Monthly Archives: December 2008

New York City Art Museums on the Cheap

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I can claim expertise in few things, but how to view art on the cheap is something at which I excel. With the right timing and a flexible schedule, you don’t need to pay oodles to see the museums of New York City.

Below are the how-tos to seeing some of the greatest works of art in the world. Whatever your taste, these eight New York City museums are easy and fun to visit on the cheap. Note that listed prices are for adults; admission for students, seniors, and children often has a discounted price.

First, let’s hit the “majors,” which should be part of any cultural enthusiast’s outings in New York City.

1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Avenue)
The Met lists a suggested ticket price of $20 dollars. A suggestion is not a price. They accept as little as a dollar, and then you’re in to see this behemoth’s grand cultural offerings, ranging from Egyptian pyramids to African reed boats to European portraits. They also have constantly changing exhibitions, which are included with the price of admission.

2. The Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53 Street)
MoMA will cost you $20 as well, unless you go on Friday nights. On Fridays between 4 pm and 8 pm, Target hosts a free night at the preeminent museum of modern and contemporary art. An additional great secret: movie tickets are free with admission. I’ve picked up tickets for an 8:30 film, and seen everything from John Waters’ Pink Flamingos to classics of German avant-garde cinema. Beware the crowds, however.

3. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1071 Fifth Avenue)
Is seeing the interior of the newly-restored Frank Lloyd Wright building worth $18? The Guggenheim certainly has great exhibitions of contemporary art right now. However, this private museum is not cheapskate-friendly. If you’re going to pay, you should check their events calendar to make sure you time your trip to coincide with one of their lectures or, even better, go to their Art after Dark program where they have DJs until 1 am.

These big stars are definitely worth a visit, but the city has other outstanding art museums that are well worth your time.

4. Whitney Museum of American Art (945 Madison Avenue)
Fifteen dollars will give you access to the Whitney’s collection of 20th century American art and exhibitions of American artists past and present, such as Kara Walker and William Eggleston. Like so many on this list, the Whitney also has a Friday night pay-what-you-wish program from 6 to 9 pm. The Whitney goes a step beyond the other museums by making the free night a fun event with live music and other innovative performance arts.

5. The Frick Collection (1 E. 70th St.)
Admittedly a narrow time slot, but from 11 am to 1 pm on Sundays, you can visit the Frick for free instead of for $15. Often overlooked compared to bigger museums, this little jewel of a collection has remained in the mansion of turn-of the century business tycoon Henry Frick since he bequeathed it to the public. It contains masterpieces of Western painting and sculpture.

6. New Musuem (235 Bowery)
The New Museum houses contemporary art in a brand new building downtown, making it a great stop if you’re in the area. At $12, this is a relatively cheap dose of contemporary culture. However, if you’re in the the area on a Thursday night, stop in between 7 and 10 pm to mingle with a young, hipster crowd and see the works of artists artists such as Elizabeth Peyton and Mary Hielman.

7. Brooklyn Museum of Art (200 Eastern Parkway)
This museum has a diverse collection and is easily accessible from Manhattan. The suggested donation price is $8. As I mentioned in regard to the Met, a suggestion means you can pay what you wish. In addition, on the first Saturday of the month, BMA hosts a free night of art and entertainment, which often includes dancing to live music in its atrium. It exhibits art from across the globe, and has an excellent center of feminist art that features Judith Chicago’s Dinner Party.

8. American Folk Art Museum (45 West 53rd Street)
Admission is a reasonable $9 to see this under-visited museum’s collection of paintings and textiles from America’s earliest days to the present. However, if you visit on Friday evenings between 5:30 and 7:30 pm you can listen to live music in the atrium and explore the galleries for free.

If you want your culture fix cheap, New York City offers many options at its museums. In addition, galleries have openings throughout the year, where new works of an artists are shown on an intimate scale. These free openings are fun not only because you can see new works, but because of free drinks and great people-watching. Artcards is a great site to check for new openings and events. With a little forethought, you can see all the art you want on a reasonable budget.

(Originally published December 07, 2008 in Blogcritics Magazine)

When art functions as entertainment…

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Can visual art such as a painting function as pure entertainment and still be art? My boyfriend argues yes.

I’m reading Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth, because said boyfriend left one of many copies at my house and I was destitute for a story. I’m withholding judgment on the tale of those lusty old adulterers for the moment.

Said boyfriend bought his third (fourth?) copy of Sabbath’s Theater because the cover of appealed to him; a sailor leering over a women on a red background. It’s a reproduction of German painter Otto Dix‘s Girl with Sailor. (Unfortunately, the image is not on the internet.) The cover shows the sailor’s face on the front, and where his hand is reaching over a pale woman on the back.

We googled Dix’s other works, which I’ve never cared for and my boyfriend found quite “fun.” Many of his paintings share the same lurid quality. Especially his art deco-ish scenes, I find a flat amalgamation of colors without harmony or meaning. His darker and more straight forward critiques of Wiemar lack subtlety and imagination. We both agree it’s poster art, mere decoration. But am I right to put in that “mere”? Why shouldn’t art be decoration?

Artists’ works are described as important, as agents of social change. That is, I’ve yet to walk into a gallery and been told that it held random bits of pretty fluff with which to decorate.

Art is a loaded term, so, despite my genius and discerning taste on so many levels, I won’t attempt to define art here. But I’m intereseted in what you think. What do you want out of art? Casual amusement, to be moved, to be entertained, to think differently because of it? Have I elevated art to unrealistic ideals by expecting more than decoration out of it?

Poster art only?

Sam Leith defend books, I applaud

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An uplifting and moral article by Sam Leith, the Literary Editor of The Daily Telegraph, a UK newspaper. In “Grand Theft Auto, Twitter and Beowulf all demonstrate that stories will never die,” he defends the strength of the narrative in human culture to the delight of all writers and readers, with emphasis on the unfair attack on books by proponents of modern technology who feel books are antiquary repositories of knowledge.

Knowledge and stories come in many shapes and forms. My personal favorite form is a book, and not at all because I’m trying to write one. In anything, I’d say the book form and I have developed a healthy antagonism for just that reason. But the power of the narrative in its classic form is something I consider obvious.
I blog, but I by no means use this platform as write a long story. I use it to connect to other short pieces and to combine word with images and videos. It communicates in a different way by its medium, which is the point, I fancy, of Leith’s piece, which I encourage all with old-fashioned bookish tastes to read.
In a twist on this, check out Pepys’ Diary in online blog format, where each entry in the diary of Samual Pepys from the 1600s is posted daily, so you can follow his story in much the fashion it was written.