MoMa and Whitney Museum of American Art

I’m usually more into classical art – European paintings and such, but I liked MoMa and the Whitney Museum.

Museum of Modern Art  (MoMA)

MoMa has 5 floors, if I’m not mistaken, but the setup isn’t as sprawling as the one at The Met. Among all of the installations in MoMa, Teiji Furuhashi’s Lovers really stood out for me. You enter a dark room where autorevolving projectors are at the center and they project “moving” pictures of a man and a woman. As per what I read, the projectors depend on the motions of the visitors. So the man and the woman could be walking towards or away each other, depending on the movements of the visitors. After a while the man and woman “intersect”, they become one. It’s actually pretty cool if you see it in person.

Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night is also displayed here, but most of the collections are modern art. We went during the free day – MoMa offers free entrance every Friday, from 4-8 pm. The only catch? There are so many people so you don’t really get to appreciate the artworks when it’s so crowded and hot inside. If you’re really into modern art, I suggest going on a regular day and just pay $25 fee. If you’re not in a hurry and are staying in NY for quite a while, going to the free night can give you a taste of the art, and you can just go back again if you like what you see.

Whitney Museum of American Art

Honestly, the art pieces didn’t seem interesting at first, but with just with other modern artworks, you really have to soak it in to appreciate it. I discovered that modern art may not be conventional, but it really makes you relate the piece with other parallelisms in life right now – through current events, politics, social phenomena, and even your own relationships.

There was this one installation which was just a wall of baloney nailed to it. Yes, real baloney. You can actually see the oil dripping from the wall if you look closely, and the baloney kinda looked hard and plasticky already.  Each piece had a photo of a person. My interpretation is this – sometimes we treat other people like they’re just a piece of meat, insignificant, disposable, etc. And this kind of situation is “complete baloney”.  

Some of the installations are quite disturbing though, so I suggest not to bring kids here. There’s some violent imagery and sexual innuendos.

Tip: A lot of museums in NY offer at least a day with 3-4 hours of free entrance so best to research ahead of time.

Also heard the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of the city of NY is pretty good.