Manhattan 2018 - Day 2 - Met Breuer, Neue Galerie, Met, Momosan, The Prom

Our second day in New York consisted of visiting a bunch of art museums situated along the east side of Central Park including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, its contemporary/modern art branch called the Met Breuer, and the Neue Gallery.  We started off with breakfast at The Tartinery, where we each had a version of smashed avocado and egg.  Mine was on a brioche with a baked egg, bacon, radish, red pepper flakes and cilantro.  Rich’s was with a poached egg on rye toast.  We had some nice views while walking through and along the eastern edge of Central Park en route to the art galleries, but failed to find the large Mandarin duck that someone at the Morgan Museum told us about the day before.

We started off at the Met Breuer, situated in a Brutalist-styled building consisting of much concrete and very few windows that was formerly the home of the Whitney Museum.  It seemed like the perfect setting for the featured exhibition called “Everything Is Connected – Art And Conspiracy” which looks at both historical and current day conspiracy theories or proven conspiracies.  The exhibition aptly starts with one of the most infamous conspiracies—that of who actually fired the shots that killed President J.F.Kennedy.  Wayne Gonzales’ two large-scaled acrylic paintings (2001) depict alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, who subsequently killed Oswald.  Conspiracy theories propose that Oswald was the fall guy for a CIA-led plot to kill the president and then was silenced by Ruby.  Rendering Oswald with his enigmatically upturned eyes in peach, and Ruby in lime green, Gonzales channels Andy Warhol’s silkscreen portraits.  Jenny Holzer’s installation Red Yellow Looming (2004) comments on the brutal interrogation techniques used by the Bush government in the Iraqi Abu Gharaib prison.  Holzer’s LED display streams snippets of text taken from government documents and memos that detail the U.S. involvement in Iraq and their attempts to justify their use of torture.  We saw Holzer’s “Inflammatory Essays” exhibit in London’s Tate Gallery earlier this year.

Paul Saul’s painting “Government of America” (1969) contains surrealistic imagery that highlights the turmoil of that time including the Civil Rights movement, police brutality, poverty, drugs and the Vietnam War.  The recently assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. is depicted as a haloed octopus with the words “Clean”, “Strong”, “Poor” and “Honest” labeled on his tentacles, which grasp a green switch blade, a pile of coins and a “Bank of America” building.  The image of King represents the dichotomy between violent versus peaceful resistance.  Ronald Reagan (then the governor of California) is depicted as Frankenstein’s monster with a syringe sticking through his head, in reference to the conspiracy theory that his government was neutralizing anti-war and minority groups by providing them access to illegal drugs.  Created almost four decades later, Saul’s cartoon called “Hitler’s Brain Is Alive” is a play on the 1968 sci-fi B-movie “They Saved Hitler’s Brain”.  Like Holzer’s work, this piece is a commentary on the atrocities at the Abu Ghraib prison where the inhumane treatment was photographed and videotaped and publicly broadcast.  Saul cheekily equates the US military with the Nazis.  The juxtaposition of Sue William’s seemingly innocent and wholesome swatch of floral fabric with the black and white newspaper clipping depicting Ronald Reagan and his CIA director William J. Casey, both major players in the Iran-Contra scandal, suggests that diabolic forces are in play in the most innocuous circumstances

Graphic designer and Black Panther member Emory Douglas produced biting magazine covers for the Black Panther magazine from 1969-74, commenting on issues such as police abuse, government injustices, war and poverty.  Some of these covers have provocative titles such as “You Can Murder a Revolutionary But You Can’t Murder Revolution” and “We Want Decent Housing Fit for Shelter of Human Beings”.  The latter cover depicts a black woman trying to fend off rats who represent exploitative landlords.  “I Gerald Ford am the 38th Puppet of the United States” depicts President Ford as a puppet on strings manipulated by a hand that is labeled as Oil corporations.  The cover called “Kissinger/Nixon” show the two laughing as peace in the  third world is punctured by a missile.  Gerald Williams’ colourful lithograph “Wake up” (1969) is call to action against oppression of blacks.  The mosaic collage includes a page from the “King Alfred Plan”, a fictionalized CIA scheme to control civil unrest of African Americans by mass internment in concentration camps.

John Miller painted a series of subversive representations of television game shows as an allegory for America’s consumerism and the “illusionary promises of compensation” which leads to disillusionment,  disenfranchisement and extremism.  In his depiction of “The Wheel of Fortune”, he shows Vanna White pointing to the term “ZOG” (1998) which stands for “Zionist Occupied Government”, an acronym reflecting the white supremacist belief that the government is controlled by Jews.  One of the most shocking series of works by Canadian artist Sarah Anne Johnson document a proven conspiracy that occurred in the late 1950s when her grandmother Velma was one of around 80 unwitting people who were subjected to invasive psychiatric experiments initiated by the CIA including mind control and behaviour modification.  Johnson’s lithograph “Brain Drain” (2008) takes a newspaper story about the project, named MK-ULTRA,  and covers it with a meandering chain of drawings of the face of Dr. D.Ewen Cameron, who led the experiments.  For “Black Cloud” (2008), Johnson reproduces a photo of her grandmother cooking in the kitchen and depicts her head covered with a black cloud of smoke.  This imagery represents the residual pain, rage and depression suffered by her grandmother for the rest of her life after the ordeals that she lived through, which included electro-shock therapy, medically induced sleep and heavy doses of drugs including Speed and LSD.

The Neue Galerie is a multi-leveled museum focusing on early 20th Century art and design from Germany and Austria.  Its permanent collection of fine arts and decorative arts is displayed on the second floor while the third floor hosts special exhibitions. The decorative arts are mostly created by the Wiener Werkstätte, a community of Viennese visual artists and designers producing works of fashion, jewellery, ceramics, silver, porcelain, and furniture in the Bauhaus and Art Deco styles.  Joseph Urban’s beautiful 1906 mantelpiece clock, made of walnut, brass, and onyx marble with thuja wood and mother-of-pearl marquetry, was designed for the Restaurant Paul Hopfner.  It features a yellow celluloid dial with numerals made of enamel and silvered copper.  Koloman Moser’s armchair (1903) has a painted beechwood frame and a painted, black and white checkerboard patterned woven cane seat.  There were several pieces by Josef Hoffman including a luminous glass vase on a wooden mount, and an elaborate broach (1904) made of silver, gilt, and precious stones including diamonds, moonstones, opals, lapis lazuili, coral, and leopardite.  One of my favourite works was the porcelain tea set (1901) by Jutta Sika with the red circular stenciled design.

Neue Galerie’s art collection includes works by artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Otto Dix.  But its two featured artists with the most prominently presented works seemed to be Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.  An entire room is filled with Schiele’s crayon portrait drawings on paper including multiple self portraits highlighting his own slender, androgynous frame.  One piece that did not fit in with Schiele’s usual style and subject matter was an oil on canvas painting called “Town Among Greenery (Old Country III)”.  Several of Gustav Klimt’s full-length portraits of female patrons were featured in the main gallery, often surrounded by his trademark decorative patterns.  The painting titled “The Dancer” (1916-18) is said to be inspired by a commission Klimt received to paint Ria Munk, the deceased daughter of Aranka Munk.  The dancer holds in her hands and is surrounded by flowers while her features and kimono-like robe give the painting an “Oriental” feel.  The portraits of 19-year-old Gertrud Loew (1902) and Adele Bloch-Bauer (a.k.a. The Woman in Gold) were both confiscated by the Nazis during the war and have only been repatriated to the heirs of the original owners within the past couple of decades.  In particular, the fight for repatriation of the painting “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” involved a long legal battle that was portrayed in the film “The Woman in Gold” starring Helen Mirren as the claiming heir Maria Altmann.  In both cases following repatriation, the paintings were put up for auction and have wound up in Neue Gallery.

Photos are not allowed in the main exhibition spaces of Neue Galerie but luckily images of many of the iconic works are available on the internet.  Imagine our surprise when we headed down to the basement level and spotted a full-scale reproduction of Klimt’s portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, with copies on sale at the gift shop for a “mere” $550 US!  In this case, we were encouraged to take photos with the Woman in Gold and post them on Instagram.  We were headed for the Café Fledermaus, whose décor is modeled after the Art Nouveau Cabaret Fledermaus in Vienna designed by Weiner Werkstätte member Josef Hoffmann.  The Café is furnished with tables and chairs designed by Hoffmann and the marble walls and black and white checkered floor tiles are based on the foyer and auditorium of the Cabaret.  This was a perfect spot to have a latte and some Viennese desserts.  We chose a Linzertorte, which is a hazelnut tart with fresh raspberry confiture, and the Klimttorte, a chocolate and hazelnut cake.    The hallway leading to the café is covered with German Art Nouveau posters.

The special exhibition on the third floor explored the close working and personal relationship between German artists Franz Marc and August Macke who met at age 29 and 23 respectively.  For five years, the two friends visited each other’s studios, exhibited their paintings together and corresponded regularly, commenting on each other’s work.  It was quite tragic that at the height of their careers and the prime of their lives, both artists died within 18 months of each other while fighting in the first World War.  Both created vibrant, colourful paintings in the German Expressionist style which distorts physical reality in favour of a subjective perspective that evokes an emotional response. Marc preferred to depict stylized renderings of animals while Macke focused more on human figures and village scenes.  Marc’s most famous painting, “The Yellow Cow” (1911) was part of this exhibition, on loan from the Guggenheim.

Marc and Macke were both influenced by the meeting of Robert Delauney and each dabbled in Cubism as a result.  The painting in the exhibit with the most interesting back story is Macke’s portrait of Marc.  Apparently the two friends had a competition to determine who could create the best portrait of the other.  Macke created a masterful likeness in a mere 20 minutes, while Marc was so embarrassed by his feeble attempt that he destroyed it.

The last art museum that we visited was the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) which is one of the world’s largest galleries with a collection of over 2 million works spanning 5000 years.  The place was too big, we were too tired and it was too late in the day for us to see most of these works, so we concentrated on the Modern Art section.  The most impressive set of paintings that we saw were Thomas Hart Benton’s ten floor-to-ceiling murals titled America Today (1930-31) which provide a panoramic view of the state of the nation around the 1920s.  Painted with egg tempera on linen mounted on wooden planks and covered with oil glazing, this monumental work covers the walls of an entire large room.  It depicts the impacts of power, coal and steel on the economy as well as providing scenes of industry, city life in New York, and specific parts of America including the Deep South, Mid-west and the changing far West.

We saw many other interesting and eclectic pieces of art and design in various styles and forms, making it difficult to choose my favourites.  I liked the unique silver, glass and copper table lamp designed by Josef Hoffmann in 1904, just as the transition from gas to electric lighting was occurring.  To highlight what was then a new invention, Hoffmann left the light bulbs exposed and suspended glass spheres to catch and reflect the light.  Manierre Dawson’s oil painting depicting the mythological Three Graces (1912) made for an odd juxtaposition between an ancient subject matter and relatively avant-garde painting styles of Cubism and Italian Futurism.  Man Ray placed a photographic eye on the wand of a metronome with the text “Object to be Destroyed” (1923) handwritten on the cover.  After the original “sculptural” work was destroyed as part of an artistic performance, Man Ray created a new version and wittily titled this version “Indestructible Object” (1963).  In 1930, Hale Woodruff re-imagined Paul Cezanne’s iconic work “The Card Players” (1894), rendering the titular figures to resemble African wood carvings while also invoking the Cubism style. Isamu Noguchi’s Radio Nurse (1937) was the transmitting end of a baby monitor that sent sounds to a separate enameled metal receiver called the Guardian Ear.  Made of  Bakelite plastic that could be dyed in almost any colour, the baby monitor is shaped to suggest the form of an abstracted human head belonging to the “nurse”.

After a long day of visiting three art galleries and with the prospect of a hurried dinner and then a show in the evening, we started the trek back to the hotel with visions of a quick nap to rejuvenate.  We were not expecting to encounter Eden’s Fine Arts at 50th St. and Madison Avenue.  Unfortunately there was absolutely no time remaining to check out this amazing looking gallery that seemed full of modern and contemporary art pieces, so we had to settle for peering through the windows from the outside.  But even that quick glance was enough for us to know that we would love to come back and spend some time here on our next visit.

For our second evening’s dinner before again rushing off to see a show, Rich found another interesting restaurant that was just blocks from our hotel.  Momosan Ramen & Sake Bar at Lexington Avenue and 39th Street is run by Masaharu Morimoto, one of three Japanese chefs on the American TV Show Iron Chef.  His communal dining spot specializes in Japanese noodles, appetizers and sake.  Since even its name indicates that this is a ramen place, we felt like we needed to try the noodles.  But there were so many other tempting choices of appetizers on the menu, so we opted to share one bowl of Ramen and a bunch of snacks.  We ordered the “Tantan Ramen”, with a spicy coconut curry broth, red miso, sliced pork belly, ground pork, cilantro and a soy-marinated egg.  While this was good, what really stood out were the appetizers that we ordered as well.  There was the Peking duck taco with cucumber, hoisin sauce, apricot sweet chili sauce and gyoza skin, the roasted duck breast salad with kale, edamame, radish, spring greens and Caesar dressing, crispy breaded pig ear strips with shichimi spice, Japanese mayo and sake, the soft-shell crab on a steamed bun with pickled cucumber and mustard mayo, and a teriyaki flavoured Salisbury steak.  There were plenty of other fabulous-sounding items as well but we were already stuffed with what we had ordered.  If we returned to this restaurant, I would skip the ramen and the Salisbury steak and try some of the other appetizers.

When we first decided to take our quick, last minute trip to New York, it was with the desire to watch the comedy “The Nap” which would be closing on Broadway within several weeks.  But once we realized that we wanted to stay an extra night, it made sense to look for a second play to watch.  The musical comedy called “The Prom” was in previews and getting great buzz.  One of the co-writers is Canadian Bob Martin, who was also involved in the Tony Award winning musical “The Drowsy Chaperone” and has a fabulous premise that is both currently topical and ripe for satire.  Four has-been Broadway performers starring together in a new show respond to a bad review which accuses them of being narcissists.  To improve their images and generate positive publicity for themselves, they look for a cause to champion and land upon the story of a lesbian teenager from Indiana who is not allowed to take her girlfriend to the prom.  Hilarity ensues as the four descend upon the small town and their unwitting cause célèbre.

Adding a “meta” layer to the fun, the four performers are played by actual veteran Broadway actors whose characters are exaggerated versions of their own personalities.  Beth Leavel plays the diva Dee Dee Allen, who belts out not one, but multiple “11 O’Clock” numbers. Brook Ashmanskas’ character is the flamboyantly gay Barry Glickman, who has a big heart but insecurities of his own.  Tall, blond and leggy Angie (no last name given), who has been in the chorus of Chicago for 20 years is played by her namesake, tall, blond and leggy Angie Schworer.  And finally, Christopher Sieber plays full-waiter and bit actor Trent Oliver, who never lets an opportunity slip to remind everyone that he is “Juillard-trained”.  The Prom is quickly becoming the hit of the 2018-19 season, being the first to be named a “New York Times Critics Pick”, so we feel quite in the zeitgeist to be one of the first to have watched it.  

It was fun spending two evenings walking around Times Square and Broadway, seeing all the electronic ads for the innumerable plays and musicals currently on stage.  When we walked by the theatre where Bruce Springsteen’s show “Springsteen on Broadway” was being shown, we spotted a large crowd waiting and then a black SUV limo pulled up.  Its quite possible that “The Boss” himself would step out of the vehicle, but whoever it was took so long to do so that we gave up and moved on.  We also passed by humorous ads for “The Play That Goes Wrong”, a farce that would actually be coming to Toronto in early 2019 as part of our Mirvish Theatre Subscription Series.  The ads featured deliberately erroneous puns such as “Last Chance .. Must Clothes on January 6” and “So Wrong .. Farewell”.

So ended our second extremely long day in Manhattan which involved us walking from 38th Street to 86th Street and back, and then over to 48th Street and 8th Avenue and back, let alone all the distance we covered within three large art galleries.  At the end of it, we had walked 28053 Steps, covering 18.6km and climbed 10 flights.  Good thing we only had a couple of hours left the next day before heading home!