My MoMA highlights — Seurat drawings, McFarland/Berkeley photography
On Friday I took myself on a date to MoMA to catch the latest exhibits. Currently these include a Martin Puryear sculpture retrospective (through Jan. 14) and a collection of Georges Seurat drawings (through Jan. 7). I admittedly breezed through the huge, intricately-crafted wooden Puryear sculptures, as they were impressive but not really my kind of thing. I dawdled more in the Seurat rooms, finding his shadowy figure drawings (most using charcoal-like conté crayons on textured paper) darkly eerie and mesmerizing. I especially liked the mysteriously-depicted circus performers he focused on near the end of his life, as well as his realistic nudes (I’m a classy perv). [The drawing above is Study for “Une Baignade.”]
My favorite areas to putz around in MoMA, though, are definitely the photography rooms. I’m forever amazed by the bravery of those who snap confrontational/uncomfortable scenarios that elicit deeply emotional responses (at least from me). As usual, I spent the majority of my time there, excited most by the Diane Arbus prints on display from MoMA’s rotating permanent photography collection.
In the New Photography 2007 showcase (through Jan. 1), I most enjoyed Tanyth Berkeley’s portraits of uniquely strange beauty. Her subjects (transgender women, street performers, and friends of the artist) were awkwardly posed in ways that made it feel awkward to stare at them myself. [On the left is “Grace in Window.”] Then, Scott McFarland’s panoramic “Orchard View With the Effects of Seasons” was another favorite. For this, the photographer used digital techniques to merge all four seasons in a botanical garden into one image. It’s too massive for a blog entry — and really should be seen in person for the crisp detail that makes it so cool — but a thumbnail-sized image of it appears in this New York Times write-up.
For more info on MoMA admission, including its Free Friday Night program, see here. And because free museum nights are always crowded, I suggest going alone to avoid worrying about others’ whereabouts or irritating crowd navigation. That’s what I do.
