MOMA

Today we started the day with a walk to Bleecker Street for morning coffee and a look at a butcher's shop which specialises in game. I had the guinea fowl for tonight, so made a mental note to go back for "feral swine" and some more unusual birds for the pot.

Nearby is a craft store called Curious, which is. 

Braving the subway for the first time, we took the E train uptown to 53rd and 5th and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). We bought the New York City Pass (which bundles a half-dozen different NY attractions) and started hoofing around the 6-storied building.

The special displays were interesting - three installations by Claes Oldenburg (the Store, with lots of art based on foods; the Street with burlap and newsprint visualisations of a streetscape; and a couple of collections of nick-nacks "Mouse" and "Ray Guns". There was a detailed study of the art, architecture and urban designs of Le Corbusier and his lifelong ambition to reshape Paris as a futuristic city.

The permanent collections on two floors (pre-war Modern and post-1940 Modern) are a fraction of the works available but there are many great paintings that are a surprise to see in real life. I've snapped a few pictures of some very well known ones:

This one is SymbioticA's "Pig Wings" as part of the art/technology floor. There are quite a lot of computer games on display for the innovation in design.

So much art. The museum has some interesting options at the gift shop - one can order a print of anything in their collection and have it posted worldwide, which is brilliant. I didn't check on the whole range, but I did miss the Dali paintings and sketches that weren't on display today and will have a look online later.

 

 

As is my wont, I subsidised the museum by lunching at the cafe. It was run like a military operation, places on long tables arranged by orderlies like a Tetris puzzle. I may have had an accent failure - I asked for a macchiato and was served a macaroni. The meatballs were quite nice, very Italian.