Sunday morning here and it looks like another cold one. So no buying the Sunday Times and reading it in Central Park today. We hit tops of 10C yesterday - and last night there was soooooo much rain and thunder and lightning and wind. My poor brolly got blown inside out & I was partially soaked getting home last night.
Spent yesterday afternoon at the Met seeing an exhibition called Rooms With a View - early 19th C Romanticism - all about the introduction of the window into interior paintings as a metaphor for escape and longing etc rather than just being a source of light. Some very beautiful and quiet small paintings by Caspar David Friedrich etc. This being a member is great - you can swan in and out at leisure and not worry about seeing everything all at the one time.
Membership at MOMA is also fab. I queue jumped there on Friday afternoon - past all the people queueing in the cold for the free Friday nights. MOMA also has (and I am starting to really appreciate this) a separate members cloak room - which means less time queueing to cloak the coat and scarf and more time looking at art. This is something I think The Met should adopt - as everyone queues for the same cloak room there.
MOMA was amazing - there's a great exhibition on Abstract Expressionism there and Pop Art. Spent quite some time there gazing at various Jackson Pollock drip paintings & Jasper John's American Flag & Barnett Newman's Onement 1 - the first 'zip' painting adn Vir Heroicus -- and of course at Malevich's Boy with his Knapsack - which still makes me smile. Oh yeah and there were amazing Matisses, Modiglianis, Rousseaus and even a large Monet WaterLilly painting...
And I paid $7 for a cappuccino at one of MOMA's cafes. $7. It was a good coffee but really... I dont get why good coffee is a) so hard to find and b) expensive when you do find it...
Saw ' Madagascar Live!' at Radio City Hall yesterday (Sat16) arvo. Radio City Hall is such a beautiful Art Deco venue. Fun & silly show based on the Disney film - and packed with families. Lots of small children who weren't really interested in what was happening on stage - or were busy and loudly explaining everthing that was happening on stage!
'Wonderland' at the Marquis Theatre was good but... The storyline & script were a bit lame. Busy modern separated single mother ends up in Wonderland and realises that family & love are all important. Yuh. And lots of dodgy puns and referenes that probably wont stand the test of time - like the White Rabbit only being able to say "I'm tardy I'm tardy" because Disney owns the rights to 'I'm late I'm late". Yuh. The costumes and choreography however were amazing. Same costume designer as Wicked. And the choreo features some very funny Boy Band satire. But no tapping in Wonderland.
So far the pick of the shows has been:
1) Anything Goes
2) How to Succeed ...
3) Madagascar Live! (for the penguins and the very easy on the eye lion!)
4) Wonderland
I've been shopping and bought myself some new tap shoes and a new little camera. The shutter has stuck on the other one so all my outdoor images are overexposed. Tried on the Capezio k360s but they didn't feel right - not even the double extra wide ones so have bought some new So Danca black oxfords - the ones with the little red hearts on the ankle. Planning on trying them out tomorrow morning.
Today I am planning on visiting an historic house - the Morris Jumel Mansion Museum - and a couple more art musuems - possibly the Guggenheim and the Frick.
Shelley & Craig are coming down from Ottawa tomorrow for a couple of days - been almost 10 years since we were in the same country at the same time!
Been here for a week now and starting to feel a bit like a local - but I'm obviously walking too fast (cold weather and all that) coz no one has stopped and asked me for directions yet!
2 comments:
lol, if i stumbled into wonderland, I can tell you i would NOT be coming back. I'm sure the kids would understand! I'd send them some kind of cryptic message - a pirouetting pigeon eating marmalade pie.. so they would know where i was ....I'm a generous mummy.
and disney just dropped another notch in my estimation. they OWN "I'm late?" Have they tried to retrospectively sue lewis carroll yet.. I heard he wrote a book that kind of made a big thing of it.
so.. you like to move it, move it? who was the king julian???
So much of this post is a foreign language to me ... however, am about to post some suggestions for things to do, courtesy of a second-hand Gourmet Traveller I borrowed to pass on the good oil about Art NYC - "a host of hidden treasures" (you see, it's all greek to me but you may not know these ones so I'm still passing it on!).
1. The Neue Galerie - a pocket-sizedmuseum dedicated to German/Austrain art design (Klee, Kirchner, Klimt and friends). Also with one of the most elegant cafes in NYC (there's a photo, it does look nice). 1048 Fifth Ave.
2. The New Museum (pile of blocks with a rose on the outside). The views from the 7th floor Sky Room are not to be missed, and the Birdbath cafe is run by an acclaimed baker. 235 Bowery.
3. The museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)Fashion and accessories 18th century to the present. Seventh Avenue btween 27th and 28th (surely that's not a real address ... no mention of a cafe)
4.The Brooklyn Museum. An oasis of peace, 5000 years worth of artefacts, painting and sculpture, a bucketload of Rodins, modern American masters, singer sergent, degas, pissarro, weber, blah blah blah, but the photographic must-see is Ghosts, Sam Taylor-Wood's exploration of the windswept moors of Yorkshire inspired by Wuthering Heights. 200 Eastern Parkway Brooklyn.
5. The Noguchi museum holds the multifaceted oeuvre of Isamu Noguchi (would I lie to you?)with a tranquil garden. 9-01 33rd Rd, long island city.
6. Bargemusic (venue. Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, near the Brooklyn Bridge.
7. PS1 ( a MOMA offshoot) for sound/video installations (sounds OK but all the words are too long). 22-25 Jackson Ave at 46th Ave, long island city
8. The Studio Museum in Harlem - modern and contemporary work of artists of African descent - Siskind, VanDerZee and Dawoud Bey. 144 West 125th St.
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