Guggenheim Museum NY

As a special for the month of May, Bank of America offered their account holders free admissions to selected musuems in different states. The Solomon R. Guggenheim museum was on their list and I had been wanting to go see this place but never got around to it somehow (I kept getting distracted by central park's activities and the METS).

So last Sunday, I finally went.

I have heard so much about how brilliant the building's architecture was for so long. I was gravely disappointed (actually that was also the reason why I nearly walked right pass it without realising I was already there!!) when I got there and found scaffolding outside the ENTIRE place. Even the museum's name plates at the front had been removed from the concrete wall!! It was still open and had exhibitions inside, but outside - NOTHING to look at!! I asked the lady at the ticket office and she said they were renovating the exterior and it would be like this until mid next year at least. Oh dread. I hope they finish the renovation before I leave NY. I'd at least like to see it once in its full glory!

Since I was already there (and it was free), I would have to take a look around at least.

The inside of the museum was beautiful and I am glad I took the time soak it all up. The building was in the shape of a giant spiral. So it was completely open in the middle of the museum, with a glass skylight right at the top so natural light filled the interior. Each of the 6 exhibition floors led to the next much like a giant continuous inclined ramp (there is an elevator should you want to make the trip quicker back to the ground floor). There were annex galleries on each floor with permanent exhibitions of Kandinsky, Picasso and Van Gogh works.



The weekend that I went they were featuring the work from sculptor David Smith. So on every floor of the museum, there were some weird and wonderful metal sculptures on display.


Fig 1. "Australia"? Hmmmm... Fig.2 Sculpture "Australia" Fig. 3 Hudson River Landscape

I say weird and wonderful because personally, I am not much of an art buff and I don't pretend to "get" or understand modern art (and thus I don't appreciate them all that much). My opinion was that if some of the "art pieces" in there got placed in a junk yard, I wouldn't be able to pick it from a pile of compacted scrap metal. Sorry.

However, even for someone with no appreciating for what "art" might be, some of the pieces were simply spectacular in their shapes and form. A pile of twisted metal rods and blocks came together somehow to became this spectacular 3-dimension "thought" that just seemed to leap out at me. I have to hand it to the sculptor - no way from looking at the 2D drawing in his sketchbook could I have predicted how in awe I was with the actual 3D sculpture.

With that said, I wasn't transformed into an instant modern art fan - so I actually managed to go up the 6 levels in relatively little time. In fact, the people watching was more interesting as some obviously had no more clues than I did, even with their audio commentary guides. Most of us "tourists" pondered together which parts of the metal pile were suppose to be what according to the title of the pieces.

I did spend much longer looking at the Van Gogh paintings they had (I love Van Gogh's brush strokes and use of colours for some reason unknown...), and the Kandinsky I almost dare to say I "liked" because of the vibrant colours and lines.