The GUGGENHEIM

Wednesday I walked to the Guggenheim. Again, I live on E 64th and it is on E. 89th - another 20 miles in the OTHER direction from Macy's. It is right on Fifth Avenue though and it is such a great walk! I go straight west from my apartment at the corner of 2nd and 64th and cross 3rd, Lexington, Park, and Madison and I hit Fifth. It takes me about 12 minutes - the blocks east and west are much, much longer than the blocks that go north and south (these shorter blocks are numbered like 64th and they are STREETS while the others are AVENUES and they tend to spell out the avenues - like Fifth). The closer you get to Fifth, the grander the 'mansions' - the ones I have included pictures of in earlier posts. Once you get to Fifth, you are on the east edge of Central Park (who's southern edge is on 59th) so you can walk all along Central Park - with more mansions and fancy schmancy apartment buildings on the other side. Up around 81st you pass the Metropolitan Art Museum, which is actually on the west side of FIFTH, so it takes a piece out of the Park. It is SO huge I am thinking I will need to buy a membership to that one so I can come and go as I please instead of trying to cram it all in in 1 visit. The problem is, the tickets to these places are like $18 so you don't just want to stop in for a minute. I pass the Met and keep walking to 89th and the Guggenheim.

This building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright clear back in 1959, so I can imagine what people thought of it then. Oops, I didn't get a photo of the outside, just the inside, but it's round and modern and white and 5 stories tall. On the inside, it is open clear to the ceiling and this beautiful skylight which serves as the only source of natural light in the place. You buy your expensive ticket, you grab a free (yea!) audio tour, you act cool by placing it around the back of your neck instead of perching it on top of your head and you set off on the 5 story ramp that winds all around the exterior walls where the art is placed. Near the top you wonder why your ankles hurt and then realize it's because they have been holding your body upright on a slope for the past several hours. I'm not sure Frank thought of this.

These museums have so much great art, these smaller ones must determine 'exhibitions' so that they can show a limited number that fit a certain topic. For this particular exhibition, the Guggenheim chose pieces that were made during WW I and shortly after to show how fascism dictated what could and couldn't be produced and which artist could and could not survive and then what they produced with their new found freedom after it was all over. Keep in mind, these are guys like Manet, Picasso and Leger so it includes some gorgeous, famous things - even a room for Corbusier, who designed furniture.

Two things are happening here. One is that I am falling more and more in love with Picasso, which sounds a bit trite and expected - I mean, could I not have found someone new and obscure and mysterious? The more work I see of his in person, the more I realize what a genius he was, why he IS so stinking famous, how varied his work is (heck, if you don't like this one, just wait...) and how prolific. The guy must have hundreds and hundreds of masterpieces in NYC alone. The second thing is that I am realizing the importance of being able to really LOOK at them in person. Small reproductions in books have nothing on the real thing.