September 11 @ MoMA PS1

 This was one of my favorite pieces because it displays the bright colors of our precocious nation.

Now Showing @ Moma PS1 through January 9th, 2012

 

George Segal - American artist - 1924-2000 

'Woman on a park Bench' 1998 (bronze w/ white patina & metal bench)

         

In the room seen above one could reminisce about September 11th 2011, as we see various pieces incorporated into a brightly-lit room. There is a woman seated carelessly on a bench minding her own business. She holds dearly to her purse and seems as if she were about to smile, but not quite. There is material scattered along the center of the floor which resembles ashes done by Roger Hiorns a British artist born in 1978. It is an 'atomized passenger aircraft engine' and he left his work Untitled. In addition, the theme from Patriot (a solo by Mark O'Connor) can be heard playing in the background to add to the mood. The audio is 6:40 minutes long and it was incorporated by John Williams an American artist born in 1932.

 Filmmaker Jem Cohen's addition to the show is in the form of a 6:00 minute video with sound & in black and white. Little Flags (1991-2000) is an excerpt of a film made by Cohen who was recording a parade that was lead along Broadway to celebrate the end of the Golf War. In the film we can observe the crowd maneuvering around lower Manhattan in a sward of paper. Looking at the picture above (from the film) we can see the similarities between the film and the city on that September 11, 2001 morning.


Another piece (not shown) is a canopy of black bunting which welcomes the visitors to the 2nd floor of the museum. It was created in 2001 by Fiona Banner an English artist born in 1966 by using vinyl and rope. Black Bunting (2008) can be interpreted as a touch of celebration to this one-decade-after tribute without robbing from the mourning sensation implied by the color black.

de kooning: A Retrospective at MoMA

Now Showing at MoMA de Kooning: A Retrospective September 18, 2011–January 9, 2012

De Kooning: A Retrospective is an exhibition at MoMA which shows some of the works of Willem de Kooning a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist. It presents a sort of chronological example of the artist's growth in a span of about 70 years. In exhibition you will find de Kooning's famous Women series making present the familiarity de Kooning had with the female body and its movements. There are also paintings like Seated Woman C. 1940 and his well known Pink Angels. c. 1945 (both seen below). I personally liked Woman With Bicycle (also below) for the careless happiness possessed by the woman which he emphasizes by painting twice and its ambiguity when it comes to the bike. The "bike's" simple shapes left many of the visitors I encountered at the museum wondering how to spot it. This ambiguity is fluent in many of de Kooning's paintings.

Woman and Bicycle, 1952–53. Oil on canvas, (194.3 × 124.5 cm)

Seated Woman, c. 1940. Oil and charcoal on masonite 54 1/16 x 36" (137.3 x 91.4 cm)

Pink Angels c. 1945 Oil and charcoal on canvas
52 x 40" (132.1 x 101.6 cm)