Though we didn't get a White Christmas after all, the snow has now arrived in New York - though it thankfully hasn't reached the depths it has further south on the Eastern Seaboard, with North Caroline and Virginia currently experiencing major travel disruption to road and air-traffic, whilst the north-eastern-most States north of New York are having it even heavier/deeper. So, we're keeping our fingers crossed that the forecast - for no more snow in NYC before our return flight home overnight on Tuesday - remains correct!
The past week has been pretty cold, even before the snow, but it hasn't prevented us from getting out and about - mainly thanks to the impressively reliable and frequent MTA bus transportation in Manhattan, which runs 24/7 on 365 days a year. We had one day just ambling around the Chinatown and Little Italy areas of the Lower East Side, hoping in particular to re-visit the wonderful Chinese street-markets we'd visited years ago, where we'd watched people shopping for food from stalls selling live frogs, chickens, pigs, snakes, lobsters, sea urchins, etc., as well as fruit and vegetables some of which we had no knowledge of. And then sat on the bus back to my sister, Jacky's apartment (when she and Joy both lived in New York many moons ago), beside Chinese people whose carrier bags were twitching, squirming and jumping all the time! This time, however, it seems the whole area has been 'sanitised', and we found no street markets at all, let alone any shops selling such delights as these anywhere in the neighbourhood. Shame.
In this last week, too, we visited no fewer than 4 major museums, including, of course, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (more commonly known as The Met), NY's most massive and impressive museum, covering, as it does, a whole four blocks at the southern end of 5th Avenue, backing onto Central Park. You could easily spend a whole year in The Met, and still not manage to see everything this amazing place has in its collection - over 2 million works, divided amongst 17 curatorial departments covering most of the modern and ancient world's art wonders. (Nor sure how it compares with The Hermitage in St Petersburg, though we learned there that if a visitor spent just 3 seconds at each exhibit, they'd need to live to be 280 years old!). The Met, we were not surprised to learn, is the largest art museum in the US, and amongst the most visited art museum in the world.
We did also stop by the only Museum of Mathematics that any of us had ever seen, though this turned out to be less educational than we'd expected, focussing more on 'engaging' children in fun, hands-on play with real or cyber-objects, with often little or no explanation about any of the mathematical concepts or theories which underpinned their design. Then there was the Whitney Museum of American Art, located in a very swish new building with massive, modern, white galleries, and several beautiful outdoor galleries/seating areas, overlooking the Hudson River or the Chelsea area, and in easy walking distance from Joy's apartment. There were some spectacular modern paintings, photography, mixed-media and sculptures, and then a whole floor of weird 'immersive/participative' art, using technological wizardry, much of which seemed designed to bring on a vertigo attack, or worse! (Or just confirmation that we're getting old and stuffy, maybe ...?!).
But, for me anyway, by far the most unexpectedly beautiful, stylish, and interesting museum of the week was The Jewish Museum, on 5th Avenue, housed in the former mansion-home of German-born American banker, Felix M Warburg. It's apparently the first Jewish museum in the US, as well as the oldest existing Jewish museum in the world, containing a stunning array of collections over four beautifully presented floors. The upper two-floors provide a magnificent collection of fine art and Jewish cultural, religious and historical artefacts under the title 'Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey', which proved very educational for us, even though there has apparently been criticism that it focuses too heavily upon the Northern European Jewish heritage.
Another floor had a temporary exhibition, displaying a quirky array of art 'ephemera' (if that's the right word for it), by an international collective of 42 artists, including Yoko Ono, Gilbert and George, Uri Aran, under the title 'Take Me (I'm Yours)'. Every one of the exhibits - textiles, paper, installations, performance, digital media and sculpture - invite a 'democratic' approach to art, requiring the viewer/participant to engage, contribute to, or take away bits of the artwork. A fascinating and thought-provoking experience for both of us (so maybe we're not that stuffy yet?).
On yet another floor of the museum is a temporary exhibition about the work of French architect and designer, Pierre Chareau, showcasing exquisite rare furniture, lighting fixtures, and interiors, as well as designs for his extraordinary Maison de Verre, completed in Paris in 1932. It also covered some of Chareau's life and work in the New York area after he fled Paris after the German occupation of the city, including drawings, furniture, archival photography, and other works of art. Some of these exhibits - including a detailed virtual 'walk-through' from the exterior and into the amazing interior space, fixtures and fittings in Maison de Verre - employed some wonderful hi-tech wizardry and virtual reality tours of a variety of Chareau-designed rooms and gardens which, for us anyway, proved to be extremely beguiling and effective: unlike the use of technical wizardry in the Whitney, the technology here was not 'the feature', but rather a means to an end, bringing alive for the viewer a look into scenes and situations which could otherwise no longer be experienced. Truly spectacular.
The final exhibition in The Jewish Museum - again, superbly presented - came under the title 'Memphis Does Hannukkah', showcased the work, particularly of Menorah, of Los Angeles-based designer and artist Peter Shire, and, more widely, the highly stylised 'post-modern' furniture, glassware, pottery and art of the Memphis Group, an Italian design and architecture collective founded in Milan in the 1980s, founded by Ettore Sottass. Often using plastic laminate, assymetrical shapes, and bold colours, this final floor completed a truly wonderful experience at this altogether fantastic museum. Next time you're in New York, don't miss this wonderful place!
