Christine's Design Blog

Howdy.

To start things off, I shall ramble on about my most recent museum visits, which were like satisfying a four-month thirst. Having not been to either the Met or the Moma since December, going to both only a week apart from each other was just the ticket.

Our figure drawing class went to the Met to make up for this semester’s snow day. On Friday and Saturday evenings, a small group of strings and a pianist play at the balcony cafe above the lobby, so it’s always nice to go then. Class was meeting at 6:30, so I arrived around 5:20 to take a look around. I only had time to look at ‘Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna,’ which is on the second floor until this Sunday, April 26.

Some of my favorites were:

Park of an Italian Villa, Jean-Honoré Fragonard

They sing for the one who made it up, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

Houses in the Countryside in the Snow, Vincent van Gogh

Houses in the Landscape, Vincent van Gogh

At the Moma, two of the biggest exhibitions I saw were Mira Schendel and Leòn Ferrari’s ‘Tangled Alphabets’ and the Martin Kippenberger retrospective, ‘The Problem Perspective.’

Examples of ‘Tangled Alphabets’:

Lara, who I ran into as I was leaving the Moma, and I discussed in class yesterday how the exhibition was somewhat repetitive, but I suppose that is the nature of a whole exhibition based on an artist’s explorations in a single style or idea. This exhibition is on view until June 15.

My new favorite artist is Martin Kippenberger, who was sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, and extremely prolific in his art. It seems he literally partied himself to death with his craziness, for he died at 44 of liver cancer after a short but dizzying career. The only way to truly experience the essence of Kippenberger, you’ll have to head over to the Moma before May 11 (I think I might go again).

Oh! And before I forget, another very interesting exhibition was ‘Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh,’ which showed posters, photographs, and cage (yes, cage) from Hsieh’s first year-long performance from 1978-79. The Taiwanese-American locked himself into a jail cell he had built in his apartment. For a year he did not read, write, listen to the radio, or anything other than eat the food his friend brought him once a day, have his photo taken by his friend (whom he did not speak to), scratch tick marks into the wall counting the days, and relieve himself (into a jug which his friend emptied). It was quite a powerful exhibition, walking along the wall of 355 photos showing the growth of his hair and beard (10 photos were missing due to film damage). I also had a very eeri, creeping feeling when I walked into the little room holding the cage, inside of which were a cot, sink, mirror and bucket. This one’s on view until May 18.