Art in Manhattan

While on the topic of New York I thought I would finish it off talking about the art galleries I visited in New York. I went to a few small art dealer shops in Manhattan which were all unique and interesting. However the Art galleries were, although overcrowded, very impressive.

Firstly I visited the Guggenheim on 89th and Fifth (to talk the lingo) right opposite the Jaqueline Kennedy reservoir. The Guggenheim was built by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I hadn't heard too much about him before I went but luckily while we were there they had an exhibition of his work. I found his work absolutely amazing, his ideas and hopes were innovative and original. His work often promoted organic architecture and the American Institute of Architects named wright as "The greatest american architect of all time."

Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim to have a spiral walkway around the building so that when going around the building you can view all of the artworks properly in the sequence intended by the artists.

There were so many interesting pieces of art work there which were all quite contemporary with a mix of modern and older styles. However the Wright exhibition was still my favourite. They had tonnes of information about his work including designs for heletaxi's, a mile high building, and a huge underground mall with an aquarium dome in the centre. Also included were circular environmentally friendly houses, perhaps from the same ideas as his Guggenheim designs. The Guggenheim left me wanting more and i cannot wait to return in the future to see what new exciting exhibitions they'll have on show.

Another gallery I visited, not surprisingly, was MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art). Automatically you can feel the difference from the Guggenheim when you walk into MOMA.

At the top of MOMA I was luck enough to see a special display of Ron Arad's work titled "No Discipline". An extremely famous designer, who's innovation and curiosity sets him aside from the rest. His work included a reversed pin hole camera reflecting dots of light around one corner of the room. Also his ideas for spinning restaurants at the top of mountains, a LED chandelier where you could text messages to appear through the spiral. He also had a huge shelf he had designed in an odd symmetrical style that allowed people to view all his different designs.

Also available at MOMA were iconic Andy Warhol pieces including Marylyn Monroe and Campbell's soup. I also had the opportunity to see Monet's Water Lillie's, up close I was rather disappointed by them. As much as they were beautiful I think the hype built up around such a big artist can either satisfy you or build you up for an even bigger let down , as happened with me. The Dance by Matisse was also on display at MOMA. This attracted a lot of attention from the crowds and I was not let down by the piece of art. I remember reading about it and getting a full appreciation for the painting as its smoothness and colours work so well.

The main exhibition that attracted the most attention at MOMA was a very unusual collection of items arranged around a small house looking thing titles "Waste Not". Once I worked my way down to its level I learnt that it was a Chinese artist called Song Dong that had used all of the items his mother, Zhao Xiangyan, had collected throughout her life. She has lived her life by way of a chinese tradition of keeping all possessions incase they were needed or could be used at a later date. The neatly lay out collection included toothbrushes, bottle tops, cardboard, shoes, kitchen utensils and every day junk things that this woman had collected. Usually this could have seemed slightly neurotic and odd but the lovely story behind it all added personality and character to each individual object and provided a nice way of looking at each piece of scrap.