Category Archives: MoMA

Light on Water: Monet at MoMA

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Monets are pretty. I’m sure those who go to see MoMA’s small exhibition devoted to his water lilies series will agree. You might go on to say he anticipates abstract expressionism, that he left his canvasses radically unfinished, etc. All good points, ones that this exhibition will remind you of. Roberta Smith in her NYTimes article also informs you that he was influenced by Japanese screens. I like Monet’s Water Lilies, BUT

perhaps because they are so iconic
or perhaps because they’re just so pretty…
[insert shoulder shrug] they don’t excite me.

I am mildly interested looking at them. I like to trace the bare canvas at the edges and notice how he layered color. I was pleased the colors in my Labor day photos and his paintings tied in nicely. But Monet hardly demands a strong reaction–he’s a more contemplative sort. The kind who was entranced by watching sunsets. And that’s fair enough.

Light on water is quite pretty.

In & Out of Amsterdam at MoMA

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Amsterdam in the 1970s functioned as a hub for Conceptual artists, MoMA’s thorough, enlightening new exhibition documents. Old exhibition posters lead you down the hall into rooms of slide projectors and photographs. For me, it drew connections between various familiar and unfamiliar artists. For example, this wall:

is not Sol Le Witt, but by Lawrence Weiner, or at least according to his directions. So which came first, the Weiner or the Sol?

All the art felt dated, and the exhibition felt like a collection of excavated fossils brought out for study at the Natural History Museum. Partly the concepts have been absorbed into mainstream contemporary art, so that a video of a chorus singing doesn’t have the same effect it once would have and Gilbert and George’s living art is remembered with nostalgia.

Personally, I found it hard to pay so much attention to artifacts that lacked real intellectual or visual interest. For all that I found certain pieces cool or neat, I never really felt engaged. That doesn’t diminish the scholarly and historical value of the exhibition, and it’s quite possible I’m not familiar enough with the material to get it, but I found it a challenging exhibition to really enjoy. Maybe any thorough exhibition of conceptual art is bound to be, in my case at least, in one ear–

Photograph of exhibition wall [ears mine].

–and out the other.

Weird Earthly Delights: From Ensor to Bosch

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Ensor’s show at MoMA reminded me of yet another comparison: a similarly weird, awkwardly- figured, semi- allegorical/demonic painter: Bosch. Ensor’s work is deliberately bizarre as a method of self- fashioning, while Hieronymus Bosch– well, is anybody’s guess, but mine would be he couldn’t help himself. He was truly odd.

If you want a fun trip around the world, take Google Earth over to the Prado Museum in Spain where you can see Bosch’s masterful triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights in which a “religious” imagination runs riot.


Things are fairly normal on the left hand side, where God creates Adam and Eve. Hell is still recognizable in the right hand panel. In the center, the garden of earthly delights is full of nude cavorting men, women, birds and monsters who stick things in odd places rather than the more innocent pleasures of, say, board games and ice cream.

Check out some of Bosch’s earthly delights:


Each of these scenes are supposed to have an individual moral meaning, but they all seem centered on the pleasures of the flesh. Although the triptych form suggests it was intended as a altarpiece, the bizarre acts of the nude figures have convinced most art historians that it must have been intended for a lay person. (Or a swinging monastery perhaps??)


The difficult symbology of the central panel has often been interpreted as a warning over life’s temptations, and what a warning it is. Symbolism of this work is certainly open to interpretation and this worked in Bosch’s favor. Amazingly considering the subject matter, this panel was popular enough to generate many copies and Bosch flourished even under the sway of the Medieval Church. While I’m not sure of the particulars, I know what the works says to me:


Look at me! Look at all these happy, nude cavorting figures exploring their sexuality. What fun, with fruit and water and flowers and other naked people! This is so much more interesting than those two smaller, boring panels to the side. Wouldn’t you like to live here?