Art

During my trip to NYC I hit up a couple of art museums as I usually do the first being the New Museum in the West Village. I'd never been to to the New Museum before, it is a nice place with a great, modern look. The exhibition that was recommended to me to see was of portraitist Elizabeth Peyton. She is a rather popular contemporary painter who first received notoriety for painting pop culture icons from photos including a great series on Kurt Cobain. She is fantastic and brings a real innocence and beauty to all of her subjects. This self-portrait stood out to me:


I also checked out MOMA which was a mere three blocks from where I was staying. There were big Miro and Van Gogh exhibitions but I had to skip them because of time and instead hit the contemporary floors (see a trend? I tend only to want to see contemporary art for some reason). There was a wonderful exhibit on art in the last four decades that I really dug. There was video, painting, sculpture, everything. I really liked this two part piece by Matthew Barney. The first photo tells the story of two lovers, their narrative is interrupted by this lubricating plastic that is filling the room. The second sculpture is actually of that same plastic as it filled the room and toppled over one of the walls:



There was also a photo exhibit of Michael Subotsky's. The photographs were of a poverty-stricken town in South Africa. Moving stuff.


Before you go thinking I'm this smart art aficionado I should say that audio guides are a wonderful thing (the audio guides at the New Museum were actually iPod minis, what a great idea) and I highly recommend them any time you visit a museum.