December 1, 2017

The Focused Whitney

By roadsrus

 

The last time Ruth & I were in The Whitney Museum in New York City it was in what appeared to be a cramped, upside down building at Madison Avenue and 75th Street.  It was 2010.  In 2015 a new Whitney, it’s 4th location since its founding in 1931, opened in the Meatpacking District.  One of the reasons why we returned to New York City in 2017 was to see it.   The Whitney is unique in that it is devoted to American art.   It had outgrown its East Side location because its collection was up to more than 21,000 works.

The new Whitney is between the Hudson River and High Line Park.  It was designed by Renzo Piano, whose works like the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris have been controversial.  I like London’s The Shard, but its top level condos proved hard to sell.  His Whitney design is not beautiful in the traditional sense but it’s a winner as expansive museum space.

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The Meatpacking District is undergoing a Renaissance.  It has design stores, fine restaurants, great buzz, etc.   The Whitney with its contemporary look, outdoor decks, and supersized indoor spaces fits right in.  NYC’s original City Guide calls it “The most cutting-edge of the major art museums in New York”, a city with more than 1,000 museums, and adds that the building itself is worth the trip.  This is correct if you like white walls and austere rooms.

The building uses floors 1, 3, 5, and 8 for temporary exhibitions.  Floors  6 & 7 are devoted to The Whitney’s own collection but there will be, I was told, frequent changes.  At first, for example, the curators had not put up many of the Edward Hoppers The Whitney is especially known for, and they had to bring some out of storage to satisfy visitor complaints. I liked the way they mixed photography with more labor-intensive works, giving this art form some well-deserved, equal credibility.  Ruth liked the Studio Cafe on the top floor.  We both liked the step-outside-for-grand-views decks on the upper floors.  The best temporary exhibit we saw was devoted to Alexander Calder mobiles.  It has closed.  A couple of times each day a staff member used a stick to make some of them move.  Mobiles are meant to move but they seldom do in museum displays.

Plan ahead.  Unlike other museums that traditionally close on Mondays, the Whitney’s day off is Tuesday.

Hank

 

About roadsrus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roadsrus
This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2017 at 9:58 pm and posted in Northeast, United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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