Specific exhibitions almost always determine my museum-going, but the prospect of air-conditioned sightseeing with friends from Colorado lured me to MoMA during an unusually sweltering heatwave.
I'm not a big fan of abstract art, but "Jack Whitten: The Messenger" made a huge impression, and not just because of the enormous scale of much of his work. The 78-year-old mixed media artist, whose studio had been located in Lower Manhattan since 1962, saw the Twin Towers go up and up . . . and then come crashing down.
Self-Portrait (1979)
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, he spent the next five years creating this mostly acrylic painting which incorporates blood, hair, ash and dust. It actually made me shudder.
"9.11.01"(2006)
With the exception of Whitten's ghostly self-portrait and this tribute to Jean Michel Basquiat, the only indications of his African-American ethnicity are found in his titles.
"For J.M.B" (1988)
"Memory Container" (partial, 1972)
"Golden Spaces" (partial, 1971)
"Four Wheel Drive" (1970)
The intricacy of his mosaic work astonishes.
"Black Monolith Il (Homage To Ralph Ellison The Invisible" (1994)
"Quantum Wall, VIII (For Arshile Gorky, My First Love In Painting)" (2017)
You really can't go wrong with MoMA's permanent collection although my youngest companion spent more time looking at her phone than the art that that attracts visitors from all over the world. New millennium kids!
"Still Life with Three Puppies" by Paul Gauguin (1888)
Has an anarchist ever been depicted with so much flair?
"Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890" by Paul Signac (1890)
Several works reminded me yet again how much our south-of-the-border neighbor has contributed to 20th century art. I really would like to return to Mexico City. Five days wasn't nearly enough.
"My Grandparents, My Parents, and |" by Frida Kahlo (1936)
I was surprised to see a kitty in "Eat," Andy Warhol's 1964 collaboration with Robert Indiana. Twenty seconds of the 45-minute "underground film" was plenty.
I never would have guessed who painted this Depression-era poet. His left-wing politics likely influenced the artist, triggering an FBI investigation during the early 1950s. By that time her style had evolved considerably.
"Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites" by Mike Kelley (1987) occupies an entire gallery. He sewed the stuffed animals face-in to dampen the cute factor!
Hyundai partners with MoMA to showcase the work of emerging artists and to promote the car company's credit card. This is America, after all.
Instead of going to the office Christmas party, I went to the Mike Kelley exhibit at PS1 a few blocks away from where I work in Long Island City. It was my first visit to the museum.
The work on the ground floor didn't impress me at first.
Kelley drew on pop culture, among many other things, for inspiration. He loved Kandor, Superman's hometown on the planet Krypton, which inspired these colorful, eerie works in resin.
He explored Kandor in video, too. Apologies to Mike for not realizing that my camera can't shoot video vertically.
Here's the strangest work of all: Superman reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. An attendant stopped me from from filming it.
The works on the second floor looked as if they had been created by another artist entirely. Kelley's work is hard to pigeonhole.
In one video series, Kelley created a kind of theater of cruelty to children using what appeared to be looped sequences from America's Funniest Home Videos without the laugh track.
Disturbing describes much of his video/installation work. He and David Lynch mine similar territory. Maybe Kelly's suicide at the age of 57--at the peak of his career--isn't as surprising in this context.
Kelley used a lot of found materials, including stuffed animals.
Although my appreciation for Kelley's range increased every time I entered a new gallery, I must admit I wouldn't have expected to find much of his art exhibited in a museum. Imagine the Sex Pistols playing a classical music venue and you'll get the idea.
Kelley used a childhood dresser to display portraits of the artist as a young man.
I couldn't resist taking a stunned selfie in the mirror on top.
The work just kept getting better and better. Kelly broke a lot of crockery and bottles to pay funky homage to astronaut John Glenn in this towering sculpture.
I liked this room the best. It illustrates the upside of OCD.
Kelley even manages to work in one of the iconic images from the baby boomer generation. Maybe you can tell me what JFK Jr. is doing here.
Fortunately, PS1 was nearly empty. Tourists probably don't like the industrial neighborhood. Don't worry, it will be surrounded by high rise luxury apartments soon enough now that 5 Pointz has been condemned. And hip galleries are sprouting along Jackson Avenue.
If it hadn't been for the encouragement of a couple of bored young gallery attendants, I probably would have skipped Rose Hobart II. This blush-worthy stunt required getting down on your hands and knees and crawling deep into a claustrophobic tunnel so dark that you have to feel your way along.
However, there is a light (actually a hole) at the end of the tunnel. When you look through it, you see flickering images of what appears to be a homoerotic movie. It turns out to be a scene from Porky's, the one in which the guys are peeping into the girl's locker room through a hole in the wall of their own. Truly meta!
In order to display some of Kelley's work, curators have to obey certain requirements. Here's a case in point. Kelley's portraits of writers who had something to say about the outlaw aspects of creativity line both walls of this long gallery.
At the far end of the gallery, Kelley provocatively turns the table on you.
The wall text explains Kelley's stipulation. Artwork produced by a local murder or rapist must be hung in this spot. Arthur Shawcross, also known as the Genesee River Killer, fit the macabre bill at PS 1. After being convicted for killing 2 kids, he was paroled and killed 11 women, mostly female sex workers, in the Rochester area.
But in an interesting twist, according to this attendant, staff aren't allowed to identify "the artist" because the museum doesn't want to risk community outrage.
The image lingered when I went downstairs to the coat check and discovered a basement gallery. I could easily picture a serial killer at work in this space.
I can't say that I enjoyed a museum visit--or shuddered--more this year.
