February 18, 2007

The Museum of Modern Art is very sexy.

Men encounter women all the time. Some women overwhelm the men:

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If the man firmly stands his ground, he may feel he's found a way to deal with the threat of the women who would destroy him:

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Or feign your interest in the art:

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That man is not looking at a painting.

12 comments:

PeterP said...

That makes the two of them then who are each looking at the other, only employing different senses.

I hope she got his number.

Rick Lee said...

I went to MoMA last fall. Isn't it interesting that, unlike most museums, they allow photography so freely? No need to sneak. It seemed to me that they were showing a lot less photography than the last time I was there though. Perhaps I had just seen a special show before. shrug

Freder Frederson said...

That man is not looking at a painting.

And neither are you.

Ann Althouse said...

Rick: Yes, I was amazed. It was so relaxed and cool there. I really noticed the difference compared to the ridiculous repressiveness I've experienced at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. It really conveys to the visitor something about the entire city. And unlike in the museums in Paris where photography is going on all the time, you almost never see anyone doing the "here's me with the painting" posing (though it is going on in my second picture).

There was a big gallery of photography, with lots of great classics. People wander through and don't know what to pause to look at closely. When, I stopped in front of a great Cartier Bresson picture and pointed out a couple things about the jumping man and the tiny jumping figures in the background and said a couple things about it too my son, I turned around and saw that I'd magnetized about 20 people over to check out what was so exciting.

Palladian said...

What sort of joyless gulag do you people live in, where museums forbid photography?

Every museum of any significance in New York allows photography. The MFA in Boston allows photography. The Philadelphia Museum of Art allows photography. About the only great US museum that does not allow photography that I'm aware of is the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum in Boston.

The only restriction that any of these museums have on photography is to forbid the use of the flash. This has less to do with light damaging the paintings, I think, than the fact that flash photography is really annoying when you're trying to contemplate artwork.

Kirby Olson said...

The second two paintings are by Picasso (I think), but who made the first painting?

Probably another man.

So this is a man looking at men's paintings, unless of course a woman painted the first one. I don't know who did it. Can anyone tell me?

One could argue that these are objectifications of women already broken down in such a way that they don't scare men. So now we can stare.

But all over New York city especially in the summer you have men lolligagging in order to look at the women walking by. Studies show that the men almost never actually approach the women. They just like to look at them. Probably because they're so beautiful.

Men like beauty. Beauty is beautiful. The beautiful is sometimes manly.

Manly brutes embrace beauty. Isn't that beautiful? I mean, as long as the beauties agree? and most beauties do agree to be embraced.

It's a friendly world of beautiful beauty.

But who painted the first painting?

Jim Hu said...

Reminds me of the Woody Allen and Museum Girl from Play it again Sam.

PeterP said...

When, I stopped in front of a great Cartier Bresson picture and pointed out a couple things about the jumping man and the tiny jumping figures in the background and said a couple things about it to my son...

I trust the phrase 'the decisive moment' or even perhaps "Il n'y a rien dans ce monde qui n'ait un moment decisif" - which was Cardinal de Retz before it was Cartier-Bresson - passed your lips.

And if you did manage also to squeeze in - "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms that give that event its proper expression." - you would have been absolutely spot as 'Behind Gare St Lazare' is about as decisive as it gets.

In the above you might in fairness have been obliged to clarify that the 'me' was C-B himself and not the Prof - but hey who doesn't get carried away when there's an audience? ;-)

PeterP said...

Reminds me of the Woody Allen and Museum Girl from Play it again Sam.

...which, by a commodious vicus of recirculation brings us back to a previous posting topic:

Allan: I'll get broads up here like you wouldn't believe: swingers, freaks, nymphomaniacs, dental hygienists.

Ann Althouse said...

I wasn't talking to the group, only privately to my son. The fact that we were engaging with that photo had the effect of pulling a whole crowd over to it. I was surprised when I turned around to walk on that there was a whole group behind us. I was definitely not trying to address the group or show off in the slightest way. I was just pointing to images that resonated with each other and saying things like "What are these figures" ("I think they're posters") and "I like the way this matches this."

hdhouse said...

Ann said: "That man is not looking at a painting."

Actually he is security as the woman has been watching some guy with tight buns for the last 20 minutes and obviously, symbolically, from every angle.

technogypsy said...

Actually, I think he is. Sorry, but as a guy who admits apprecaiting the movable scenery in various art museums, I think he's looking at the painting. The body and head position is wrong for the other object (which personally I wouldn't fancy myself.)