Your Assignment: Art

In one of Jeremy's classes, he was assigned to go see three specific art shows around town and choose a piece from one to write about. I guess when you live in New York, it is no big deal for the professor to assign this, even when the three shows are at the Met, the Guggenheim, and the Jewish Museum! So yesterday afternoon we went to Museum Mile on the Upper East Side to see two of the shows. I went early to see the Jewish Museum, since we've been studying a lot of midrash and the Hebrew Bible lately at House of Mercy. It is amazing place, and I want to go back (maybe when you visit?!). Their special exhibition was about Abstract Expressionism, and two Jewish critics' roles in the creation and acceptance of it. They had amazing Pollacks, DeKoonigs, etc. I learned a lot, which is good, because I've never taken an art class in my life and need to know more.

Then, it was off to the roof garden at the Met to see three pieces by Jeff Koons. We were a bit late, so we literally walked as fast as possible through the Classical Greek and African art to get to the elevators -- doesn't that seem like something that only happens in the movies? OK, maybe on bad TV? We weren't super into these pieces, but it made for some nice photos of us and the Manhattan/Central Park skyline...




After our 15 minutes at the Met, we walked to a quick dinner at the Central Park boathouse, and continued walking across the park to get a train to meet Mike and Arianne for openings in Chelsea. We all felt underwhelmed by the art we saw, but at the end of the evening walking back to the train, we looked up to see the two beams of light that are lit from the site of the Twin Towers on each anniversary of the attacks. The lights are massive and go up to the sky, as high as the cloud cover. They were not underwhelming.