Tag Archives: museum of modern art

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Donald Judd, Untitled 1989

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Donald Judd Untitled 1989
Photo By Gail

Untitled 1989, by legendary minimalist Donald Judd is installed on the 4th floor of NYC’s Museum of Modern Art. As you can see, this very colorful painted aluminum sculpture reaches nearly across the width of the room and, in this way, allows the museum-goer an opportunity to spatially interact with its three-dimensional properties (short, of course, of climbing onto it). I love the bright, primary colors of this piece and the form reminds me of playground equipment, which is always a happy thing to consider.
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Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Edward Hopper, House By The Railroad

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Edward Hopper House By The Railroad
Photo By Gail

House by the Railroad (1925) By American Realist Painter Edward Hopper is the first painting that was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, in 1930. If this house looks familar to you, it may because it is said to have inspired the look of the Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho. So, there’s that.

Curator, Ann Temkin offers her insight about the painting:
House by the Railroad is very much a portrait of a house. And I think the loneliness of the house is what really comes through in the painting. You would think that there would be some kind of activity, perhaps, on this bright, sunny day. And yet there is this stillness that pervades the canvas. Some people have speculated that the railroad tracks in front of the house imply movement. And of course, there is no train. But the implication of movement in those tracks makes you all the more aware of the absolute lack of movement in this picture.

I really love this painting, which is displayed adjacent to Andrew Wyeth’s famous work, Christina’s World, at MOMA.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night

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Van Gogh Starry Night
Photo By Gail

Painted in June of 1889, The Starry Night is likely Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh’s most popular work on canvas. “This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big,” van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, from France. Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Goghs response to nature. In thick, sweeping brushstrokes, a flamelike cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh’s native land, the Netherlands.

The Starry Night is part of the Permanent Collection at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Marcel Duchamp’s Fresh Widow

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Fresh Widow
Photo By Gail

I first became acquainted with Marcel Duchamp’s very famous sculpture, Fresh Widow (1920), when I was studying art in college. Constructed by a carpenter in accordance with Duchamp’s instructions, Fresh Widow is a small version of the double doors commonly called a French window. Duchamp was fascinated by themes of sight and perception; here, the expectation of a view through windowpanes is thwarted by opaque black leather, which Duchamp insisted “be shined everyday like shoes.” Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Marcel Duchamp’s Fresh Widow →

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory

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The Persistence of Memory
Photo By Gail (Click Image to Enlarge for Detail)

Arguably one of Salvador Dali’s most well-known paintings, The Persistence of Memory (1931) is perhaps most famous for its images of melted timepieces and ants — which can be seen swarming on the face of the golden-colored stop watch in the lower left-hand side of the painting. Both of these motifs show up now and again in Dali’s signature surrealist works. The painting was given as an anonymous gift to MOMA and is part of the museum’s permanent collection.