Night at the Museum [9.3.2013]

To be completely honest, this wasn’t an event that I was head-over-heels, crazy excited for. I was actually dreading it. Mostly because during the Tech Day workshop, analyzing the artwork proved to not exactly be my forte in a sense and listening to the videos were (no offense) pretty boring. I never really was into art anyways and until Night at the Museum, I’ve never actually been to an art museum. When the day finally came around, I just put on a good face and tried to have an open mind.

Pulling up to the museum, I was amazed at how beautiful it was from the outside. After going inside, we were lead into the main meeting room on the 3rd floor which was an jaw-dropping illuminating space and once again I was speechless. Then we had our share of fun with the whole “text the answer” thing, with me thinking on the inside that this would probably be the best part of the night. But in several minutes I was proved wrong. When we formed our groups, we began to explore and at first we tried to find pieces that would be easy to analyze. But soon enough we weren’t just trying to get the project done but we were each stopping at different artworks and didn’t have to think as much before we started recording our thoughts on a certain piece. We ended up analyzing four and a half pieces of art (half because we got kicked out in the middle of recording one), which was a lot more than we expected.

So first, we wandered around the Egyptian exhibit.

Then we wandered up to the (forbidden) 4th floor where we found our first piece of artwork.

This part of the floor was filled with quilts, but this one stood out to us in particular. It was made solely of neutral colors and tones of reds and blues. This was the epitome of disarray, but all of the features of the quilt had nature included in it.

Crazy Quilt, circa 1875-1900. Made of silk, brocade and velvet. Gift of Jean Mac Kay Herron.

Then we were able to very briefly see The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago. I didn’t know that each of the place settings represented feminine parts until Professor Ugoretz told us about it in class. But either way, our group found it beautiful and very unique (well, at least in the very short time we got to look at it before we were kicked out).

Afterwards, we went to the 5th floor. As we walked through to find our next target, I took a few pictures of the pieces of art that I personally found intriguing.

Here are the next three that we looked at:

Vivian St. George and Her Dog, 1924 by Paul Howard Manship.

This particular piece was something that we found most of the groups were drifting towards which I guess makes it especially captivating – probably from the expression of the girl’s face.

Tête-à-Tête Tea Set, circa 1876. Manufactured by Karl L. H. Muller.

At first, it seems like your ordinary cute tea set until you look very closely and see how messed up and racist it is…

Next was the Spacelander Bicycle. Designed by Benjamin G. Bowden in 1946. It is rumored that only about 500 were ever sold. I am not surprised. Garish and quite inconvenient. But it’s not like I can ride a bike anyways…

Afterwards, we finally called it quits. It was the end of a successful and eye-opening type of night for me.

But it was not complete without seeing Brooklyn Museum’s infamous “piano tree.”

*pictures taken with a fish-eye lens which is why they’re slightly “morphed”