Art

The Rubin Museum: Art from the Himalayas, India, and Surrounding Regions

photo_1 (24) Located on West 17th Street, The Rubin Museum of Art opened in October 2004 and is recognized as the premier museum of Himalayan art in the Western world. The museum’s collection of more than 2,000 works of art includes examples of Himalayan paintings, sculptures, textiles, ritual objects, and prints spanning the 2nd to the 20th century. The museum’s collection also includes  countries and cultures that encompass this region, from Afghanistan in the northwest to Myanmar (Burma) in the southeast and includes Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia, and Bhutan.

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The museum has a rotating exhibition, called Masterworks: Jewels of the Collection, which “explores major strands in the development of Himalayan art, covering a period of over 1,000 years, and presents some regional artistic traditions in their broad cultural, geographic, historical, and stylistic contexts.”  The exhibit showcases Tibetan diversity,  both over time, and in relation to neighboring Bhutan, India, Kashmir, Nepal, China, and Mongolia. I really liked the bronze statues on display

Bodies In Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine

Bodies In Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine

Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine, is one of the Rubin’s special exhibits. It explores the guiding principles of the Tibetan science of healing  and is brought to life through medical paintings, manuscripts, and medical instruments.

The three forces

The three forces

To help hit home the message of the exhibit, the museum  invites visitors to take an “Are You In Balance?” quiz. The self-scored test emphasizes the focus of Tibetan medicine: the human body is composed of three forces responsible for physical and mental health. Good health is achieved when these forces are in balance. Once you’ve taken the quiz you can learn how Tibetan medicine would recommend gaining balance. You can even purchase  some of these “medicines” in the museum’s gift shop, “Bodies In Balance” will be on view through September 8, 2014.

Jaspar Johns/Barry Frydlender: Two Exhibits Worth Seeing

There are two exhibits I saw recently that are worth going to before they close. Though they both are inspired by photography, the art is as different as night and day.

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The first is a Jaspar Johns show at MOMA called “Regrets,” (until September 1, 2014).  The exhibit is comprised of two paintings, 10 drawings, and two prints. They were created over the last year and a half and were inspired by an old photograph of the artist Lucian Freud, reproduced in an auction catalog.  According to the exhibit notes, Johns was inspired not only by this scene but also by the damaged appearance of the photograph itself. The title and signature inscribed on most of the works— “Regrets/Jasper Johns”— suggest a sense of sadness or disappointment. Johns borrowed the words from a rubber stamp he had made several years ago to decline the many requests and invitations that came his way. It’s not a large exhibit but the creativity, interpretations and varied media make it a very exciting exhibit to see.

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A very different exhibit, that is all photography, can be found at the Andrea Meislin Gallery in Chelsea. It is Barry Frydlender’s “Yaffo-Tel Aviv.” A native Israeli, Barry Frydlender is known for his large works that “seamlessly stitch together hundreds of photographs in a mosaic-like pattern to create large and extremely sharp color prints.”

The exhibit at the Andrea Meislin Gallery consists of 8 large-scale color photographs, taken between 1998-2014, of the view reflected from Frydlender’s studio window. Through these photographs Frydlender tells a story of a changing urban environment impacted by both natural events, like heavy rainstorms; and current events, like an army raid searching for terrorists.

The Frydlender exhibit will be there only until June 21st.

Try Something New at the Museum Mile Festival

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The 36th Annual Museum Mile Festival will take place this year on Tuesday, June 10th from 6-9pm. It’s an evening when nine museums along Fifth Avenue (from 82nd-105th Streets)  are all free. Many of the participating museums will offer opportunities to make art. At the Museum of the City of New York you can create a giant chalk mural based on the graffiti styles shown in the “City as Canvas” exhibit on view at the museum.  The Jewish Museum will have music playing, and an opportunity to make works of art inspired by the works of Mel Bochner, using letter stamps and color sticks.

bario frontIt’s great to go into as many museums as you can. I’d also use the evening to go visit a museum you would not normally go to. One to consider is El Museo del Barrio,  focused on the  art and artifacts of Caribbean and Latin American cultures. The museum was founded 40 years ago by artist and educator Raphael Montañez Ortiz and a coalition of parents, educators, artists, and activists who felt that  mainstream museums largely ignored Latino artists. El Museo’s  permanent collection contains over 6,500 objects, including  pre-Columbian Taíno artifacts, twentieth-century drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations, as well as prints, photography, documentary films, and video.

“Sunburst” (1960) Ortiz

A special exhibit to check out during the Museum Mile Festival is  “Museum Starter Kit: Open With Care.”  This exhibition “explores the significance of the creation of El Museo by focusing on works of art made by Raphael Montañez Ortiz, as the artist turns 80 this year,” according to El Museo.

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“Suave Chapina” 2007, Benvenuto Chavajay

Another special exhibit with an eclectic group of paintings, sculptures and videos is “Presencia,” which has  works from the museum’s permanent collection. One I really liked was a wall sculpture made from latex flip flops by the Guatemalan artist, Benvenuto Chavajay.

Where Art Meets History: The New York Historical Society

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 You may have heard of the New York Historical Society.  But you probably didn’t know that this is the oldest museum in New York City (it was founded in 1804), and it houses over twenty-five hundred American paintings from the colonial period through the twentieth century. It also holds one of the country’s leading collections of Hudson River School landscapes. Their permanent collection also includes some 800 sculptures and over 8,000 drawings. These cover the beginnings of American art when it was dominated by European artists, up through the 1860s.

Usually it’s the special exhibits at the NYHS that draw me there.  Past exhibits I’ve enjoyed include: The Armory Show at 100 and Swing Time: Reginald Marsh and Thirties New York.

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This week I went to see “Bill Cunningham: Facades,” and “Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War,” two current exhibits. They were both very interesting and so different. I happen to be there just as a free guided tour began. I took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about the permanent collection and discovered the greatest reason of all to visit NYHS: The Luce Center

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One level of the Luce Center

Located on the 4th floor of the Society, The Luce Center is home to  nearly 40,000 objects from the New-York Historical Society’s permanent collection. You can see art and artifacts spanning four centuries,  from the nation’s premiere collection of Tiffany lamps, to “historical touchstones such as the draft wheel that played a role in one of the worst urban riots in United States history. “

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 I only got to see a small part of the collection. One of the objects that stood out  was a horse-drawn carriage from the late 1770’s. Owned by the Beekman family (of “Beekman Place”); it is one of only three such 18th Century American coaches to survive in original condition.  There was also a whole case devoted to artifacts from Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue founded in 1654. One of the funniest objects I saw was a ceramic cockroach trap from 1840.

It’s worth going to NYHS just to see this collection but hurry; it’s undergoing a massive renovation beginning in July 2014.

Hidden Treasures At The Met

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art can be an overwhelming place to visit. Most people focus on the special exhibits, and “Charles James: Beyond Fashion,” which opened in early May, is certainly one to see. In the year I’ve been volunteering at the Met, I’ve uncovered several permanent treasures that I probably wouldn’t have ordinarily seen as a casual visitor.

Studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbio

Studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbio

 

The first is the Studiolo (or study) from the Ducal Palace in Gubbio. Located in gallery 501 in European Sculpture and Decorative Arts,  the  Studiolo was  intended for meditation and study. According to the Met, its walls are carried out in a wood-inlay technique known as intarsia, and the latticework doors of the cabinets demonstrate a contemporary interest in linear perspective.

The Astor Chinese Garden Court

The Astor Chinese Garden Court

Another meditative spot is the Astor Chinese Garden Court located in gallery 217 in the Asian wing. A recreation of a Ming Dynasty garden, the Astor Court was part of the first cultural exchange between the US and the People’s Republic of China.

snuff bottle

On your way to the garden stop by gallery 207 to see “Small Delights: Chinese Snuff  Bottles.” It will be on view through June 14, 2014 and they are truly delightful tiny works of art you might have otherwise passed by.

Trumpet Call Harmonica

Trumpet Call Harmonica

Located between European paintings and the American Wing, is another hidden treasure at the Met — The André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments. In  galleries 680-684, you can find traditional instruments like guitars and flutes as well as some unusual ones like the trumpet call harmonica pictured above. One hall is devoted to Western instruments, arranged by type or family, and the other to non-Western instruments, grouped geographically. Many of the instruments may be heard on the Met’s audio guide.

Gallery 354: Arts of Melanesia

Gallery 354: Arts of Melanesia

Another often missed area of  the Met are the 9 galleries that comprise the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. While they are all really interesting, my favorite is gallery 354, home to the Oceanic arts of Melanesia (subdivided into two areas: New Guinea and Island Melanesia) and Australia. Covering most of the ceiling in the room is a ceremonial house ceiling from the Kwoma people, which can be seen in the photo above.

Funerary carving (late 19th early 20th century); Papua, New Guinea

Funerary carving (late 19th early 20th century); Papua, New Guinea

Equally interesting are the funerary carvings that line one side of the room. They are part of malagan, the collective name for a series of ceremonies, as well as the masks and carvings associated with them. As described at the exhibit, these rituals, still practiced today, are held primarily in memory of the dead and combined with initiation ceremonies in which young men symbolically replace those who have died.

So by all means, see the Met’s special exhibits, but leave yourself some time to view some of the museum’s hidden treasures.