Guggenheim Museum, New York City

The Solomon Guggenheim museum is a splendid Frank Lloyd Wright architectural design.  That alone was reason to go.  Laura and I having spent the morning at MoMA took a taxi here and bought hotdogs with french mustard and  Pelligrino sparkling water from a New York street vendor.  Delicious.
We sat on a railing looking across at Central Park. Joggers and dog walkers passed by. This was part of Museum Mile where old mansions of great 19th century tycoons were now repurposed.  Inside the Guggenheim the spiralled walkway had art all along the walls. It was an Agnes Martin show and not very charitably Laura and I felt her abstract work more appropriate as tapestry or wall hanging than art per se. Then we learned she was actually from Vancouver and had spent time in Saskatchewan before coming to New York and later New Mexico.  With that endorsement we appreciated her lines and colours and geometric patterns a bit more.  Definitely pretty and tranquil. They certainly elicited a range of emotions mostly positive.   They surely beautified a space making it more textured and interesting.   .
But being a bit old school I guess, I really was thankful the Guggenheim collection also had more representational art. I loved the Kadinsky and Seurat, Chagall, Rousseau and Degas.  We stopped in the lovely cafe for cappuccino and croissants looking out at Museum Mile and Central Park.
After we looked at more Agnes Martin works enjoying the serenity her pieces elicited compared to the cacophony of emotions the cubist works by comparison brought forth.  I liked that this Canadian who’d imbibed the great forest and Pacific Ocean of BC and the endless wonder of the Saskatchewan prairies had somehow with her art brought this peace to the hustle and bustle of the New York urban scene.
We left feeling calmer more refreshed, thankful.
It had begun to drizzle so I bought Laura a very distinctive bright pink New York hat for $20 from a street vendor.  As we crossed to walk through Central Park I felt that hat would help identify the body better  should one of the many abductions and murders that occur in  New York detective stories overtake us.
 

MoMA, New York City - miscellaneous art

Laura and  I really loved the 5th floor with the impressionists, post impressionists, cubists and surrealists. It was amazing to see Van Gohn’s Starry Nights, Matisse’s dancers and Salvador Dali’s clocks and so much more. I loved the Klee, Chagall and Klimt.  Then the Picabia exhibit was incredible, seeing the life of a great artists works through his various periods. The psychedelic art of the 60’s was simply wild with Warhol and flashbacks.
But that was only a bit of the whole of MoMA, a couple of floors. There were 6 floors and performance exhibits and photography and just a whole lot of art. I came round a corner and damn there was Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World.  Everywhere there was iconic art.  But also there was this exhibit of Russian art before Stalin.  Stalin introduced the ‘socialist realism’ and that’s all I’d really seen, these plump propaganda peasants. But here at this exhibit was the whole of the really creative  constructionist period of art when Russians were being original.  No doubt a lot ended in the Gulags as a result.  But it was an experience to see a whole era of art I wasn’t aware of.
There was also an exhibit of Lovers and another of the work of a variety of photographers. There was Nan Goldin’s “The Ballad of Sexual Dependencies”, posters,  book covers and spiritualism.  And much more.  Laura and I walked through looking and commenting and generally having an extraordinary time.
We met a delightful member of the gallery, a 72 yo gorgeous lithe creature wearing a red scarf,  doing a survey for MoMA. Laura loved her and we talked  of art, travel and love like old friends though we were strangers who’d just met.  What a delight.  Something in the space and experience of MoMA makes for such possibilities.
Lounge areas and cafes, with spacious washrooms on every floor as well.  The whole layout and design of the building  made the museum one of the most enjoyable experiences.  Lightness of being came to mind.  Uplifting and a celebration of human achievement.
Thank you MoMA!