Tim Burton and...naked people?

We went to MOMA yesterday to see the Tim Burton exhibit before it closes on Tuesday.

Our friend generously lent us his membership passes (which we bought for his birthday a few months back, perhaps this was planned in anticipation of the Tim Burton exhibit? I'll let you be the judge). The passes were awesome; the husband said he felt like a star, "I just flash my pass and I'm in - no waiting with the rest of these peons!" Even better, we didn't need timed tickets to the Burton exhibition because members can get in anytime. Even, even better, the museum was open until 8:45pm, so we took our sweet time running errands and taking care of business before heading to the city. This was a great thing because there were no timed tickets to be had.

The exhibition was a bit different than I expected, mostly the layout. The gallery was really small for the amount of artwork, props and costumes from Burton's movies, making everything feel crowded together. With so many people jammed in to the space, this certainly didn't help. Perhaps this was intentional, but it did not appeal to me.

Here was one of my favorites...yes, pictures were not allowed, but everyone else was doing it, and I didn't use flash -

They also had a huge Tim Burton blowup in the gallery entrance/atrium.

Rising Currents: Projects for the New York Waterfront was the most interesting and probably my favorite exhibit of the visit. We questioned going in, but it was really enjoyable and had some cool models.

A shifting light overlay of tidal patterns -

Of course, we hit up the rest of the galleries. As I later put it "The modern gallery was my favorite."

Modern furniture and textiles was disappointing because there wasn't enough for me. I guess I can go to the Cooper-Hewitt for these things.

Let's play 'Spot the Calder mobile' -

A performance art exhibit was also going on, Maria Abramovic's The Artist is Present. She was sitting at a table in the upper level of the atrium with an empty chair opposite. Visitors were allowed to walk into the space to sit and face her. There was a twenty-something girl having some sort of staring contest with her as we arrived. Two seconds after our arrival the performance was over, everyone clapped, and she got up to leave. The actual exhibition has been quite controversial - see this Times article. We missed the naked portion of the exhibit because we arrived too late. Oh well, no interesting stories or photos from that.

Until next time, I'll be watching -