 1832 just steps from Washington Square, this elegant red-brick and white-marble row house on East Fourth Street was home to a prosperous merchant family for almost 100 years” (Merchant’s House Museum).  Because I’m a crazed lover of the old, I decided I’d get a student membership to the museum and go to three events that they’re holding in one month (though I must cancel one of my reservations due to a prior obligation)!  The first of the three events was Chant Macabre, a vocal concert performed by the Bond Street Euterpean Singing Society.  Follow me on a journey back in time, a journey to a 19th century parlor filled with macabre music.

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Let’s fill our tummies before we go back in time!  I’m just going to put in a little plug here for the B Bar & Grill restaurant which is right across the street from the Merchant’s House Museum (along with many other eateries that I must try in the near future).  The floor plan of the restaurant is really spacious and there’s more than enough tables to go around.  They serve brunch, lunch, and dinner, along with drinks.  There were too many things on the menu I wanted to try (macaroni and cheese, a lamb burger, pizza, just to name a few), but I ended up tasting their Fish ‘n Chips.  I have a question, why are Fish ‘n Chips portions always so large?  Anyway, the food was delicious, and their french fries are to die for (like my little death joke there?)!  Definitely a recommended spot for food before any event at the museum.

The Museum of Modern Art is not my favorite museum in New York City.  It’s not my favorite museum, period.  But I had to go for my Arts in New York City seminar.  And I have to admit, I had a semi-enjoyable time there.  Look, a museum is a museum, and no matter what museum I might find myself in, something ends up interesting me.

What I went for: Photography

My seminar group decided that they wanted to focus on the photography exhibit – mainly New Photography 2012.  Of course, me being me, I chose images from the older collection of photography.  I found three interesting pieces – all interesting for different reasons.

Harrell Fletcher’s The American War (2005) was possibly the most disappointing series I have ever seen in a museum.  Yes, there is Rothko who tends to paint colored squares, and Pollock who thinks art is waving a loaded brush on a canvas.  And yes, I do have a problem looking at these modern artists with the same prestige as I look at Rembrandt.  But, at least they’re doing something.  Harrell Fletcher did absolutely nothing in this photography series.  He went to the Ho Chi Minh museum in Vietnam and simply took photos of the images on the wall.  What’s different between that and what I did on my trip to the MoMa?  I took photographs of the images I thought were interesting – but I’m not considering these photographs art!!!  This really infuriated me.  What is art coming to?  And this is one reason that the MoMa isn’t my favorite museum – too conceptual for my taste.

One of my favorite museums is the Nassau County Museum of Art.  Situated in a Roslyn mansion originally built by Lloyd Stephens Bryce, the museum holds various temporary exhibits while also housing the well known Tee Ridder Museum of doll houses and its many outdoor sculptures of modern and more traditional art.  The museum is right off of Northern Boulevard and is also a great place to stroll around – it has nature walks and vast grassy areas for picnicking and the like.  After several decades of existence, the Nassau County Museum of Art has been able to acquire art collections of well-renowned artists such as Tiffany, Richard Avedon, and Marc Chagall.

I had a very busy day planned out for today.  The original list went as follows:

Quidditch 10:00-12:00
Finkel, Finkel & Rutkowski 1:30-3:30
Habit 4:00-5:30
Broadway Flea Market 6:00-8:00

You must agree, that seems a little bit impossible.  And it was.  I didn’t have enough stamina or energy to get through the entire day.  And you have to realize, these events weren’t neighbors.  It would be downtown to uptown to downtown to midtown.  A little bit crazy!  So here’s the final schedule:

Quidditch 10:00-12:00
Lunch on Columbus Avenue 12:50-1:30
Finkel, Finkel & Rutkowski 1:30-3:30 (I ran a little late)
Columbus Avenue Street Fair 3:30-4:30

As a class we ventured into the city on a Friday afternoon to visit the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to see the Rineke Dijkstra exhibit that we had been discussing in class.  A docent took us as a group around the museum through the temporary as well as permanent exhibits.  There was a great variety in styles of artwork: Dijkstra‘s blunt photography, Manet‘s fuzzy impressionist portraits, and Kandinsky‘s early non-objective paintings.  After the guided tour, we were free to go exploring on our own and were each assigned different floors of the Dijkstra exhibit.  The Krazyhouse, a video displayed on the fourth floor of her exhibit and on the seventh floor of the overall museum, captured our attention as it differed from her stagnant photographs and really engaged the viewer through movement and sound.

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The Krazyhouse

Close your eyes.  You’re walking from a brightly lit room into a narrow passage leading you to a large box-of-a-room.  There is little light.  Each of the four walls sports a white screen and each screen has a designated projector hanging from the ceiling.  One at a time, never overlapping, the screens light up with the image of a lone person.  You can’t take your eyes off of that one person; there is no where else to look.  It’s flesh on white.  No where to hide.  No where to disguise your awkwardness.  Watch as the figure begins to dance to the music.  Judge them.  See the fear in their eyes.  Or the complete freedom they feel.  This is The Krazyhouse.

It was the twenty-seventh of August, and I was excited to go to my first Macaulay Event – Night at the Museum at the Brooklyn Museum.  The Brooklyn Museum just happens to be one of my favorite museums due to its variety – art, artifacts, and great temporary exhibits.  I visit the feminist wing every time I stop by – Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party is so interesting to look at and I love learning about history’s strong women!  So, of course I was excited for this event.

The assignment for our visit was to talk about the artwork in an intellectual manner.  For me, there’s no difficulty in talking about artwork.  It comes naturally to me.  However, many of my fellow “Macaulians” were very nervous about this assignment.  They felt insecure.  My group-mates thought I was a genius, as I talked about Hellenistic-esque drapery and the symbolism of the color white.  But little did they know, my group-mates themselves made several comments that far exceeded my perceived genius.

I was really blown away while admiring Abbott Handerson Thayer’s My Children in the American wing.  As a group, but I was mostly influenced by the others’ ideas, we decided that the painting was representing Mother Nature and Adam and Eve.  From this assumption, I offered some feedback about Thayer’s style (brushstrokes) and possible symbolism – are the brushstrokes of Mother Nature’s hands more visibly sparse because mankind is killing the natural world through industrialization?  One of the other members of the group suggested that the children (believed to be Adam and Eve) were in a darker shadow because of sin and evil, as they no longer took care of their earth.