MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, NYC

Thursday, 18th December

After spending the week running around New York, the last thing we really wanted to do on our final day was walking around a 6 floor art gallery. However, I am glad we did as I felt we really had saved the best for last. The skyscraper structure of the building was hard to pin point along 53rd street, you would not expect the size of the building when you enter, but this is much like the rest of New York. The first piece you encounter when you enter the building is a series of photographs by Nicholas Nixon, titled Forty Years of The Brown Sisters. It consisted of a series of large scale black and white photographs, of four sisters, one taken each year with 8x10. A photograph was selected to represent each year and it was determined that the sisters would always stand in exactly the same order. This work appealed to me because not only was it photography but it was a clear indication of time passing and age, something that I have been considering in my own work with relation to my family. What I found interesting was the way that the viewer tended to shift quickly through the photographs, the order was oddly presented, starting from the top and going in three rows along, you could see some of the earlier photos and the more recent ones at the same time. This positioning made you look at the difference in the faces of the sisters, the lines or the change in hair style, slight indications that time had passed. The similarity in the physical outcomes of the photographs makes this distinction very difficult to notice yet it was still powerful. Most of the audience proceeded quickly to the final photograph after looking through the first few, eager to see how old the sisters had become, how well they had aged. The differences between the individual images was very small but when you compare the first and last photograph there is an obvious difference. It makes you think strongly of time, and family, how we exist with those around us and grow with them, age. I then darkly thought of any future photographs. What will happen when it comes to the point when they are to take the photograph and one of the sisters had passed away? I feel that this is what the end of the work questioned, how old are the sisters now. How different can their lives be? How often do they see each other? Could it just be for this yearly photo? It is the relationships that you do not see in the image. The work was a topic of conversation for many when walking around the first floor of the gallery, you had people comparing how well they had aged with the females in the photographs and then others who were laughing at what they would look like in photographs similar to this. Although the photos were personal, of one family, it spoke openly to others. 

I was surprised that the Matisse: Cut Outs exhibition was on, my Mum and I had just recently seen the same exhibition when it was at the Tate in London, and I must admit we were not particularly thrilled with it the first time round. The Matisse exhibition was located on the very top floor, dominating that space. The layout was similar to that of the Tate, I again found the video of Matisse making the work the most interesting aspect. I find it difficult to express why I dislike the work, its simplicity is unsettling, and not particularly exciting. The methods behind the work that you see in the film is much more interesting than the work itself. The larger pieces were much more appealing than the smaller ones, the sheer magnitude changed the simplified materials and technique into something else. My favourite piece of the exhibition was the stained glass window, the light shining through transformed the dull paper shapes into colours that screamed with brightness, using light to make the work seem three-dimensional. I felt that this exhibition was outshone by the rest of the work in the Museum of Modern Art.  

The following floor offered a much more exciting array of works to look at. I enjoyed the place so much that I find it difficult to pick which area I liked most, of all the new works these were by far my favourites. The exhibition was titled: The forever now, contemporary painting in an atemporal world. It explored the use of internet and the clashing of times and cultures that this access to information caused, it challenged the mixing of timelines, questioning the given of art history. It offered a proposition of new ideas. The show itself was striking, you first approach a series of large white canvases by Joe Bradley that hold simple school time sketches on them, these alone questioned what art was and played on the ideas of abstract expressionism and the theories of developing alter egos that were presented by Carl Jung. I made this connection with my own work from the second year of the degree where I studied Carl Jung's ideas of the "shadow". Paintings were interrupted by neon strip lighting and the subject of the frame was played with throughout. The most intriguing piece for me was a series of canvases without stretchers laid out on the floor. You were able to touch and pull about the crumpled and folded canvases at your feet, altering and changing the image as you saw fit. Many were unsure of touching the work on the floor, knowing this was not normal gallery behaviour. The piece in my mind questioned the position of the art galley, the cliche of paintings on wooden stretchers attached to a wall in a single line around the space. This was the most conceptually intriguing piece I have encountered in a long time, and enhanced the reading I have been doing of David Buren's thoughts on the role of the studio, and by connection the role of the museum or gallery. 

The next two floors were for me my favourite of the entire gallery. It was a vast collection of different styles and eras of the art world, bringing together many famous names and works, seeing them all combined was truly exciting. As you walked around the space you encountered works by many artists some of these including Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Ernst, Carl Andre, Ad Reinhardt, Duchamp. There were four pieces in particular that I was childishly excited to see. What was great was the way that you would glimpse something in a distant room that you recognise and run to that and see something else and run then to that. The first that drew my attention was Van Gogh's Starry Night, which was the centre of attention in the room. It is one of my favourite paintings for a very odd reason. There was a fantastic Doctor Who episode on Vincent Van Gogh which explored his life which made me appreciate his work much more, it gave me the chance to learn more about some of his paintings and his life as it was very informative despite the programme it was made for. This connection for me is what I thought of when I looked at this piece. The second was the bricks of Carl Andre, I found these interesting to see in person because I had recently read an article about the controversy that this piece caused. The third was Jasper Johns Flag, which I had discussed in my second year essay on Conceptual Art. I remembered that it had recently been sold and it was fascinating to see this in actual size and put a physical image to the ones I had been looking at. The final piece that I really enjoyed seeing was Kosuth's piece of his definition, I looked at him also in my second year Conceptual Art essay and have continued on with linking his works to my dissertation. He is an influential figure for me, and I recently missed an opportunity to hear him discuss some of his works at a lecture programme, seeing a piece of his in person lessened the annoyance of this slightly. It was great having such history combined and collected in the two floors. And for me this is what made the day truly spectacular. The two floors are often rejigged and reconsidered as they stated that it was difficult to keep the work fixed as there were so many differing interpretations of the paths that art has taken, changing the exhibition regularly celebrates this.    

The final floor consisted of a exhibition that I had researched prior to going to New York after seeing an advert in Art Review. The exhibition was the work of Robert Gober, and was titled The heart is not a metaphor. The title is what drew me into the work in the first place, as a reader of terrible holiday romance novels this title struck a cord and gained my interest, although my view of what the work might be about was very different to reality. His pieces used varying home elements, taking objects we know well and altering the meanings. Mixing both purity and innocence with dark subjects. The bright wallpapers that adorned many of the walls were striking, and different from what you usually expect from a gallery. The homely feeling this brought contrasted with the images it was portraying, in particular one wallpaper featured drawings of slavery and discrimination, these images were facing you from every angle. The exhibition writing stated that the work portrayed that these were not incidences that simply happened in the past that we can forget, they are our background, a wallpaper, they will always remain there. The abstract of the home elements mixed with the stark linings of the bare wall structures showed an honesty and a transparency in the work. Creating an edge to normal home comforts, the works became sinister in a gentle way. The tone overlapping everything you knew about those objects. The exhibition had dimensional aspects  built cleverly to allow for holes in the floor that when you looked closer formed pools of water on the floors below, adding elements of an awareness of being in a multi floored building, like the dollhouse that sat on the floor of the gallery. The fabricated wall structures only further emphasised this feeling.

New York's Museum of Modern Art is an experience I will not forget. The variety of the works and the size of the space was enough to even hold the interest of three very tired people who have been walking non stop for a week.