Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

MOMA

I was planning to get a ticket to see The Glass Menagerie but the line at TKTS was so long at 10am, I shrugged it off and went to the Museum of Modern Art. It was about the same price as a cheap ticket for the play, and I saw the originals of Starry Night by Van Gogh, Christina's World by Wyeth and a nice documentary about Dante Ferretti, the production designer for films like The Aviator, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Sweeney Todd, and the like.

MOMA's six stories of non-stop art of all sorts, from the banal -- installations of naked dolls with genitals, videos of elephants walking around then lying down then getting up -- to the classic -- works by Bonnard and Miro and Picasso and Rousseau and O'Keefe, a massive exhibit of Magritte's work -- to a sculpture garden...that really wasn't all that big a deal, except for being quiet. I read some of my book there, but LACMA's is more impressive.

Starry Night is the rock star of the artwork. College-age girls were sneaking up to stand beside it to have their photo taken, driving the docents crazy. It's under glass so there's little possibility of it being damaged, but that also makes it hard as hell to inspect. I wanted to look at the thickness of the brush strokes, from the side, but the glass prevented that...and one docent was eyeing me pretty tightly, too. Can't blame her; I tend to look a bit psychotic.

They show movies in the sub basement -- this series dealing with the movies Ferretti worked on. Many of his production design paintings were on display as well.

Christina's world jolted me into making notes about it. I didn't take a picture because it would not even begin to do justice to the stunning detail in the work. I'd seen copies of it so many times, but this is the first time I noticed the knuckles of her hands were almost white from gripping the untended grass and rough dirt. And how indistinct the houses were in comparison to the "every blade of grass" detail in the un-mowed field around her. Nor had I realized it was so large.

I need to put Jake's art back into OT, now; it's his comfort, like this visit to MOMA was to me.

2 comments:

MAC said...

Sounds like an amazing day...


...good for you! ;-)

JamTheCat said...

Yeah, it was nice...