NYC Museum Of Modern Art

Before the Christmas holiday I went into Manhattan to spend an afternoon in The Museum of Modern Art, also known by the acronym "MoMa," located at 11 West 53 Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

Founded in 1929, the MoMA's collection includes examples of modern art from the late nineteenth century until today. Their collection represents the diverse forms of visual expression that encompass modern art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, drawings, illustrations, architecture and design. Considered by many to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world, MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills.

The museum underwent extensive renovations a few years ago, designed by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi. The new MoMA features 630,000 square feet of new and redesigned space and the building itself is a modern work of architectural art.

This is the second floor Marron Atrium lounge with 25 foot movie screen walls that show exhibition movies. The Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist's movie entitled "Pour Your Body Out" was playing, and will be on exhibit until February 2, 2009.

The Museum's collection can be broken down into six categories: Architecture and Design, Drawings, Film and Media, Painting and Sculpture, Photography, and Prints and Illustrated Books, plus special temporary exhibits.

Here is one of the open views of the multilevel floors:

A view from the atrium windows of the outdoor Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden.

Some of the displays:

Louis Comfort Tiffany vases --

A lounge chair made out of corrugated cardboard by the artist Frank O Gehry, entitled "Bubbles Chaise Lounge" 1987 The ultimate idea for recycling?

A contemporary baby stroller design -

Some modern chairs and lamps on display in the Architecture and Design display:

Some of the collections of paintings that I photographed:

Pablo Picasso -- "Painter and Model" --- Paris -- 1928

Pablo Picasso -- "Girl before a Mirror" -- March 1932

Jasper Johns --- "Map" 1961

Two paintings by Willem de Kooing:

Jackson Pollock -- "White Light" 1954

Jackson Pollock -- " One: Number 31, 1950" 1950

Frida Kahlo -- "Self -Portrait with Cropped Hair" 1940


Salvador Dali -- "The Persistence of Memory" 1931

Claude Monet -- "Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond" 1920

Piet Mondrian -- "Trafalgar Square" 1939 - 43

Andy Warhol "32 Campbell's Soup Cans" 1962

Andy Warhol -- "Gold Marylin Monroe" 1962

Max Ernst -- "Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale"

Andrew Wyeth -- "Christina's World" ---1948

Edward Hopper -- "Gas" 1940

One of the main reasons I visited MoMa was to not miss the special exhibit called "Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night" which is closing on January 5, 2009, and moving to The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was an exhibit of an international collection of nearly 40 Vincent Van Gogh paintings, with the theme of sunset, dusk and night.

The exhibit was divided into the following themes: Early Landscapes, Peasant Life, Sowers and Wheat Fields, Poetry of the Night- The Town, Poetry of the Night- The Country. Many were accompanied by actual excerpts of Van Gogh's letters to his family, especially those he wrote to his brother Theo, where he described the works and their influences and meanings. Van Gogh wrote , "It often seems to me that the night is more alive and richly colored than the day."

Below, the painting "The Potato Eaters" -- 1885

In 1887 Van Gogh told his sister it was his best work, and that it portrayed the daily life of humble agricultural laborers. It was his first significant interior night scene and one of his first major paintings.

Next, Van Gogh's portrait of Eugene Boch "The Poet' -- 1888

Van Gogh described the young Belgium Impressionist as a man "who dreams great dreams," and painted him in front to a night sky which he felt symbolized the eternal.

Next, the painting "The Starry Night Over the Rhone" -- 1888

Van Gogh wanted to paint at night and set up his easel by the banks of Rhone in Arles, France where the distant gas lamps gave off enough illumination for him to see. He sent a sketch of this scene in a letter to his friend Eugene Boch calling it one of his most "poetic subjects."

Next, and my personal favorite, Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" -- 1889.

Vincent wrote that the "sights of the stars always made him dream." This image has become one of his most iconic. It is in the permanent collection of MoMa, although it will be traveling to Amsterdam through June 2009 as part of the same exhibit that will be shown in the Van Gogh Museum.

MoMa is really a fascinating museum to visit, and the surrounding area in Manhattan is interesting to walk around to take in the sights. I thought I'd share some photos of the neighborhood. If you've visited NYC before you might recognize some of these buildings.










In a way much of NYC is, in itself, a museum of modern art -- there is always something unique, something unusual, something unexpected, and something that can not be understood but that can still be admired, about it.

I hope you will have a chance one day to visit and enjoy it!