Four of us arrived at the Museum of Modern Art this morning at 10:15 am, placing us about 1000th in line. The place was closed for a few years while $858 million was pumped in for renovation and expansion. Before the renovation MoMA was white walls, bright lights, crushing crowds, one amazing painting out of every 20, $10 to get in. After the near $1 billion project? White walls, bright lights, crushing crowds, one amazing painting out of every 20… $20 to get in. We made it into the museum by 11:15 but claustrophobia made us all anxious to leave by 12:15. One native Manhattanite said that it was the most crowded place he had been inside during the preceding 12 months.
Personal favorite exhibit: Bell 47 helicopter, as seen in the TV show MASH, hanging near some open stairs. Strangest architectural detail: glass half-walls throughout the museum topped with strips of stainless steel. These are apparently too fragile for anyone to touch but because MoMA most resembles the line for Space Mountain at Disneyland it is hard for people to avoid putting their hands on these rails. this necessitates the museum keeping dozens of security guards busy at all times walking around telling people not to touch the rails.
[Tip for tourists: If you can plan at least one day ahead you can buy timed tickets on the MoMA Web site and avoid waiting on line in the cold.]
Friday evening admission is free, sponsored by Target. It sounds like the crowds are about as bad if you shell out $20 a head, so you may as well save your money and join the cattle line on Target nights.
The $20 is obscene. All the other major musuems in New York [Frick, Guggenheim, MET, Whitney] were $12 in November when the MOMA raised its price. Yes. $12. OF course, not be outdone, the Guggenheim has since raised their price to $18. No doubt the other musuems will soon follow suit.
Someone of course, has come up with a protest website, FreeMoma.org.
It certainly got bigger but bigger table doesn’t mean to serve better food.
but i liked it. one of kind. very NYC.
Japanese architect+many european audience(thanks for stong euro)+oldMYC based founders+global corporations money+great arts… = MoMA!
http://kr.blog.yahoo.com/jongbumlee/951723.html?p=1&pm=l
I was there a day earlier, the twentieth person in line outside to get into the line inside at the members’ coat check.
The industrial design exhibit at the new MoMA is not as educational as the old one, which had a case of vernacular designs so simple that one could not tell what century they were from. It was always worth reviewing those designs before going on to see whatever new objects were on display.
Today, you can see more in-production industrial design, better displayed with highly legible and informative labels, at Moss on Greene Street in SoHo. The labels at MoMA are so terse that the Vitsoe shelving system, made of epoxy powder-coated steel, anodized extruded aluminum, and mdf is described as being made of one ingredient: steel. (www.vitsoe.com)
I almost forgot. Murray Moss does not charge admission.