I was not sure whether I will be able to write this post because on one hand, I really wanted to make a research about the beautiful Museum of Modern Art in New York but on the other hand I miss the city so much that every word I write about it is going to be a stab in my heart, hah.
This first part is going to be about my personal relationship with this gallery - what I saw, my photography and favourite pieces. Part two will be more general, about the history and its collections.
First time I've heard about MoMA and also the first time I've visited their website was when I was doing my research about 2001 Space Odyssey and randomly stumbled across a cutlery designed by Arne Jacobsen that Kubrick had chosen for the film:
And therefore I strongly recommend checking out their store to anyone who has a similar obsession with all the artistic merchandise and books.
Usually, I don't look at art on websites of galleries because who does? I think it can be very misleading (meaning that even though you can imagine the size of the pieces, it has never the same effect as if you are standing in front of it, examining carefully every stroke of the brush) so I was very happy that I had the opportunity to visit the actual gallery couple of weeks ago. It was mind blowing.
On the first floor, there was an exhibition that was dedicated to Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (1864 - 1901) who (according to Wikipedia) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator. His art is mainly focused on bohemian and decadent side of Paris including performances in Moulin Rouge and its famous cancan dancers. Lautrec had a severe physical condition that was stopping him from many activities and was one of the reasons why he started painting. Later on it has led to his severe alcoholism as he was often mocked up for his appearance.
Tolouse-Lautrec's collection contains huge amount of pieces. He created 737 canvases, 275 watercolours, 363 prints and posters, 5,084 drawings, some ceramic and stained glass work, and an unknown number of lost works. He was inspired by Impressionists and Japanese woodcuts that were popular in Paris in his time and also by many of his muses of which one was a famous cabaret singer called Yvette Guilbert. Following photos are not the most significant artworks of his but the ones that I have found the most interesting in the exhibition.
Another thing that caught my eye was a beautiful short animation of a lady performing a dance that makes her dress change its colour every single few seconds.
Another eye catching design had the ZG magazine. This beauty was very hard to research, but I managed to find out that it was a magazine founded by Rosetta Brooks, based in London in 1980 and it is described as a magazine that 'examines various high and low cultures. It features a wide array of themes such as art, society, film, sexuality, visuality, advertisement, body image, science, politics' and has the most disturbing (read amazing) covers you can imagine. Many of the issues and general vibe of the magazine is mentioned in this great article but in short, it was revolutionary because miss Brooks considered the artistic community at the time "a cottage industry protected by a minority group of conservationists" and decided to go against this trend. Maybe something we could think about still?
The music department of MoMA was huge and because the covers are usually inspiring for designers, I ended up taking a peak as well. As you can see on the photos below, it was full with punk and rock bands from the first (or second if we want to be debatable) wave.
Also I took some photos of posters that I thought had simple but striking design and a clever use of colour.
The time went way too fast in MoMA and therefore I had no more time for going through the actual modern art exhibition but I have decided that I have to go back. For a nice ending of this article, I am adding my favourite pieces from the modern art exhibition - I especially adore the one with busy Jackson Pollock and man in red looking slightly confused.
