|
SCHEDULE OF MUSEUM VISITS FOR WINTER/SPRING 2009 |
New Winter/Spring 2009 ArtMuse Adult Tours
Friday February 13th, 7pm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, (1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street). Valentine's Day is just around the corner! Treat your special someone to a tour of the "Love and Art in Renaissance Italy" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which explores objects created to celebrate love and marriage during the Italian Renaissance.
Thursday February 26th, 11:30am, Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, (555 W 24th St at 11th Avenue). Join us as we look at the first United States comprehensive exhibit of the life work of Italian aritst, Piero Manzoni at the Gagosian Gallery. Despite Manzoni's short career, his radical approach to art in the 1950s and early 1960s greatly influenced the conceptual art movement.
The price of each tour is $65 per person (including admission to the museum.)
To sign up for either tour or if you have any questions, please email Nicole at nicole@artmuseny.com.
New Winter/Spring 2009 ArtKids Tour | Saturday Schedule
January 31st: Alexander Calder's Circus, the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum, The Whitney Museum Madison Avenue at 75th Street , Take a closer look at the American artist, his circus, toys, and wire creations.
February 7th: Identity by Design The National Museum of the American Indian, The Alexander Hamilton US Custom House, One Bowling Green, With this tour ArtKids will discover what did Native Americans wear? What were the materials? What were the decorations? What did it all mean? Come hear the stories and the legends.
February 28th: Masterpieces from the National Academy of Art, Fifth Avenue by 89th Street, Join ArtKids on a tour of the treasures of the museum.
March 7th: Second Lives The Museum of Art and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, Come with ArtKids to explore how artists transform ordinary objects into extraordinary works of art.
April 4th: Pop, Splatter, Dot! The Metropolitan Museum of Art , Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, On this tour ArtKids will examine the Pop Art and Abstract Expressionist movements, which include artists such as Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock.
April 18th: Krazy! Japan Society Christie's Auction House, East 47th Street by First Avenue , Let's take a closer look at the Japanese animation traditions of Anime and Manga. Ages 8-12 years old.
May 2nd: Let's Meet the Kids at the Met!, The Metropolitan Museum of Art , Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, Come along with ArtKids as we tour the museum and rendezvous with the children in paintings and sculpture.
May 16th: Frank Lloyd Wright The Guggenheim, Madison Avenue at 89th Street, Help celebrate the museum's anniversary as ArtKids examine the works ofthis famous American architect who also designed the building.
Tours will take place from 3:30 to 5:00 pm
The fee is $50 per child (includes admission, tour and art project). Kids under 6 years old should be accompanied by an adult. Kids older than 6 will have an optional drop-off.
Please RSVP to ns@artmuseny.com to hold a spot. Each group will be limited to 10 children. |
|
| |
ART REVIEW |
Museum of Arts and Design - Re-opening
By Natasha Schlesinger, Founder of Art Muse
Museum of Arts and Design has reopened its doors at 2 Columbus Circle in a building called the lollipop building in the past and now re-designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture, where 7 floors have been dedicated to galleries, open studios, theater, educational studios, a restaurant and a museum shop. The building now offers three times the space of the old museum and presents the MAD collection and temporary exhibitions in a clearly structured, modernist environment where even the walls, staircase spaces and windows become part of the overall presentation. The current exhibitions on view are Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary (Sept. 27-Feb. 15); Elegant Armor: the Art of Jewelry (Sept. 27-May 31st) and Permanently MAD: Revealing the Collection (Sept. 27-Feb. 15). The emphasis of all the exhibitions is on the scope and variety of materials, some precious but most very common that in the hands of artists are transformed into extraordinary works of art. It is truly inspiring to appreciate works by artists such as Tara Donovan who shows a stalagmite sculpture called Bluffs constructed out of clear buttons and Long-Bin Chens sculptures carved out of phonebooks and catalogues. Some works attract and excite visually while at the same time creating shock waves with the materials used. Such is the case with a chandelier piece called Trinity (Bubbles, Grandma, and Spike) (2007) by Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth made entirely of hypodermic needles and Swarovski crystals.
 |
One of the most amazing pieces is by Devorah Sperber called After the Mona Lisa 7 (2008) and made of 5,084 multi-colored spools of thread. It is an upside down portrait of Mona Lisa. But one aspect again pushes it beyond an ordinary image as the viewer is invited to look into a crystal ball positioned in front of the work and realize that the image actually consists of a hand of an imaginary tourist taking a photo of the famous work. A site-specific work by the Ghana-born and Nigeria-based artist El Anatsui is a shimmering tapestry made of liquor bottles foil. It is as unexpected as it is beautiful and mesmerizing in its rich layers of iridescent colors woven with cultural connotations.
 |
What struck me as I walked around the museum was how far we have come in our understanding of what design objects are and how much the lines have been blurred between craft and artvery happily in my book. We have given art the freedom to express itself in any form that the artists feel is necessary and thus have expanded the vocabulary of art. I greatly recommend visiting MAD, especially the Second Lives exhibit as well the open studios for behind the scenes look at the creation process.
Address: 2 Columbus Circle, NYC
Phone: 212.299.7777
Website: www.madmuseum.org |
| |
ARTMUSE VIDEOS |
|
Using Art to Make Museums Fun for Kids
Natasha Schlesinger's, ArtKids program uses art projects and games to make museums fun for kids. |
|
|
| About Art Muse
Art Muse is an amazing resource for people of all ages to learn culture, history, and art through museum tours throughout NYC. It offers three separate options for tours:Adult Art Tours, I-Pod Tours, and Art Kids. In Adult Art Tours, each tour is presented as a lecture and discussion of current exhibitions and permanent collections in museums and occasionally galleries in New York. I-pod Tours offers an option for people or families with busy schedules and limited time. People can be part of a tour when it is convenient for them.Art Kids holds weekly after-school classes but also bi-monthly saturday classes or special classes and birthday tours that introduce children to the excitement of visiting New York City museums.
All of these tours are guided by Natasha Schlesinger. She is an independent art historian and art consultant who has been working in the art field for the past 20 years, specializing in the history of decorative arts. Natasha was a specialist in European furniture at Christie's Auction House for four years, and then went on to open her own international firm Meridianne LLC. Natasha holds a Master's degree in the Decorative Arts from the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Culture and Design. Natasha is also teaching a master's course on the history of Furniture and connoisseurship for the Cooper-Hewitt Graduate Program this Spring.
|
|
