Results tagged “museum”

As mentioned in our newsletter this morning, the Guggenheim turns 50 today (and is celebrating with free admission). The Daily News looks back on the museum's past, with 50 facts about the building, which Robert Moses once described as "an inverted oatmeal dish." A few of our favorites:
• To design the museum, Wright created more than 700 sketches.
• As for the unusual look of the building, Wright proclaimed, "It's going to make the Metropolitan look like a Protestant barn."
• The building was named a landmark in 1990, one of the youngest ever to earn the distinction.

              

For twelve years now the American Museum of Natural History has brought butterflies to Manhattan from all over the world. Last weekend their "Butterfly Conservatory: Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter" exhibit opened (it will run through May 31st of next year), and we sent Katie Sokoler over to photograph the 500 vibrant creatures (monarchs, zebra longwings, and paper kites amongst them). What to expect: a 1,200-square-foot vivarium, a freestanding structure aflutter with activity, lamps simulating sunlight in the rain forest, recorded sounds of howler monkeys, parakeets and other animals. Get more details here.

Will the Whitney Museum finally open a second location? An agreement between the museum and the city has been three years in the making, but the NY Times reports that they're forging ahead with plans to open a Renzo Piano-designed space at the entrance of the High Line; it will be six stories high and twice the size of their current location.

For two hours a week, there's a museum off the BQE that opens its doors and fights for the preservation of Admiral's Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The NY Times reports on Scott Witter's cause, which is displayed on a sign in his museum; it reads: “Don’t let Pirate Mike steal our heritage.”

This rare piece of textile on display (starting today) at the American Museum of Natural History was made by one million wild Golden Orb spiders from Madagascar (they can grow up to the size of a human hand)! At least, they produced the silk for it. Nothing quite like spider silk to keep you warm in the winter—Snuggie should get on that.

    

Today the Museum of Chinese in America welcomed Mayor Bloomberg to speak and participate in traditional Chinese eye-dotting ceremony as they unveiled their new facility, designed by Maya Lin. A little more on that eye-dotting: "According to Chinese custom, dabbing red ink onto the eye of a large, dancing dragon or lion brings the creature to life. It is a tradition for dignitaries to perform this ceremony at the launch of a new institution to signify that it has sprung into being." In other words, this is way cooler than a ribbon cutting.

       

The Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the Whitney opened yesterday, and it may not be what you expect. The artist created some lesser known abstract works throughout her career, which have remained overlooked in favor of her landscapes and flowers. This exhibit, fittingly called "Abstraction" acknowledges those works. The exhibit includes 130 paintings, drawings, watercolors and sculptures, as well as photos of the artist by Alfred Stieglitz, whom she met in New York City and introduced her to many early American modernists.

Well this isn't a pretty picture, but who doesn't love an art caper come full circle? Last month two drawings by Russian artist Nicholas Roerich were stolen from the Nicholas Roerich Museum (where else?). While one piece was returned in the mail (with a return address), the NY Post now reports that a Brooklyn couple was busted at a LES Starbucks trying to sell the other one to an undercover cop. "Denis Ryjenko, 35, and his girlfriend, Natella Croussouloudis, 42, were arrested Sept. 3 as they tried to unload a small masterpiece. One of them even told the 'buyer' the painting was hot and warned him not to hang it on his gallery wall." The couple had been showing it to people in their Midwood apartment, and were prepared to sell the piece (which is worth well over $100,000) for $40,000. Their landlord told the paper they owed $7,500 in back rent and recently had their power and gas shut off.

The recent eviction of Pasang Sherpa—the hot dog vendor who was booted from outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art after refusing to pay the full $643,000 a year rent to the Parks Department—got us thinking: Why didn't we major in hot dog vending? The previous permit holder outside the museum paid $415,000 annually and didn't go under, so one imagines there's a tidy profit to be made there or other tourist magnets around town. But street vendor advocacy groups tell Slate that selling dogs isn't as glamorous as it might seem, and most food vendors make just $14,000 to $16,000 a year after they've paid for permits (and, inevitably, a few tickets). Vendors on city streets (not the ones at or near park areas) pay $200 a year for the permit, but the city caps the number of permits at 3,100, creating an extensive black market. Some unscrupulous companies buy up permits for dozens of carts and then lease them to individual vendors at highly inflated prices. And now there are these fancy new food trucks horning in! Kenny Lao, an owner of the Rickshaw Dumpling Truck, says his life was threatened by other vendors he opened flast year, telling the Times, "The old vendors are edgy."

       

Vasily Kandinsky is getting a full-scale retrospective treatment at the Guggenheim next month (the exhibit will run from September 18th through January 13th). The comprehensive survey will include "nearly 100 of Kandinsky’s most important canvases from 1907 to 1942... drawn primarily from the three largest repositories of the artist’s work—the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau in Munich—as well as from significant private and public collections." There will also be over 60 works on paper, and combined this will be the largest retrospective of the artist’s career in the United States since the 80s.

       

Not that we needed any convincing about Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949), but after New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl declared that the "astonishing" Ensor retrospective at MoMA "will affect many viewers like the detonation of a bomb whose fuse has been fizzing inconspicuously for a century," we quit procrastinating and finally humped it to midtown on Saturday. It was definitely worth the trip, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the exhibit wasn't disastrously mobbed in the way that blockbuster museum retrospectives tend to get.

The color of the Guggenheim's facade has been discussed over and over again, but did you know that Frank Lloyd Wright designed it to be red? More specifically, "Exterior: Red-marble and long-slim pottery red bricks."

The USS Growler was officially welcomed back to the Intrepid last week following two years of renovations. (Last year we saw it on the move, twice.) NY Post editor, Growler enthusiast and "Cold War veteran of the Submarine Service" Bob McManus reports back, and gives a little Memorial Day history lesson on the submarine that played a role in winning the Cold War, noting that, "All Moscow really knew of Growler and her sister ships back then was that one or another was always somewhere close by, armed with nuclear-tipped missiles and thus posing an existential threat to the Soviet Union itself." The sub was commissioned in 1958 and decommissioned by 1964. After a stay at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington it was finally brought to Manhattan in 1988. Learn more here.

       

The long holiday weekend is here, and what better way to spend the sunny hours than with an escape into the demented mind of Francis Bacon? The Metropolitan Museum of Art has just opened their Centenary Retrospective on the artist, the first major New York exhibition on him in twenty years. The NY Times notes that it "won't do much to alter the polarities of opinion around Bacon" but it does dispute the belief that his art declined throughout the years, "indicating that it often improved as his colors brightened, his paint handling gained muscularity. It was equally important that he began to focus on people he knew and cared about, giving them faces that seem simultaneously masked, gouged out of wet clay and recognizably individual." It may be a good opportunity to reevaluate his work, which the museum notes has been seen in a new light following his death in 1992.

     

The Guggenheim has just unveiled a playful exhibit, titled A Year with Children 2009: Selected Works from Learning Through Art—an exhibition organized by the Sackler Center for Arts Education that will be on view through August 9th. The exhibit shows the works of 2nd through 6th grade students hailing from 16 different NYC public schools. We're told, "These schools have participated in Learning Through Art (LTA), a 39-year-old pioneering arts education program of the Guggenheim Museum, during the 2008-09 school year. Approximately 200 colorful and imaginative works will be on display, including prints, paintings, sculptures, mobiles, and more."

While Barack Obama hasn't visited New York since becoming President, First Lady Michelle Obama has returned time and again. She was just on Sesame Street earlier this month, and now she's back with a few cultural stops on her schedule today. "This visit is crafted, according to East Wing guidance, to allow Mrs. Obama to continue to demonstrate her interest in and support for the arts by attending the ribbon cutting for the Metropolitan Museum of Art American Wing. In the evening she will attend the American Ballet Opening Spring Gala at the Metropolitan Opera House." Doesn't sound like she'll be visiting the portrait of her at the New Museum, but expect high security in those other areas today and tonight! [via Mrs. O]

Could the space shuttle Atlantis land in the Hudson? The folks at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum are crossing their fingers. The NY Times reports that they envision the shuttle, which took hold of the Hubble Space Telescope yesterday, housed in a glass enclosure at the end of Pier 86. They are just "one of 20 institutions that responded by a March 17 deadline to ask NASA about its plan to give away the last of the shuttles: Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis."

     

The Met sure is having a big week! First their Costume Institute Ball brought all the big names out, and then the NY Times reported on their recent renovation. They explain that in the 1970s the museum "unveiled a plan to create its own Crystal Palace in Central Park—a glass-enclosed, glass-roofed space to house its expanded American Wing—Community Planning Board 8 voted 24 to 1 against the proposal, and one board member called it a rape of the park." That board member was likely feeling violated around 1980, when the American Wing opened, and perhaps even more so now, following two years of construction and renovations it will open up to the public on May 19th.

      

The City Reliquary Museum delves deeper into the somewhat mysterious prefab constructions located on the Flushing Bay Promenade in Queens. They'll be opening their exhibit Candela Structures: A New York City History Mystery on May 16th, which promises to tell "the story of the underappreciated fiberglass formations and the surprising culture of mystery and misinformation surrounding them, from their origins as exhibit spaces during the 1964 World's Fair to their current status as neglected but enduring landmarks on the Queens waterfront."

During a time when art appreciators aren't paying the full suggested admission price to get into museums, and the Queens Museum is selling off panorama real estate, the Brooklyn Museum has just announced they'll be raising their suggested admission fee. Starting on March 21st (just prior to the opening of Sun K. Kwak's Enfolding 280 Hours installation) the suggested fee will go up 2 bucks (making it $10 for adults and $6 for older adults and students). Director Arnold Lehman addressed the change, saying, "We truly regret that the challenges created by the economic downturn have made it necessary to modestly increase the admissions fee at the Brooklyn Museum. We are grateful to the Department of Cultural Affairs for its support as we move forward with this suggested admissions increase." The museum will, however, keep running their Target First Saturdays series, with free admission for all. And let's not forget, there's even a free shuttle that'll take you there.

      

The Guggenheim sent out a press release yesterday the size of The Fountainhead describing their upcoming Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward exhibition (opening in May and running through August). In celebration of the building's 50 year anniversary the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has helped them piece together the installation, which will present 64 projects designed by Wright, all displayed on the spiral ramps of the museum he designed. The CEO of the foundation says that, "Rather than a retrospective, this exhibition focuses on the diversity of Wright's vision and the ways he sought to realize it...The concept of the exhibition also reflects a growing recognition of the enormous relevance today of Frank Lloyd Wright's design philosophies, which embrace culture, technology and environment." Sad fact: Wright actually died six months prior to the grand opening of the Guggenheim.

With the Met Museum announcing a series of layoffs, it's not surprising to hear that visitors of the establishment aren't paying the full recommended admission fee. The NY Post reports that folks aren't willing to fork over the dough during the tough economic times, and many are just giving $1 (of the suggested $20) for their visit. For the Met and other NYC museums that have long shunned a set admission price, there's probably nothing they can do if they don't want to see a decrease in visitors. One recently laid off art lover told the paper, "If they didn't do it, I'm not sure I would come. I really appreciate that they allow me to pay on a sliding scale." There is one museum that hasn't taken a hit yet, the Museum of Natural History is still getting their $15 suggested price from visitors. A spokesman confirmed, "For the time being...people are paying the suggested donation." Survival of the fittest?

Yesterday the Metropolitan Museum of Art sent out a statement announcing 74 layoffs at its stores (following 53 layoffs last year) with more to come from the museum's overall staff. The NY Times reports that as many as 250 full and part time jobs may be lost before summer. While the cuts will hit every department, including curatorial, Met officials have declared the changes won't affect the museum's hours, exhibitions or standards. On top of endowment losses, "the museum will receive $1.7 million less in operating help from the city this year and has been told to expect another cutback that could be as high as $2.4 million in the next fiscal year." With the recession hitting even the most prestigious of institutions these days, the paper notes that the layoffs are also in part due to problems that its merchandising arm have been facing. If you'd like to help, they also shared that membership renewals have been on the decline (wink wink, nudge nudge).

A space capsule has landed at the Intrepid! Earlier today a Beech T-34 Mentor airplane and a replica of a Gemini 3 space capsule, touched down on the Air & Space Museum. The plane will be part of an interactive display, giving visitors a taste of what it was like to "bring planes to the flight deck." The capsule is a replica of the one that took part in the first American two-man space mission; "on March 23rd, 1965 Intrepid helicopters picked up Gemini 3 astronauts John Young and Virgil 'Gus' Grissom and their two-person capsule nicknamed Molly Brown" after they orbited the Earth three times. Allegedly the nickname was a reference to Grissom's previous incident with the Liberty Bell 7 capsule, which sank in the Atlantic.

You can't really beat a $1 mini burger that comes with a side of hip-hop history. The NY Times reports on a tiny "new" burger joint in Hollis, Queens (called Hollis Famous Burgers) that also houses a Hip-Hop Museum, and admission is included with your meal (video!). The paper reports that "There are more than 100 items on the walls testifying to the neighborhood as a fertile ground for hip-hop artists. Along with a helping of chicken wings, washed down with a cup of 'Hollis Famous' lemonade, customers can examine the hit CDs of local rap legends" and much more. At the opening yesterday, the establishment (owned by a childhood friend of RUN DMC) received a blessing of sorts from DMC/Darryl McDaniels as he laid down some classic lyrics and delivered a little speech. Will this give Queens an edge against Brooklyn in the ongoing battle to gain ownership of the genre? Even though the birthplace is in the Bronx, the debate has spread to some of the other boroughs.

The Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim worked out an agreement with a German art collector's heirs right before the case was headed to jury selection. This allow the MoMA to keep "Boy Leading a Horse" (1905-1906) and the Guggenheim "Le Moulin de la Galette” (1900; pictured). Bloomberg News reports, "Both paintings had been in the private collection of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a German Jewish banker, who died in 1935. The plaintiffs claimed in the suit that the paintings were sold under duress and should be returned to the family." The family had argued the paintings' transfer to Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's second wife was not legal; the museums said they were a gift to her and that they acquired them properly. The settlement was not disclosed, but Judge Jed Rakoff, who allowed the case to move to trial, believes it should be out in the open, "The public surely would want to know now and forever which of those diametrically different views was true, and the great crucible of a trial would have made that known."

Reader Neil spotted a MoMA "installation" going up at the Atlantic stop in Brooklyn yesterday, saying posters like the above are filling up "every space in the station." It turns out that the museum is pulling all the stops for the expected plummet in tourism this year, and are targeting locals to come visit instead.

The Brooklyn Museum has become nothing more than a storage closet for its "storied couture clothing collection," but now the Brooklyn Paper explains the "cash-strapped" institution is "unloading" the 105-year-old cache to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The BMA, which hadn't displayed the clothing since 1991, won't receive any money, but it's saving some, since it will no longer pay for the storage and care. The Met, with its funding (not to mention 10 times the BMA's visitors) can mount a proper exhibition of what's being called "one of the world’s best collections of American fashion" (the NY Times reported that its "largely assembled from the closets of grand ladies of Brooklyn and Manhattan"). The paper also notes that while the "Met’s Costume Institute will own, curate and preserve the pieces, the two museums will collaborate on a bi-borough costume show in 2010."

Madame Tussauds may attract a lot of tourists, but The NY Times journeys into the mostly unseen nooks of the wax museum, uncovering an oddity that locals would probably pay to see: the repair shop. This is where "unmouthed teeth and disembodied heads are strewn across the tables and the floor." The wax ER had Joan Rivers in when the paper visited, they were told people touch her dress a lot (causing frequent fix-ups), though not as much as Marilyn Monroe's! Another behind the scenes factoid: B-listers are often requesting the Tussaud treatment, wanting to live on forever in all their wax glory. For the chosen ones, they can get nitpicky; the artists are well aware of their works of art and their real-life counterparts, many of whom come back to check in on their figures. Al Roker, post weight-loss, requested a slimmer wax self...but there's no word on whether Lindsay is okay with her 2006 faux Lohan, which looks a little dated now.

The AMTMoA (that's the Art Museum Toilet Museum of Art, for you philistines) is holding their first-ever call for submissions! Before you go trying to steal the royal throne at the Louvre, read on. The museum (which is online-only) holds "the world’s largest collection of images of art museum toilets taken at various art museums around the world," and they're currently seeking to build up their collection. "The site currently houses exclusive images ranging from the prestigious marble lavatory at the Metropolitan Museum of New York" to art toilets spanning the world. Interested parties can find more information about submitting an image here. And hey, Guggenheim (pictured), step up your game, alright. What a disgrace.