Monday, January 08, 2007


Went with my niece Tiana to the Bodies exhibit at the South Street Seaport yesterday. Pretty interesting, especially the portions dealing with the circulatory and nervous systems. In the former, they injected a red polymer into the cadaver's veins, apparently a very fine one as it got deep into the smaller veins and capillaries where it hardened. Then, the surrounding tissue and bone was dissected or perhaps acid-bathed away, leaving an amazing "cloud" of veins.

We then went up to MOMA. I realized I hadn't actually been through the regular collection since they returned to the 53rd St. site, having only gone there for the Richter exhibit a couple years back. Struck me as a well-organized collection when you go to the 5th floor and work your way down. The 6th floor had a Brice Marden show; while I enjoyed the squiggles, I found the solid color pieces much more beautiful than I had before, things like this:















Other highlights were the Bill Viola installation ("Stations"), the big Twombley's, a couple of Rauschenberg combines and a welcome re-meeting with the Richter Baader-Meinhof series, still one of the strongest things in recent visual art I've seen.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw the Baader-Meinhoff exhibit at the Grey Gallery on the NYU campus many years ago. I've always been drawn to fuzzy, out of focus pictures (and am always snapping them on my cellphone) and there's a haunting quality to those pieces that has really stayed with me.

Anonymous said...

This is one of very few blogs that I can actually "interesting". You always talk about something new and of cultural value. Thanks and keep blogging!

Anonymous said...

Reading this blog reminds me of Lisa Simpson's reaction to a marquee reading "Yahoo Serious Festival." I know what all the words mean individually, but...

Brian Olewnick said...

Thanks, Franceso.

Damn you, Smith!