Art Face, Part II

When Sharan and I went to the bhangra concert at the museum, we had to buy tickets for general admission. As it turns out, though, those tickets are good for two consecutive days. So the morning after the concert, I returned the museum on my own to visit the parts that I had not seen during my first trip – namely, the galleries in facilities nearby, not in the main building.

I went first to the Perelman Center, across the street to the north of the main PMA. It is dedicated to contemporary and modern art, and generally art forms that deviate from the typical paintings and sculpture: textiles, prints, commercial art, etc. The Perelman Center is a very large, beautifully-constructed building, but does not have that much in it, and took up all of 45 minutes of my time.

Upstairs was a kid-friendly exhibition of Western children’s and adults’ fashion from the 18^th to the 20^th centuries, showing fashion changes and trends, and demonstrating that for much of the earlier years of that period children’s clothing was like adult clothing in miniature. There were a number of young boy’s dresses on display, with descriptions discussing the fact that little boys would adopt men's clothing when they "graduated" to the world of men and were no longer under the exclusive care of their mothers and the women of the family. I couldn't help connecting this exhibit to my reading of The Second Sex, and the fact that fashion would have represented a social form of "castration" - women and girls were not allowed to, or considered capable of, growing past infancy, but always remained under male guardianship.

Downstairs was a gallery of graphic design by Paula Scher and Seymour Chwast:

…and costumes by Ronald Shamask, several of which were modeled on paper origami designs:

The print gallery included this piece by Morris Graves, called The Unregimented One, which I enjoyed:

When my housemate Lena saw me pull this image up on my computer just now, she did a double-take and asked me if I was training cockroaches…

I left the Perelman Center and walked down the Parkway to the Rodin branch of the museum. It’s a beautiful space, surrounded by gardens outside, with The Thinker brooding on the steps:

…and The Gates of Hell at the entrance:

Inside is a large collection of smaller sculptures, with a whole room devoted to his studies and sculptures of Balzac. A number of sculptures contain figures that are repeated in multiple works. It was intriguing to see how Rodin recycled his figures/characters (many of whom are also present in The Gates), but did mean there was somewhat less variety in the collection.

I ended the morning by eating lunch in a nearby park… until a man approached one of the copper statues in the waterless-for-the-winter fountain and started hitting it violently in the head with a water bottle and yelling.

I left then.