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Thursday, September 03, 2009

New York New York day 2

Treasures from MoMA and Asian influences....

Sunday we got up and walked ourselves to MoMA. I love that place.

I didn't really appreciate modern art until I took the hardest course in my college career called Contemporary Art History. I barely scraped a B in that class. It was a very reading and writing heavy course about way-out there theory. But it made me appreciate the value in someone having the cahones to do something first. Like very first. And to realize that it actually takes a lot of work to make that perfectly solid red canvas. Okay, so the red canvas wasn't my favorite, but I can appreciate Jackson Pollock's splatterings because there is an art to the way he moved his arm, to the color choices, to the dedication it took to make people turn their heads at that.

This exhibit by Song Dong was spooky to me because it seriously could have been from my own non-Asian grandmother's house. All it was missing was a garbage bag full of bread ties. The artist's mother was from the waste-not-want-not generation, and that apparently compelled her to say partially used bars of soap and plastic bottle caps. As someone who has a pack rat tendency herself, this is terrifying.

We moved on to Chinatown after lunch. These photos are an exact depiction of what I love about New York...the 5-6 story building neighborhoods and the bustling cultural soup. One street is Chinese, the next is Italian. I love it. And the men whispering in my ear as I passed by "bags. gucci. prada. louis vuitton." So sen-su-al. I always think I'm going to buy a bag when in Chinatown, but I just don't like any of them when it comes down to it.

Day two ended at Five Napkin Burger. Tuna burger for me, and a frozen strawberry mojito for dessert. I was so enthralled, I didn't take a single photo. Cause sometimes, you just gotta live in the moment.