A few thoughts from a weekend visit to Manhattan…
Metropolitan Museum: Gertrude Stein exhibit (see it); new Islamic art wing (nice, but the non-expert may have trouble understanding why these particular objects are different than those decorative items one might see in a wealthy Turkish home, for example); Byzantium and Islam show (skip; any connections between Byzantine/Christian art and Islamic art are tough to see); Naked before the Camera (skip; photographs from the Met’s collection in which people happen to appear naked); Fu Baoshi (see it; the career of a Chinese artist develops during the Communist revolution).
MOMA: Diego River murals (see it, especially for the sketches from a 1927 visit to Moscow (Rivera was a devout Marxist)); Cindy Sherman exhibit (sad because the late 1970s small scale black and white untitled film stills were the best work; the more recent pictures taken with super high-res cameras and blessed with unlimited printing and framing budgets were hard to understand).
Seminar: Funny script, brilliant acting (especially from Zoe Lister-Jones). Alan Rickman has been replaced by Jeff Goldblum, but in some ways he seems better for the role due to the need for him to be attractive to a couple of young women. The ending is a little weak/confusing.
I noticed, apparently rather late, that the Triborough Bridge has been renamed the “RFK Bridge”. It made me kind of sad that the U.S. is building so little new stuff that we have to find something built in the 1930s and rename it. It also saddened me that the current crop of politicians is so uninspiring that we have to keep reaching back to the 1960s and naming more stuff after the Kennedys. (My companion in the taxi, not a U.S. citizen, pointed out that it would have been more sensible to rename the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick after Ted Kennedy.)
It would have made sense if he had USED it. It would be better to name a changing area on the beach after him instead.
There are still some folks, even in government, who remember that it’s considered unseemly to name major public monuments after people who are still alive at the time. So although I doubt there’s a Kennedy who’s lived in the past century who doesn’t already have way too many things named after him, I wouldn’t consider it a source of disappointment in current politicians that we’re not naming things after _them_.
As a 26 year old, I can assure you that Alan Rickman is far more attractive than Jeff Goldblum.
Was this your first time seeing Seminar? The original cast was very special and, as fine of an actress as she may be, Zoe doesn’t hold a candle to Lily Rabe.
Kristin: I will take your word for any question regarding male attractiveness! (And to answer your question, I had wanted to see the play with the original cast but did not manage to.)
Very funny the comment about that Cape Cod bridge 🙂
And don’t worry about having to reach to the 1960s to find politicians to name things after. I’m absolutely confident that in the not too distant future we’ll see quite a few things named after the 2009 Nobel peace prize winner (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/). He won’t even have to be dead for that to happen.
Non-Kennedy, still alive politician NYC bridge naming: Queensborough/59th street bridge is now the Ed Koch bridge. Go figure.
Dear ,
It is a wonderfull exhibition,”The Steins Collect;Matisse,Picasso,Cezanne and the Parisian Avant Garde” .
And what a pleasure to see the portrait of Gertrude Stein by Riba-Rovira .Beside Tchelitchew and Balthus .
And you have an interesting article in Appollo London Revew about .And also in Artes Magazine from San Francisco where the exhibition was before .
And also the Preface Gertrude Stein wrote for his first exhibition in the Galerie Roquepine in Paris on 1945 .
Where we can read Gertrude Stein writing Riba-Rovira “will go farther than Cezanne…will succeed in where Picasso failed…I am fascinated ” by Riba-Rovira Gertrude Stein tells us .
And you are you also fascinated indeed as Gertrude Stein ?
But Gertrude Stein spoke also in this same document about Matisse and Juan Gris .And we learn Riba-Rovira went each week in Gertrude Stein’s saloon rue Christine .
With Edward Burns and Carl Van Vechten we can know Riba-Rovira did others portraits of Gertrude Stein .
But we do not know where they are ;and you do you know perhaps ?
With this wonderful portrait we do not forget it is the last time Gertrude Stein sat for an artist who is Riba-Rovira .
This exhibition presents us a world success with this last painting portrait before she died .
Both ,it is one of the last text where she gives her last art vision .As a light over that exhibition now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York .
Coming from San Francisco “Seeing five stories” to Washington and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York for our pleasure .
And the must is to see for the first time in the same place portraits by Picasso, Picabia, Riba-Rovira, Tall-Coat, Valloton .
You have the translate of Gertrude Stein’s Riba-Rovira Preface on english Gertrude Stein’s page on Wikipedia and in the catalog of this exhibition you can see in first place the mention of this portrait .And also other pictures Gertrude Stein bought him .
And you have another place where you can see now Riba-Rovira’s works it is an exhibition in Valencia in Spain “Homenage a Gertrude Stein” by Riba-Rovira in Galleria Muro ,if you like art …
Cesera