A wall text in the animals exhibit about a Dutch biologist who wrote a paper on gay necrophilia in mallard ducks. Those Dutch biologists, man…
What can I say about the Museum of Sex? It’s fun. The gift shop is hysterical — if you’re at all prone to blushing, it will make you blush. It’s immensely positive, and in a weird sort of way, innocent, maybe even willfully naive about its topic.
The Museum of Sex (MoSex for short) opened in 2002 and is, according to its website, “one of the most dynamic and innovative institutions in the world.” Ok then. Its collection includes some 20,000 pieces, including both art and artifacts, only a small fraction of which are on display at any given time across the four floors of exhibitionist galleries in its space a few blocks south of the Empire State Building. Continue reading “Museum of Sex”
Kathryn Fleming’s Ursa Hibernation Station, an idea for a new home appliance: a portable, pram-sized bear hibernator. So that you can watch (and possibly envy!) your genetically modified mini bear as it sleeps the winter away.
The Pratt Institute dates to 1887, when it was founded to give an opportunity for an advanced education to anyone. Today it is mainly known for programs in architecture, art, and design, so it’s fitting that Pratt’s Manhattan building, a handsome edifice on 14th Street, includes an art gallery on its second floor.
The Pratt Manhattan Gallery is a nice space, long and somewhat narrow, with high ceilings and large windows overlooking 14th Street. Kind of the usual for a New York art space: an older space repurposed with white walls, wood floors, periodic columns, exposed duct work and ceiling pipes lending a splash of color.
What’s on View
The exhibition when I visited was titled “See Yourself E(x)ist.” I have seen a lot of contemporary, academic art shows during this project. I’ve developed a theory that all such exhibits must be about one of four things:
Migration and refugees
Multiculturalism versus assimilation
Gender and identity
Our declining environment
Or I guess, further simplifying, there is only one topic for a contemporary, academic art show:
Riling up conservatives.
This was a Type 4 exhibition, viewed through the lens of technology. While its theme was different, “The Roaming Eye” at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center featured a number of works that would’ve fit right in here.
I liked it, though I remain somewhat mystified by the typography of the exhibition title. Anything (x)ist makes me think of the men’s underwear brand, which I’m sure was the curator did not intend. At least, I think.
Jaime Pitarch, “Chernobyl,” 2009
The exhibit offered a good diversity of pieces, including some video and digital art and a rather amusing interactive work that greatly amplified the sound that sand grains make falling in an egg timer. I like shows that can unite artists in a broad array of media round a common topic.
I also like shows that have at least a little wit or humor in the mix; art that takes itself too seriously tends to lose me. I enjoyed See Yourself E(x)ist on that front, too. Jaime Pitarch’s Chernobyl, a mutant matrioshka doll, made me smile.
I felt similarly about a set of pieces by Fantich & Young called Apex Predator | Darwinian Voodoo, that re-envisioned common objects (men’s shoes, a basketball) studded with human teeth. Eek, creepy and effective. (Lest you worry, the teeth came from dentures.)
Fantich & Young, “Alpha Oxfords,” 2010
Should You Go to the Pratt Manhattan Gallery?
It’s always hard to judge a museum like the Pratt Manhattan Gallery based on a single show. But it’s conveniently located, and a nice space. I’m pretty comfortable asserting that if you happen to be around West 14th Street and you feel like seeing some contemporary, academic art, whatever’s on view will hew to one of the four themes above, but it’ll likely be interesting and worth the time as well.
Wax classic movie monsters, most particularly Wax Béla Lugosi as Dracula. Now that’s what a wax museum should be all about!
Béla Lugosi’s Dead…
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum offers visitors to its Times Square location a thoughtful meditation on the transience of celebrity — and its sometimes hefty toll — in the contemporary media maelstrom.
OK. It doesn’t do that. Not quite. Still, it wasn’t quite what I expected, either.
Fake Everything
Fake Everything!
Early in my visit to Madame Tussaud’s I decided to start counting the fake things surrounding me. Fake brick walls. Fake wooden floors. I thought the elevator might be fake for a while, but it turned out it was just very slow. Fake marble in the elevator, though. Fake champagne at the several bars throughout the exhibits. Ersatz…I don’t even know what the first room I got to is supposed to be. Roman piazza? Maybe. With fake lemon tree under fake candles in front of a fake window with fake cherubs.
Leffert’s House has a scraggly little wormwood plant growing in its garden. Artisanal Brooklyn absinthe, anyone?
Leffert Pieterson, a Dutch farmer, obtained a tract of land in the village of Flatbush in 1687, and built himself a house there. That original Lefferts homestead was burned by the Americans just before the Battle of Brooklyn, to prevent the British from seizing and using it. However, Pieter Lefferts, in the fourth generation of a family that as some point reversed names, rebuilt a fine farmhouse for himself and his family in 1783. Continue reading “Lefferts Historic House”
I’m getting a bit of a late start in 2018. I blame the insanely cold East Coast weather. Still, here’s an obligatory year-in-review post to wrap my adventures in 2017.
Since starting this expedition last March, I’ve reviewed 144 museums. Overall averages continue to be right around, well the average. Across all the museums I’ve visited, the average education score was 3.06, entertainment 3.09, and “should you go?” rating 3.22 (on a scale from 1 to 5).
My average time spent per museum works out to about 1 hour and 3 minutes, for a cumulative total of 6 days and 6 hours and 58 minutes spent at museums I’ve reviewed this past year.
Cumulatively I’ve spent $364 on museum admissions for my 2016 reviews, or an average admission price of $2.53. I’m sure that will increase as I’ve saved some high-cost museums for the latter part of the project.
Wyckoff House Christmas Tree
By Borough
Borough
Museums Visited
Percent of Total
Average Edification
Average Entertain-ment
Go?
Brooklyn
14
61%
2.71
3.21
3.21
Bronx
15
100%
3.33
3.20
3.33
Manhattan
89
77%
3.14
3.02
3.26
Queens
19
82%
2.84
3.32
3.00
Staten Island
8
67%
2.88
2.88
3.13
At this point, Bronx museums slightly outscore those of the other boroughs. I’m surprised by that, but then again, the Bronx today quietly punches above its weight in many ways.
Fall foliage at Wave Hill, a standout among the Bronx’s surprisingly great museums
Points for Randomness
While I could focus on the greatest hits, I think it’s more fun to review the things that were most unexpected — the places I never would’ve gone except my list made me, which surprised me the most.
Truth be told, the randomest museum I’ve been to this year is one I didn’t review. While in Idaho for August’s total solar eclipse, I made a detour to the Idaho Potato Museum. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that such a place exists, giant fiberglas spud and all. But I was a little surprised that I actually liked it. I’d give it a 3 for edification, a 4 for entertainment, and a 3 for “should you go?” Assuming you ever find yourself in Blackfoot.
We’re not in Gotham anymore…
Of the museums I’ve reviewed, I would say my top five for peak randomness would be:
During 2017, I’ve had ample time to consider the concept of “museum.” I took a liberal definition of museum when I created my list. I continue to believe historic houses are indisputably museums. However, I don’t think it’s fair to judge botanical gardens by the same yardsticks as museums. And yet, I do think the historic cemeteries merit consideration as museums.
I had a conversation with my younger sister about the definition of museums, and how my thinking has evolved with the experience of visiting them all, big and small, mainstream and quirky. We kicked around various notions, starting from my initial idea that museums should both educate and entertain. I offered the idea that maybe they should “amuse” you.
From there I suggested that maybe they should be judged as places that cause you to muse on things.
And that in turn got us thinking (thanks, liberal arts education) about the Muses, the nine Greek divinities in charge of the arts. People talk about the Muses in the sense of having one, or of the Muse being upon them when they have a burst of creativity.
So perhaps museums shouldn’t just educate and entertain or amuse or make you think. Additionally, they should inspire. Something about that feels very right to me. I think of the people I’ve seen sketching at the Met, or those taking the Grolier Club’s life drawing and drinking class. Or myself, walking through say the Van Cortlandt House dutifully taking notes and seeking inspiration to frame a story about the place.
I briefly considered whether I should retroactively rate the places I’ve visited in terms of their inspiration levels. Fortunately, I have realized that even though it wasn’t an explicit criterion, inspiration correlates very strongly with how much I recommend visiting a museum.
The Shape of Museums to Come
It’s hard to believe I fewer then 50 museums to go in my Pokemon-esque effort to catch ‘em all. Barring something unforeseen, I should finish my last review just about a year from starting the project. I’ve deliberately left some of the biggest and most famous museums for late in this project — I have yet to write about MoMA or the American Museum of Natural History, and I’m looking forward to the challenge of those.
The Met: Still To Come
If there’s one category of museum I’ve not done justice to thus far, it’s children’s museums. I worry that I’ll seem a little creepy if I go to a children’s museum sans kid. And additionally I want a young person’s perspective to inform my own reactions to how well the childrens’ museums fulfill their mandates. So I will have to borrow or rent some kids in the next few weeks to rectify that.
Anyway, happy new year, thanks for reading, and here’s to another two score and five museum reviews before I’m done.
When I started this project I decided I’d rate museums based on standards of edification and entertainment. That is, how much I felt educated or improved by a place, and how fun the place was. I then added a third rating based on how much I think people should visit (or not).
But in our modern social, digital age, I’ve arguably missed a vital yardstick in the assessment of museum quality: how share-able an institution makes the experience.
Donald Judd’s dining table looks exactly like Donald Judd designed a dining table.
Utterly simple wood with chairs that seamlessly, create a box when its 14 chairs were pushed in. It reminded me of one of those wooden cube puzzles where you remove one piece and the whole thing falls apart— symmetric perfection broken.
And it is the exact size of the windows in the huge, open, “eating” level of the building.
In 1968 the artist Donald Judd bought a building in then-dilapidated SoHo. Five stories high, the building was used for light industry — small factories that my guide did not call “sweatshops” but that probably were. Indeed, to this day some of the floors retain holes that show where an apparel manufacturer bolted down sewing machines.
Judd, his wife Julie Finch, and their newborn son Flavin moved into the place, and Judd proceeded to remake the four upstairs floors to his own design. Judd changed floors and ceilings, installed fittings and fixtures, and designed both art and furniture specifically for the place. He also installed art from his friends and fellow SoHo Bohemians. He made the place their home, but he also made their home a work of art. Continue reading “Judd Foundation”
The giant “Azel F. Merrell” oyster sloop flag hanging in the museum. The city’s oystering history is one of my favorite parts of the New York story.
Most historic buildings in New York are a scattershot, here-and-there thing, involving much travel through the contemporary city to get from one to the next. In terms of quantity in proximity it is impossible to beat Staten Island’s Historic Richmond Town, which boasts over 23 buildings from the 1600s to the 1800s, mostly within walking distance and periodically open to the public. Continue reading “Historic Richmond Town”
Wyckoff family members lived in the Wyckoff House right through the start of the 1900s. 250 years of family history in a single domicile boggles my mind.
Before starting my project, I never realized how many historic houses exist in modern New York. Some surprisingly old. Manhattan’s oldest, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, dates from the 1760s. The Van Cortlandt House in the Bronx was built in 1748. Bowne House in Queens dates to the 1660s. But in any city, there can be only one oldest house. In New York that is the Wyckoff House, located in the prosaically named Flatlands, a nondescript part of Brooklyn far from any subway line.
And so, on the first snowy day of the year, I made my trek, over the river and through the woods, half-metaphorically and half-literally, to the Wyckoffs’ ancestral home. Continue reading “Wyckoff House Museum”
My favorite fun fact from the tour is that the Lower East Side got the moniker “Klein Deutschland” before there even was a unified “Deutschland.”
There are certain combinations of places and architecture that just go together. Paris+garret; Newport+mansion; San Francisco+Victorian ; Brooklyn+brownstone. And “Lower East Side+tenement.” It’s almost redundant to call a place the “Lower East Side Tenement Museum.” But New York has one of those, and redundant or not, it is a fantastic, unforgettable recreation of a slice of life in this city.
How the Other Half Lived
The word “tenement” originally referred to any multiple dwelling building, what we’d call an “apartment” today. Very quickly, however, “tenement” came to mean a very particular type of multiple dwelling building. One aimed at the working class and recent immigrants, crammed with people and with very limited light, ventilation, and amenities.
What can I say about the Museum of Sex? It’s fun. The gift shop is hysterical — if you’re at all prone to blushing, it will make you blush. It’s immensely positive, and in a weird sort of way, innocent, maybe even willfully naive about its topic.
It’s always hard to judge a museum like the Pratt Manhattan Gallery based on a single show. But it’s conveniently located, and a nice space. I’m pretty comfortable asserting that if you happen to be around West 14th Street and you feel like seeing some contemporary, academic art, whatever’s on view will hew to one of the four themes above, but it’ll likely be interesting and worth the time as well.
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum offers visitors to its Times Square location a thoughtful meditation on the transience of celebrity — and its sometimes hefty toll — in the contemporary media maelstrom.
Leffert Pieterson, a Dutch farmer, obtained a tract of land in the village of Flatbush in 1687, and built himself a house there. That original Lefferts homestead was burned by the Americans just before the Battle of Brooklyn, to prevent the British from seizing and using it. However, Pieter Lefferts, in the fourth generation of a family that as some point reversed names, rebuilt a fine farmhouse for himself and his family in 1783. 
