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.
 

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York City - the Fifth Floor

This really was an artistic treat.  There are 6 floors of exhibitions with lounges and cafe’s and expresso bars.  Lonely Planet tour guide recommended we get tickets on line but I had no way of printing them so decided instead to get to the museum early.  This was a good idea. It opened at 10 am and when we left around 12:30 there was quite a line up for tickets.  $25 for adults and well worth it for the 5th floor alone.  This was the collection galleries 1880 to 1950’s.
I love Paul Klee. I love Marc Chagall. I love Gustav Klimt.    I love the impressionists. I love the post impressionists.  I love the surrealists especially.  It’s all so inspiring.  So we walked around the gallery full of favourites like going to a concert with dozens of stages.  Visually this modern art is like seeing live, Sinatra, Elvis, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Dylan, Joni Mitchell. It’s that sort of experience.
I love Picasso’s early paintings and his later cubism.  Without knowing what an incredible artist he was in pictures the boy with the horse or his blue period I’d not appreciateh is abstract art.  He’s so accomplished.
Starry Nights by Van Gogh.  There’s the song and here was the original.  Wow!  I loved seeing the surrealist Salvador Dali’s clocks.  Wow!
Seurat and Monet.  So many greats, a generation of artists to choose from and there were a whole lot of lesser known but equally or almost equally as exceptional.  As a result of the world wars there was a lot of repudiation of the modern.  Lots of soul searching and trying to express this.  Surrealism was a dream like exploration with elements of Freud.
A whole room of Matisse.  Matisse’s dancers and the dancers of Degas.  So uplifting. I forgot how much I loved Rousseau until I saw his pictures, thought I love that, and found out it was Rousseau.  And Gauguin of course, The Frenchman’s dream come true. We just fell in love with the Fifth Floor and had more floors yet to go.  Unbelievably rich eye candy, mind changing, soulful experience.