MoMA - New York

My best friend, Catharine, and I planned a much needed girls' weekend in New York to catch up since our lives have been interfering with our ability to trek between Baltimore and D.C.   We had a day of shoe shopping, a great evening seeing Upright Citizen's Brigade then dinner at Balthazar. 

Catharine at the Hotel Roger                                 Sunlit NY Morning

All of this was, unfortunately, followed by the stomach flu for Catharine.  She poured herself onto the early train back to Baltimore and I stayed behind to wander the city including a trip to MoMA.

The big draw at MoMA that weekend was the Marina Abramovic exhibition....the Artist in Residence http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/marinaabramovic/

For fans of Sex and the City, Marina Abramovic was the artist portrayed in the episode where Carrie first met Aleksandr Petrovsky (remember the 3 AM date to see the artist living in the downtown art gallery?).  Abramovic is a Yugoslavian artist best known for her controversial, sometimes violent performance art.  Over the years her pieces included performance, photos and video of the artist and her partner screaming, sewing lips shut with needles and thread, lying naked with a human skeleton, and, a la Sex and the City, living for one week on display in an art gallery in New York.  Perhaps most disturbing, was an exhibit in which she provided a table with 46 objects (including a loaded pistol) and allowed viewers to do to her whatever they were inspired to do.   Impressively, MoMA put together a retrospective of her performance art using videos, sets from her previous performances, and live action using actors playing the role of Abramovic.  Throughout the run of the exhibit, Abramovic herself was at the museum seated at a table for two in one of the main foyers of the museum.  Visitors were encouraged, one at a time, to enter the "field of play" of the exhibit and sit across the table from Abramovic.  She didn't respond, but, with their presence, the visitors became part of the exhibit.  

The rest of MoMA is an embarrassment of riches of the art world.  I felt like I was at the Oscars with star (painting) sightings left and right....Look, there's "A Starry Night" next to Johnny Depp. 

Girl with Ball - Roy Litchenstein     I am the Village - Marc Chagall

Warhol Soups

Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh        The Dream - Henri Rousseau

Still Life with Puppies - Paul Gauguin

It was amazing to see so many great works, but hard to take them all in.  Of the lesser known paintings, my favorite (for content and title) had to be "Still Life with Three Puppies" by Paul Gauguin.   After my day at MoMA, I had walked so much that I actually had to buy new shoes (not an excuse really, I had art blisters) to carry my barking puppies back to D.C.