Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Visiting MOMA

So far this class has been one of the most enjoyable ever! Its been great to travel to the different locations and then try to sketch. Its also been a really great crash course in speed drawing as often it seems that there just isn't enough time.
The visit to the MOMA today was fun. There is so much to see there and so many modern historical artworks. I of course love the 4th and 5th floors with the paintings and sculpture. Most of the artists one would associate with modern art are represented there. However, this time I made it to the 6th floor to see the Ron Arad exhibit which I adored! I have never enjoyed architecture/design like art all that much before however, possibly because I have been working with 2-D art all Summer I really enjoyed the dynamic freestanding work in this exhibit. Alot of his pieces were furniture or furniture based and many of them really prompted viewers to want to interact with them. Seriously, I cannot express how much I liked this show. I really wish we had been allowed to take photos.
I also made it by the In Situ exhibit and the Take the Stage exhibit which were part of the 3rd Floor Architecture and Design section. It was very interesting to compare the sketching and planning drawings to the scale models for the different architecture designs in In Situ. They had Frank Lloyd Wright's FallingWater house as well as Simon Unger's T-House and many others. The Take the Stage exhibit had alot of costume and stage design sketches which were very cool.
I think the artist who surprised me the most (other than of course Ron Arad whom I did not expect to be so awesome) was Pablo Picasso. I had always thought of him as a cubist/abstract type of artist and had never really been very interested. I'm learning to appreciate such art, but to being with it was not a favorite genre. However, upon visiting the MOMA I was able to see some of his more representational works along side his more famous peices such as Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.



















Compared to his Boy Leading Horse



















Maybe its shallow of me, but Picasso's cubist works mean more to me now that I know he 'could' do representational. Its always a little tempting to think "I could have done that, my pictures always come out flat and lopsided" when I look at works like Picasso's. However, if it was a conscious choice from an artist who has already proved he could do representational then it means something. It shows that the artist really was being innovative and not just mediocre. Not that anyone would call Picasso mediocre by any means.


1 comment:

  1. Picasso, without a doubt, was a child prodigy. It's unfortunate that the general public only knows of his abstract/cubist work. But yes you are right he could do representational, and he could do it well! Look at his early work and his early drawings. They are amazing.

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