The Nasher Sculpture Center is right across the street from the Dallas Museum of Art in downtown Dallas. Admission was $10 per person, but it's free on the first Saturday of the month. It was worth the trip just for James Turrell's Tending (Blue), the only site-specific piece at the Nasher and one of the most refreshing things I've seen in a long time. There was also a nice Rodin in the outdoor garden, and an interesting piece by Antony Gormley called Quantum Cloud XX. I didn't really care for much of the other stuff: there were a few tumorous Henry Moores, some Picassos (overrated, if you ask me) and some truly nasty De Koonings. I like modern art and even some modern sculpture, but I'm not a big fan of ugly sculpture.
RATING: 100%--Multiple Rodins and a Turrell installation for $10 is about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on.
(Image from farm3.static.flickr.com.)
If you come to Houston before Halloween we should go see the new exhibition by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders at the MFAH (if you like photography). Not that I know shit about art, but I want to go anyway. If not, there's a badass sculpture by a Chinese artist there. I hope it's still there. If I was rich I'm sure I'd buy it.
ReplyDeletePS - The museum is free every Thursday.
By "the museum" I mean the one in Houston.
ReplyDeleteI don't know shit about art either. Most good art, i.e. figurative art, traditional art, honest art is easy to understand--it looks like what it's supposed to mean, and any elaborate explanation is inherent in the craft and the style. Even when it's mysterious or understated, it gives the viewer a "way in," so to speak.
ReplyDeleteIt's only when you get into the weirder modern and especially postmodern stuff that a blob that looks like a dick or a dismembered female torso or an aluminum can with a turd in it need to have 3 page theoretical justifications. Fuck I hate po-mo.
I think there's something to be said when a piece is placed into its' proper context, and that's easy to miss in a museum setting. Many times I've enjoyed something more because of the role it played in society (then and now), rather than its' aesthetic appeal.
ReplyDeleteStill, I believe if you like it you like it.
I like that you wrote that comment more intellectually in an earlier draft, and then dumbed it down.
ReplyDeleteNobody likes a deleted comment narc, Glenn. Shouldn't you be writing some posts on your blog or rehearsing for karaoke or something?
ReplyDeleteDamn. I was worried someone might catch me revising that comment. I hate to revise things, but my ultimate fear in life is sounding overly pretentious.
ReplyDelete