The Miro exhibit at MOMA, mid-90’s, and in particular the room with the constellations, and the room with “Man Throwing Rock at a Bird”.
Just got back from the best exhibit I have seen:
Van Gogh and Gauguin. (Or maybe that’s reversed.) Currently in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, but after that, I think it heads for the US. (I seem to remember a stop in San Francisco being on the agenda.)
What’s great about it is that with all the paintings in one place you get to see how Gauguin and van Gogh were playing off each other and influencing each other. (Though I think Gauguin might deny learning much from van Gogh.)
You also get to see van Gogh’s habit of producing several copies of a single painting (with subtle variations).
The impression (heh) I got from the exhibit was that van Gogh had an unrequited crush on Gauguin. Is that accurate?
Oxy, thanks for the tip. We’re near the DIA and I’ve seen the publicity for that exhibit, but I didn’t know its significance.
I heard recently (on NPR) that they predict that these big blockbuster art tours (like the Van Gogh thing that was just in Chicago) are going to be rarer. Partly it’s the cost of insurance going up. I hope those prognosticators are wrong.
Jeff Olson, I saw the Star Trek in DC, and you didn’t miss much.
My picks
Most beatiful things: 1492, at the NGA in 1992, the 500th anniverary of the Columbus’ voyage.
Most powerful (certainly not beautiful) – not an exhibit, the whole Holocaust Museum. I got about half way through and couldn’t take any more. I had to leave.
All-time favorite: U-505 at Science & Industry in Chicago. (Probably because I saw it as a kid).
Of most personal relevance: also at Science & Industry. I don’t know the name, but it was an interactive game: an audible tone generator, and the challenge was to create a matching tone from memory. I was extrordinarily good at this at about 10 years old, I could match within 2 hertz (off their accuracy scale)and I later went into audio and radio production. I think this thing had a lot to do with it.
This might not be the best exhibit I’ve ever seen, but it certainly qualifies as a fascinating exhibit that made me stay in a museum for a surprisingly long time. A few months back, Pucette and I went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. First we saw Pearls, which was good. Then we saw an exhibit on Hinduism, which was ok. Then I think we had an overpriced lunch in the cafeteria. We were getting tired, but we decided to check out the exhibit on the Human Genome Project. And it was fantastic. We stayed there for about two more hours, for a total of about six. Wow.
At the MIT museum, this exhibit on Arthur Ganson’s mechanical sculpture was fascinating. It’s ongoing, so Boston area folks should check it out. That whole little museum is a treat, actually.
The exhibition they have now at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, Brazil: Body and Soul. From colonial times to contemporary, it was amazing.
Also, the Artemisia and Orazio exhibit they have at the **Metropolitan Museum of Art **(NYC).