Museum Of Modern Art Review

by Robert S. Robbins – April 30, 2005
In order to make the case for the cultural value of trips to major museums, I will describe in greater detail than usual my impressions of a visit to the Museum Of Modern Art. The bus chartered by the Friends of the James V Brown Library arrived in New York City at about 10:45 AM. There was a light drizzle all day and the tops of the skyscrapers were shrouded in mist as if they were as tall as mountains. There was a long line to get into MOMA. It extended down the block and snaked around in an empty parking lot like cattle chutes, only it was a herd of open umbrellas moving along and not cattle. I was bored enough to notice some typical urban decay, a crumbling concrete wall of a bar with exposed wiring dangling from some construction. After a half hour we finally made it inside where I purchased a ticket for $20. They handed out plastic bags for our dripping umbrellas.


The first artwork I encountered was Monument To Balzac by Auguste Rodin. This was positioned next to the stairs leading to the galleries. The significance this statue has for me lies in the fact that the poet Rainer Maria Rilke is associated with Rodin according to his biography which I still have not read completely. I have not read any Balzac novels except for Old Goriot which I also need to finish. Above the staircase there hangs a Bell 47D1 helicopter which looks like a giant dragonfly. Escalators take you to the many floors of galleries. I will describe the artwork that made the biggest impression on each floor.


Floor 2: Prints and Illustrated Books, Media Gallery, and Contemporary Galleries.
I saw some prints by Otto Dix. I have a treasured, lavish art book of Otto Dix’s work and a framed print of his painting Sylvia von Harden so I was thrilled to see some of his famous World War I prints which the Nazis considered so decadent. I also saw Lucian Freud’s Girl With Leaves 1948 which I’ve seen in my art book of Lucian Freud’s work. In the Contemporary Galleries I was impressed by Larry Wall’s light box photo After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue. All those light bulbs on the ceiling made for a very surreal image. A museum visitor mentioned that it looked like a fire trap. A lot of people were speaking a foreign language but I could only identify French.


Floor 3: Architecture and Design, Drawings, Photography, Special Exhibitions
MOMA has a great collection of Cindy Sherman movie inspired photos, an artist I added to my list of favorites after reading History Of Modern Art by H. H. Arnason, Marla F. Prather. They also had an original and very old photo of the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, a French symbolist. I have quite a collection of books on Stéphane Mallarmé and a few of them use this photo. I liked to look out the windows at the spectacular views which rivaled the modern art. I noticed quite a few people looking out the windows as if they were just another painting. MOMA was designed to afford spectacular views of the architecture surrounding it.


Floor 4: Painting and Sculpture II
Unfortunately, I cannot remember exactly which paintings were on which floor, but the collection guide brochures help a little. Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans was a favorite location for people to have their picture taken. Jackson Pollock’s drip painting One: Number 31, 1950 was also popular as a background for picture taking. I frequently saw the curious spectacle of people holding up their cell phones to a painting because many of these phones now have built-in cameras. Lots of people had all sorts of gadgets which kept the museum guards busy giving warnings. I found many famous works of Pablo Picasso including Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Three Musicians, Student With A Pipe, Seated Bather, and Boy Leading a Horse. I have several biographies of Marcel Duchamp to read and I found his Bicycle Wheel on display. Alberto Giacometti was well represented including his sculpture The Chariot. I was especially pleased to see four paintings by Giorgio de Chirico’s, among them The Song Of Love. The Chiricos had extra significance because the poet Sylvia Plath was fond of his work. She wrote a chilling poem based on The Disquieting Muses and Mystery and Melancholy of a Street was used for the cover of Steven Gould Axelrod’s book Sylvia Plath: The Wound And The Cure Of Words. Constantin Brancusi’s brass Mademoiselle Pogany was incredibly beautiful.


Floor 5: Painting and Sculpture I
Van Gogh’s The Starry Night had a large crowd in front of it so I could not get too close for a good look. MOMA was really packed that day and sometimes there were as many as 50 people in a gallery room. I also saw Otto Dix’s Portrait of the Laryngologist Dr. Mayer-Hermann in color (my art book shows this painting in black and white). I was thrilled to come across Egon Schiele’s Portrait Of Gerta Schiele because I have several Schiele art books. I saw the disturbing Painting 1946 by Francis Bacon. Its umbrella motif with slaughter house imagery was especially disturbing on that rainy day. The sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity In Space by Umberto Boccioni was surrounded by people attending a lecture so I had to come back to it later. I was in the museum until it closed at 5:30 PM so I had plenty of time to revisit artworks. The Peristence Of Memory by Salvador Dali was a surprisingly small painting, about the size of a color plate in an art book, and there was quite a crowd around it so you really had to wait your turn. Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure) – a fur-covered teacup, saucer, and spoon by Meret Oppenheim is the most notorious Surrealist object so it was a real privilege to see the real thing. I stood in front of Claes Oldenburg’s Giant Soft Fan which took me awhile to identify. I thought it was his giant vinyl telephone at first. They should suspend two of the fan blades which were dropping. That made it hard to identify. I have a framed print by Willem de Kooning, Two Women III, 1952 which I bought on eBay. It has a lot of penciled guide lines which do not appear in the colored plate in my de Kooning art book. I thought about this when I saw Woman, I at MOMA.


Floor 6: Special Exhibitions
This floor just had models, video, and diagrams of major urban renewal projects. One exhibit showed how Manchester England rebuilt an area after IRA terrorists detonated a large bomb. There were interesting similarities to the 911 attacks but we don’t hear much about this massive explosion and rebuilding effort.
Constantin Brancusi’s brass Mademoiselle Pogany was incredibly beautiful.

posted by Robert Robbins @ 5:52 PM