S and I took advantage of a day off - from school, work, chores (my call) and an all-consuming reading project to trek into Manhattan by bus/train to the Guggenheim. (Truly, getting to the Upper East Side is most inconvenient from this part of Brooklyn...) We got there just as it opened (planned) and have reciprocal membership through the Brooklyn Museum, so managed to avoid the long line of people all eager to see the Kandinsky exhibition. I thought that we were there to see it too, but alternate things captured the mind of a child.
Like staring over the balcony at every level, admiring the architecture. "Most people are wearing black...It gets moderner and moderner as we go up." Both observation (correctly) made about midway up. (ummm...and you're not actually supposed to take pictures from here, even flashless)
Or discovering a new nook with a great view of the park that we hadn't (somehow) seen before.
Or spending quite a large amount of time moving through Felix Gonzales-Torres' gold, bead curtain and trying to make S. understand that the small gold field behind was a work by someone else, and that the two had actually been paired by some keen eye. (He still probably doesn't get it.)
But for S, the real star of the show was Anish Kapoor's 'Memory.' I have to admit that I am somewhat shocked by the photo of the entire egg-shaped sculpture on the Guggenheim's page as part of the point (much of it) seems to be that one is forbidden to see the work in its entirety and must construct an image in it in one's mind, piecemeal, from one or more viewings. S insisted on at least two viewings from each vantage point. We listened to the commentary which included a narrative from the artist himself, describing the work in terms of 'mental sculpture.' This is an instance in which I feel that a picture really is inappropriate and does not do justice to the work. I find that the experience of viewing is lingering with me. And that I prefer to be thinking about it in the fragments I was allowed to see.
And that somewhat grumpy note marks the end of another art excursion.
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