New York–June 06, 2016

Today was museum day.

Museum of Modern Art

My first stop was the Museum of Modern Art. These first two pictures are from the second floor window:

Giant sculpture of rose Old buildling with fancy scrollwork

From the “you call this art?” department, a painting made from 40,000 odd and even numbers from the telephone directory, covered by a large sheet of Bubble Wrap® (yes, it is a registered trademark!).

blue and red painting of 40000 random numbers on backdrop of bubble wrap

The rest of the floor had rooms for each of the years of the 1960s. The first picture shows a work by Christo, the second is by Claes Oldenburg.

wrapped burlap by Christo Large flat ice cream cone (“Floor Cone” by Claes Oldenburg, 1962) 1961 convertible sportscar Can labeled “Artist's Shit” Chair made of soft protuberances Various posters from 1963 black metallic sculpture Striped “op art” painting brass spiral staircase Blank canvases with thin red, green, and bue borders

Two of the highlights of the rooms were a short film about the Mao-Hope March where people marched down the street carrying six large posters of Bob Hope and one of Mao Tse-Tung. Radio broadcaster Robert Fass interviewed people about it, and the results were quite amusing. The other highlight for me was another short film, Kustom Kar Kommandos by Kenneth Anger. The soundtrack is one of the best covers I have heard of the song Dream Lover as performed by the Paris Sisters; the orchestration is fantastic. You can see the video on YouTube.

People carrying large posters of Bob Hope and Mao Tse-Tung Various colored and oddly formed furniture from the 1960s-1970s Neon tubing in a corner

Here’s more from the museum’s permanent collection. (Yes, they had Van Gogh’s Starry Night, but I couldn’t get close enough to get a good picture of it. Besides, that one’s been photographed to death and I doubt there’s anything I could add to it.)

Painting using words to describe “What is painting?” abstract sculpture Various sculptures by Constantin Brancusi two mondrians Soft color cat with bird perched between eyes Painting of trees; mostly foliage covering canvas Man, horse, and other animals; Chagall painting postman with long beard, by Van Gogh

Interlude

On the way to the next museum, I saw this large inflated rat atop a car with a sign “Asbestos Kills.” I passed Trump Tower and saw some TV people setting up for some sort of stand-up shots. The man is from Fox News, the woman is from NBC. Who they are, I got no clue.

Large inflated rat on car with sign “Asbestos Kills” Television truck antenna in front of Trump Tower Fox News reporter looking down at his text NBC reporter looking down at her text

This statue was at an entrance to Central Park:

Gold statue of man on horse led by Lady Liberty at entrance to Central Park

Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

The Museum of Modern Art was good, but I liked the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum better. The signage outside is quite bold. The garden area has some chairs modeled after tops; they are remarkably comfortable and stable even as you roll around.

Sign: Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum entrance 3-d Cooper hewitt sign Gray and red chairs shaped like spinning top toys

This museum really gets the idea of interactive display. When you enter, you are given a pen that you can use to draw on large tabletop interactive surfaces. For example, you can make a design to project on the walls of one of the rooms:

Moon and star pattern made by visitor Me in front of cat pattern

If you press the “eraser” end of the pen against a large plus sign on the description of an exhibit, that item is saved in your visit to the museum, which you can retrieve from the web later. Here’s mine. These pictures are of a display that shows how the pen evolved:

Display case showing evolution of digital pen at museum Pen prototypes and circuit boards

Here are other items from the museum, in no particular order:

Room with many mirrors and many pairs of silver-plated dress shoes Stained glass above a door; harp is central theme Red and pink flowing dress Dress with ladybug motif Pile of staples with tiny figures of people on it. Tables with miniatures made of household objects Ceramics with colored polka dots Wallpaper with flat art of common objects Plush multi-colored whimsical creatures Whimsical multicolored creatures Whimsical multicolored creatures Plastic/plexiglass arches in honeycomb formation Colored hanging lamps and vases Lamps in shape of capsule pills Green stone tile; man and turtle Green tile in medieval motif “Baby Brownie” camera and old red and black plastic desk radio TV and stereo in wooden cabinet circa 1960s

One fascinating display was this array of clock faces. The dials go through geometric patterns and then stop once a minute in a configuration displaying the time (in the second picture, it was 2:31 p.m.)

Rectangular array of clocks Clocks showing current time as large digits

And this series of three posters shows a generic politician being replaced by the slogan “Generation Diversity”

Series of three posters that show a generic politician replaced by rainbow background with words “Generation Vielfalt” (Generation Diversity)

Miscellanea

A display from la Terrine, and a cupcake ATM (I swear I am not making this up!).

Ceramic plates with seafood motif in shop window () Pink cupcake “ATM”