Tag Archives: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity

21 Tuesday May 2013

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The authentic matters, the real matters. It is different. Great art leaps from the surface of the paper and lives. Photographs may burn into the paper, but in that depth, they, too, live and glow.

Gallery 2: En Plein Air

Gallery 2: En Plein Air

The Met’s installation of Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity is worth seeing for the coalescence of so many real things in such a [relatively] small space. The monumental paintings, especially Monet’s Luncheon on the Grass in Gallery 2, En Plein Air, need to be seen for real, in the actual matter, to really be appreciated. The brushstrokes, the color, the enormity, all need to be in front of you to be appreciated—to be experienced. It doesn’t work any other way. (Click here for better views of the paintings and costumes; photography was not permitted.)

Gallery 5: The Dictates of Style

Gallery 5: The Dictates of Style

By way of an intimate contrast, consider the portrait of the gown and the gown itself in Gallery 5, The Dictates of Style. Here’s a lesson in the power of art, of paint, and an artist’s vision—and it’s Bartholomé, not Monet or some other genius, though a solid painter all the same.

Behold the cotton dress in conservator-approved lighting and yawn. Well designed, beautifully made, and real, right down to the stain on the upper bodice or collar, a pleat slightly misaligned at the hem. But yawn all the same. Now, the Bartholomé: bam! It’s not about the dress: it’s about light. This contrast is beyond a doubt one of the best lessons I have ever seen on the real nature of painting, and of impressionism: Light.

And if the authentic, the real is important, going to see the real thing is also important.

Here’s the Met’s catalog shot and record for a Degas drawing:

Degas

MMA, 29.100.185

And my iPad photo of the same drawing:

MMA, 29.100.185.

I’m not a wild fan of Degas; I’m more a Joseph Beuys/Caravaggio kind of art lover, but seen in person, this sketch was amazing.

This is an unfair comparison, and I had expected the catalog shot to be in color, because color is so important to this piece. In black and white, you miss the pop of the color contrast between the medium and the paper; you miss the bleed of the oil spot, more subtle in the black and white. You miss the way that image is fast and messy, the simmering tension between the artist and the sitter. Incredible as it seems, there is nothing like the real thing.

Way Finding & the Social Museum

20 Monday May 2013

Posted by in Art Rant, History, Museums

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open storage at the Met Museum

Open Storage: Luce Center at the Met

I can’t say this enough: museums are best when they are social experiences. The happiest moment of my day came early, when I was in the Ipswich room of the American wing. Another iPad toting guy and I talked about the lowness of the ceiling, the large fireplace, the bed, and how cozy the room was. (I told him to go to Plimoth if he got a chance.) but it was exciting to talk and share: that’s the best part of discovery, and that’s what museums are about. They’re about finding things, or yourself, or ideas.

The Luce Center was nearly empty of people. A school passed through on their way to someplace else, but I had it pretty much to my self. None of the computers were being used. I saw very few of any screened devices used in the Museum, aside from personal devices.

baby rattle at the Met

Late 17th-early 18th century rattle. Appears to be missing its coral

The Met collection is astounding, no doubt. But I was pleased to see that there are some finer pieces in Rhode Island storerooms and museum rooms. And I think that the way finding could use some real attention. The MFA, last time I was there, had it down: interns, stationed throughout the galleries, to ask if you needed directions whenever you looked lost. NY, not so friendly but maybe more necessary. Also, the galley number for one show I wanted to see was not even included in its web listing. That was a serious annoyance, but I was able to find it eventually.

Replica furniture at the MFA Boston

American Wing at the MFA Boston

The installations are excellent, though standard and in some cases unimaginative. I know: I just dissed the Met. And I’m sticking with that. The exploded chest in the Luce storage wing was one of the best items spotted. I’d say that when it comes to furniture, American furniture, the MFA bests the Mets installation. And I like some other period rooms just as well. Like my own. They just need to be cleaner. What’s wrong with those housemaids? Oh, right. One’s in England, and the other one’s exhausted from her trip back from New York.

Punk is Dead and Buried at the Met

18 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in Art Rant, Clothing, Museums

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So, I went to New York yesterday and spent the day at the Met. It was a good, if epically long, trip. I saw everything my feet could bear. One show I even went through twice, Punk: Chaos to Couture. I was trying to “get” it.

The [In]famous Bathroom

The [In]famous Bathroom

Punk got a lot of hype in the NYer and the NYT but it was the least imaginative installation in the Museum. Oh, so what about the CBGB bathroom! If we had to walk through it to get to the gallery, now that would be something. Instead, the bathroom and the “store” are offset, afterthoughts to the main drag, which is a drag.

Hall of Classics. Worship these Gods of Fashion.

Hall of Classics. Worship these Gods of Fashion.

The galleries main attractions are mannequins lined up as if on a catwalk, above us, so couture, so not punk. Rainbow colored spike wigs do not make Gianni Versace punk. Or, honestly, Vivienne Westwood at this late juncture, let alone Zandra Rhodes. I found the mannequins trite, and the clothing uninspired and only vaguely reminiscent of what I remember of punk.

Naked Raygun at the Metro

As for the store: I never shopped at Clothes for Heroes, or even Trash & Vaudeville (I had to send my Dad for my Johnson’s motorcycle boots) but I did buy Trash & Vaudeville label and band t shirts at Wax Trax, in the back. I wore the zip minis and fishnet stockings (real stockings) and vintage from the AmVets. I made my own tshirts, with spray paint, markers, and my dad’s castoffs. And even in 1980 Chicago, even at The Exit or Lucky Number or the Cubby Bear, I knew I was ersatz. I knew I was not really punk.

Graffiti & Agitpror

Graffiti & Agitpror

The Met show shines with the Alexander McQueen dresses. They are by far the most interesting and best made pieces. They’re clearly genius. Everything else, save for Rei Kawakubo, is merely derivative.

The sections of the show, Hardware, Graffiti & Agitprop, and Destroy, make sense. Yes, safety pins, chains, spikes and belts (hardware) were typical. Slogans and hand-made clothes, also typical, as well as shredded (purposeful or not, often not, but worn), are fitting descriptors or sub-genres of the punk aesthetic. But the clothes displayed disappointed and dismayed, a grand “So what?” And why?

Maybe it’s Andy Warhol, Mr. Anti-Punk in my mind. But I think it is the great postmodernist movement, where by at this point anything once ironic or referential is now merely self-referential. Punk could have a sense of humor. With few exceptions (Kawabuko, mostly) the clothes in this show lack the intelligence for humor, let alone politics.

Am I glad I went? Yes, absolutely. Because now I know there are bigger risks to take installing shows, and I’m ready to think about what they might be. I’d put a couple of those Kawabuko black-sleeve dresses, or McQueen’s black “bubble-wrap” gowns on display with over in Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, and see what happens. That’s when chaos and couture would really meet.