Museum Extravaganza

This weekend I went to 6 museums in 2 days, all for free! That's what I call a successful weekend. And I also a friend in for free with me at each of museum, thanks to my museum ID from my internship. Here's a recap of what I saw:

Day 1:


1. Neue Galerie
I'd never been to this small gallery on 5th avenue that specializes in German and Austrian art. They have a lot of paintings by Gustav Klimt in the permanent collection, and their current exhibition is "Vienna 1900: Style and Identity"which was really cool. A little impressionist painting, a little decorative arts, a little sculpture. It's up through August 8th, go check it out!

2. The Guggenheim Museum
A trip to the Guggenheim is worth it for the building alone. Walking in and looking up at that spiral and art deco window ceiling, then getting to the top and staring at everyone spiraling down to the ground floor is pretty cool. However, this weekend the building was the best part of the experience. I've seen great exhibits at the Gugg before (Chaos and Classicism last November, for example) but the current exhibit "Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity" was the kind of abstract contemporary art that makes me go...this is art?! Think a single brush stroke on a large canvas, or a room of large rocks sitting on pillows. I mean, I've taken art history classes, I get it from an academic standpoint...but really? Seeing this after the beautiful art in the Neue Galerie made it clear there was no comparison, in my opinion. To each his own, but it did nothing for me.

3. The Jewish Museum
We stopped by the Jewish Museum because it was only a few blocks north of the Guggenheim, and they had two really interesting exhibits. The first, "Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore" is pretty much like it sounds, the private modern art collection of two sisters at the turn of the century. The art was great, but since it was their collection, the wall panels were explanations of the paintings in relation to them and the collection, rather the art itself, which bothered me a little. I didn't really want to know what this or that person thought of the painting when she bought it, I wanted to know about the artist and the subject! But it was an exhibit worth seeing. The second exhibit, "Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)" was fantastic, and closed July 31st. Kalman has illusstrated New Yorker covers and writes a graphic arts blog for the New York Times, and the exhibit was eclectic and entertaining. The original print of her most famous New Yorker cover, New Yorkistan, was one of my favorite pieces.

Read it closely, it's hilarious!

Day 2:


4. Museum of the City of New York
Lael and I went to this especially to see the exhibit "Joel Grey / A New York Life." Yes, that's right folks, Joel Grey has his own museum exhibit. It was both artifacts from his stage and film career (like costumes, props, ticket stubs, and even his Tony award) as well as photographs he'd taken of New York life over the decades. Apparently he's a photographer with a knack for capturing the details of New York life...who knew?

Liza Minelli and Joel Grey in Cabaret

5. Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met was PACKED to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit, but luckily, I saw it in May when it first opened. (But I never blogged about it...oops.) There was a 2.5 hour long wait to see McQueen. The Met has extended the exhibit's end date twice, has created a pamphlet telling visitors what galleries they'll see on their long wait as the line snakes through the museum, and has even decided to stay open until midnight the last two nights of the exhibit, next weekend. Phew! It's a great exhibit, but no way I'm fighting the crowds to see it again. I was actually there to see the new exhibit "Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum," which features all of the Hals paintings at the Met, plus some from private collections and museums in the Netherlands. Definitely worth a trip.

6. The New Museum
Okay, by this point, I was pretty burnt out. My feet hurt, and I was sick of standing up looking at paintings. Yes, even me. And the New Museum has never thrilled me - its appeal is that it's in the neighborhood, and the view from the roof of Lower Manhattan really is worth seeing. The constantly changing contemporary art exhibits are less than thrilling. Worth a trip for the roof...and that's about it.

 The Financial District

Looking west on Prince Street 

All's Well That Ends Well

A few nights I got to see the other show playing at Shakespeare in the Park this summer, All's Well That Ends Well. Since they're doing both shows in repertory, most of the actors perform in both casts. Two of the actors who played supporting roles in Measure for Measure, for example, were the leads in All's Well. It was very impressive - not only are the actors talented performers in one show, they're talented in two, that play alternating nights! Many of them have to play different types of roles in each respective show, and are not typecast into specific characters. Some, however, are - the jester/fool character is played by the same actor in both shows.

We happened to win tickets for the night of the Shakespeare in the Park Gala, so most audience members were sauntered into the theater from a fancy shmancy outdoor dinner party on the lawn behind the theater. These were people who either donated money to the Public Theater (read: bought tickets) or work for the corporations who sponsor Shakespeare in the Park. We, however, were sitting up in the back with the other people who had won tickets in the virtual lottery, but it was nonetheless a great show. Before the show there was a recorded message from Lily Rabe, the lead in last year's Measure for Measure, which is currently playing at the Roundabout Theater, who thanked all of the sponsors sitting there that night. The cast also did a few extra bows in thanks to the special audience. Once again, it was a perfect summer's night, not cloudy, not humid, not hot, not cold. Perfect weather for Shakespeare al fresco!

Measure for Measure

My absolute favorite New York summertime tradition is Shakespeare in the Park. Every summer, the Public Theater produces two plays at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park FOR FREE. The caveat is that you have to wait hours and hours and hours in a line that snakes through the park (which, if the weather is nice, is usually a really fun experience in itself) UNLESS you win tickets in the virtual lottery. Which I did, yesterday!

Usually there are two plays performed with separate ones (roughly a month each), but starting last year, they've done two Shakespeare shows in repertory, which means that they have the same casts (or almost the same casts) for two different shows, which then alternate throughout the two-month run. Last year's season consisted of The Merchant of Venice (with Al Pacino) and A Winter's Tale. The production of Merchant of Venice went to Broadway after its summer run in the park, and was nominated for several Tony Awards. This year's shows are All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure, which we saw last night.

I thought it was a great production, and I also enjoyed it a lot because I was in a production of Measure for Measure my senior year of high school. I had forgotten a lot of the plot since then, but it all came back to me as I was watching it performed in the park. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to see All's Well That Ends Well too!

The Rooftop of the Met

One of my favorite places in New York in the summer is the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Every summer there's some kind of sculpture exhibit on the roof. Last year it was the awesome Big Bambù. This year it's an exhibit of steel sculptures by Anthony Caro.

But the real star of the show, as you can imagine, is the city skyline across Central Park at dusk.

 

I met my friend Sofia there with two of her friends, and while the real reason for meeting for drinks on the roof was to say bon voyage to Sofia before she leaves NY for the summer for a European adventure, it turns out we also had all just finished up internships in the past two days, so it was an all-around celebration of summer and freedom and doing great things. 

View of the skyline through one of the Caro sculptures.

Sister Act on Broadway

Last week I got to see my best friend since 8th grade dance on a Broadway stage, which she's been dreaming of since she was a little bumpkin in ballet shoes in Sparta, NJ. She plays a nun and a 70s backup singer (or "fantasy dancer") in Sister Act on Broadway, playing at the Broadway Theater on the corner of 53rd & Broadway. And she was FABULOUS!

Lael has already been on The View twice, since Whoopi Goldberg is producing the show. Here are her two appearances - in the first she's a nun, and in the second, she's a fantasy dancer:

Also up for Tony Awards this season, I had the chance to see Anything Goes and Catch Me If You Can. I was in a production of Anything Goes in middle school, and really, it's just the kind of good old-fashioned musical you can't help but love, and Roundabout did a great production .Catch Me was good, some parts better than others...and some actors better than others. But the 1960s song-and-dance numbers were very entertaining and the two leading male actors were great. We'll see how they all fare at the Tony's on June 12th.

Harry Potter: The Exhibition

I hereby warn you that this will be a very dorky blog entry. Also, none of these photos are mine. Thank you, Google Images search.

Last week I went with three friends to see the Harry Potter exhibit at Discovery Times Square. We grew up loving Harry Potter, and still do, so we were very excited to see the exhibit filled with props, costumes, and full set pieces from the movies. We almost didn't see it because when I went to the box office two weeks in advance to get our tickets (which are printed a specific date and time slot), the person sold me four tickets to the Pompeii exhibit, also at Discovery Times Square, instead of Harry Potter. And I didn't discover this until the night before. So there I was with four non-refundable, non-exchangeable, final sale, pretty expensive tickets to the Pompeii exhibit. I went to the box office before work the morning of the day our tickets were for, prepared to be turned away or laughed at or at best, given tickets for another day, since it was spring break week after all, and there were already swarms of tourists in midtown at 9am. But after all that stressing and worrying, when I got to the ticket window and explained what had happened, the guy said , "So you want to go to Harry Potter instead? Same time?" and printed four new tickets.  It was miraculous.

So I returned  to Times Square after work and met up with my three equally Harry Potter-obsessed friends to wait in the long snakey line (of ticket-holders!) to get in But the exhibit was worth all the trouble. In addition to spacing crowds out with timed entrances, they take you in groups of 20 or so to a sorting room, where there's an actor in Hogwarts robes with what must be the actual Sorting Hat from the first movie. He "sorts" three kids from the group into different Hogwarts houses, and leads everyone into the next room, where the exhibit begins.

Thus begins the exhibit of props, costumes, set pieces, recreated rooms, and more. Aside from it being really cool to see clothes that the actors wore, and clearly recognizable props, the exhibit was fascinating for the incredible attention to detail that went into absolutely everything. Harry's potions book from Half-Blood Prince, for instance, that is supposed to have handwritten notes about the instructions, really has those handwritten notes that are really about the potion. Professors' costumes were aged to look decades old. The bulletin board from the Gryffindor common room had hand-drawn posters advertising used spell textbooks, tutoring lessons in potions and broom-riding, and more. There were models of the animals and creatures that were computer-animated. 

It's hard to pick a favorite, but I really loved seeing the costumes from the Yule Ball (Goblet of Fire) and each character's wand. I also loved the detail of the jewelry pieces. And the Marauder's Map (pictured above) was so cool! You couldn't even see all of it in the display case. I can't imagine how long it must have taken someone to draw that out.


I did get sucked in just a little in the giftshop. No, I didn't buy a $30 wand, but I did buy a heat-activated Marauder's Map mug. The map appears on the side of the mug only when you add a hot beverage. It's made my morning coffee an even MORE exciting experience!


While attempting to find pictures of the mug transitioning from black to mapped (because I'm too lazy to do that myself), I found this short youtube video that someone filmed of their mug transitioning. It's silly, but it does show exactly how cool the mug is, so if you find yourself with an extra 42 seconds, take a look.

Read the New York Times review of the exhibit here and then go see it for yourself! 

The Nutropolitan Museum of Art

So I blog a lot about food, and I blog a lot about art. But brace yourself, because this is a post about food AND art!

This weekend Peanut Butter & Co. (which is owned by a Vassar grad who spoke at our spring convocation last April) hosted an event in a gallery in Soho called the "Nutropolitan Museum of Art." They had "peanut butter art," a peanut butter sample station, and information about the health benefits about peanuts. But best of all, when you left you got a free jar of peanut butter, and for every jar they gave away they also donated one to the Food Bank of NY. Win-win-win situation!

On the walls were large photographs of elaborate peanut butter creations. Here are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

Rubin Museum of Art

On Sunday afternoon I visited the Rubin Museum of Art for the first time. A museum solely of art of the Himalayas, the Rubin Museum was different than any museum I've been to in the city. And even though I've studied a lot of different kinds of art, I have no background at all in Himalayan art, so it was very interesting to step out of my comfort zone and see something totally new.

In all honestly, I rushed through the exhibits and didn't spend a lot of time looking at anything in particular. I'll have to go back and give it my full attention another time. But I did enjoy just walking through and appreciating the aesthetic value of the objects and paintings, without bothering too much with the historical and cultural explanations. The first exhibit in the museum is a permanent exhibit, an introduction to the art of the Himalayas and the cultural and religious practices that inspired it. There were lengthy wall panels about Buddhist deities, Tibetan meditation practices, and maps of the region so you could orient yourself and place the objects in context. It was very interesting and definitely useful information, but I wasn't really in the mood to give myself the tools I needed to interpret the art. I just wanted to look at it and move on to the next object.

I'll make it back soon to appreciate the artwork on a more intellectual level (probably), but I also want to go back to eat at the Himalayan cafe. On Wednesdays from 5-7 they have a happy hour, and on Fridays from 6-10 museum admission is free, and there's live music, and a film screening at 9:30. There's also a Pan Asian tapas menu and DJ in the cafe area. Can't go wrong with that!

Rembrandt at the Frick

Rembrandt van Rijn's paintings, drawings, and etchings were among the most coveted by collectors in his day, in Henry Clay Frick's day, and still today. And allow me to be the first to tell you that one Henry Clay Frick, art collector extraordinaire, did not like to be outdone. As the largest individual railway stockholder in the world, Frick is reported to have said that "railways are the Rembrandts of investment." And when asked whose talents he would most like to possess, Frick answered, "Rembrandt's."

Fritz Lugt was a Dutch collector in the first half of the 20th century who amassed a comprehensive collection of Rembrandt's drawings and prints. Now at the Frick is an exhibit of works by Rembrandt and his followers, both from Frick's and Lugt's collections. Rembrandt had such a unique and captivating style that many artists imitated him in their work, some so well that for years their prints, drawings, and paintings were thought to be from Rembrandt's own hand. Frick himself was fooled by two of the five paintings he bought as Rembrandts, which were not until recently confirmed to be by other artists (some still unknown.) 

The exhibit at the Frick is organized into three areas: the five paintings that Frick bought (three of which are actually by Rembrandt) hang together in the Oval Room, a selection of Rembrandt prints from Frick's own collection are displayed in the Cabinet Room, and in the downstairs gallery are two rooms of prints and drawings, one of works by Rembrandt and one of works by his followers. What I found most fascinating about the exhibit is how many works were believed to be by Rembrandt until very recently. However, now that scholars have proved different authorship, it's apparent why they are by other artists. The lines are too thick, the paint strokes not detailed enough, or in the case of one drawing, the same figure was found as a detail in a larger painting signed by another artist. Other works, however, are less obvious, and are still disputed by scholars today. My favorite works in the exhibit are a collection of self-portrait etchings and drawings. Rembrandt looks so distinctly different in each one, showing himself in a different emotional state, yet each is clearly the same man, over a course of many years.

Read the New York Times Review of the exhibit, and then come see for yourself if you can tell a work by Rembrandt from a work by one of his followers!

Time Stands Still

This afternoon I saw the final performance of Time Stands Still on Broadway. It was a four person show, starring Laura Linney, Cristina Ricci, Brian d'Arcy James, and Eric Bogosian. The cast was, of course, outstanding. I knew Laura Linney would be amazing, which is the reason I wanted to see the show, but Cristina Ricci was better than I expected. She had some of the most comedic moments of the play. And despite being a serious play, it did have some very funny moments. This is the NYTimes review summary of the play:

Sarah Goodwin, the complicated woman at the heart of “Time Stands Still,” seems to thrive on conflict, at least professionally. A photojournalist who covers wars and global strife, she keeps chaos at arm’s length by trapping it in the camera lens, exerting a fierce control over moments of horror by fixing them in time. But the flux of Sarah’s own life cannot be manipulated so easily, as she learns with growing sorrow in this thoughtful drama by Donald Margulies that stars Laura Linney and Brian d’Arcy James, giving performances of complementary sensitivity and richness. “Time Stands Still,” which opened in a flawless Manhattan Theater Club production directed by Daniel Sullivan, is handily Mr. Margulies’s finest play since the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Dinner With Friends.” Like that keenly observed drama about the growing pains of adulthood, the new play explores the relationship between two couples at a crucial juncture in their lives, when the desire to move forward clashes with the instinct to stay comfortably — or even uncomfortably — in place. — Charles Isherwood


The play itself was very moving, as was the curtain call at the end. I don't think I've ever been to a closing night performance on Broadway before - the director came onstage to take a bow, and the applause went on for a long time. It's a shame it closed because it was a really outstanding show. I don't see straight plays all that often, so I'm very glad I got to see it before it closed.

IKEA Brooklyn

Until this afternoon, I still hadn't made it to the new IKEA in Brooklyn. The coolest part about this IKEA (aside from the fact that it made chic, Swedish home-goods available to car-less New Yorkers) is that you can take a Water Taxi from lower Manhattan to get there. 

So my mom and I decided to bundle up, walk to South Street Seaport, and hop a Water Taxi to IKEA for some shopping and, of course, Swedish meatballs (the IKEA café's signature menu item).

A snaking trail of ice in New York Harbor 

 Lady Liberty and the Staten Island Ferry

Lower Manhattan 

Snowy City

There were 19 inches of snow on the ground when I left for work this morning, so I made the most of not having a snow day by bringing my camera with me. At least it was a scenic commute!

The Plaza Hotel

5th Avenue

The Frick Collection