Mama Messed Up MoMA (We Got Met) + Art Opening This Weekend

This morning, my son and I got up early, picked up my mother, and went into the city to visit the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). I wanted my son to see Picasso: Guitars exhibit, and the On to Pop exhibit. If we had time, we were even planning on seeing Warhol's films. I thought that today, Tuesday, was the perfect day to go to the museum. It was cold, but dry, and the drive was fairly easy. 

However, when I got close to the MoMA, I checked the exact address, and wanted to know what streets it was between (I'd forgotten). Upon zooming in to see the exact street address, I saw "Closed Tuesdays" on the website. Wait, what? Closed Tuesdays? Oh my God, no. We were literally a block from the museum. How did I not check to make sure the MoMA was open? I thought about going to the Bowery to the New Museum, but we were so far uptown that the trek seemed ridiculous. And I remembered that my friend Shannon had just taken her sons to see a guitar exhibit (three days earlier) at the Met. Off to the Met we went.

I am so glad we did.


The guitar exhibit, called Guitar Heroes, was amazing. My son, who plays guitar, kept taking photos with his cell phone, only to be reprimanded by the guards for doing so. His guitar teacher, Miss Patricia, would have loved this exhibit. I learned a lot, and I am proud to share that nearly all of the guitar makers on exhibit were from Italy. 

My son standing in front of the Guitar Heroes promo sign.

After that, we decided to check out the Greek and Roman galleries. We had passed them to get to the guitar exhibit, and my mother was very excited to return to them. Here are some of my favorites. Sorry for the poor photo quality; I took them with my Blackberry.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa, Antonio Canova.
As we were approaching this statue, my son said, "Mom, look. It's Medusa."
Medusa's head, indeed. A very proud parenting moment for me.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's, Ugolino and His Sons, depicts Ugolino, who was
imprisoned with his sons to starve to death (Dante's Inferno). The sons
offered him their bodies as a meal to prevent him from starving to death. 

There were many more beautiful statues, and I will be going back soon with W to really take the time to experience and enjoy them. Because as much as my son was interested, he is also just ten years old, and after staring up at a ton of naked statues, he'd sort of had it. 

I forget the name of this, and while I took a photo of it's description,
it's too dark and blurry to read. This is an apostle, I believe, holding his
own head. Found in his home after his death.

Cherubs. Too beautiful for words.

I visited some of the Impressionist galleries, and also the Modern Art galleries (ha, they had a Dyson upright vacuum on exhibit).  

Spanish Woman: Harmony in Blue, Henri Matisse.

The Young Sailor, Henri Matisse.

Madonna, Salvador Dali.
Notice the Madonna and child painted within the large ear, done via gray and pink dots.
To the left he's painted a piece of paper and a cherry.

I also saw Chagall, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso. The works were endless and so amazing to experience, especially during the week that is my first group show is opening. This day was absolutely inspirational. Here's one last piece, something with a very different vibe, that I saw in the modern art section, just before leaving the museum.

Title Unknown, 1926, Yves Tanguy. Oddly capturing.

I can only hope that being surrounded by beautiful art may have somehow impacted on my son. Mostly, he seemed unfazed with all of it (even bored), with the exception of the guitar exhibit. Still, experiencing art changes us in a way that we cannot explain, like it or not.


If you'd like a nice art experience this weekend, please come to my group art opening, Love Is. Fine art and photography will be on exhibit, and we will be viewing it amidst champagne and strawberries. We made the cover of Wednesday's Daily Record. I can't find a link for it, so I took BB photos. 

Love the way the art dept at the newspaper used the stackable
LOVE from Love park in Philadelphia. It was my inspiration for this show.

Continued on page 5, with photos of local artists,
shots of their work, and even one of me (the curator)!