Art Salivation
The big boys at the Met have decided to let us, the riff-raff, get a load of all their Dutch Masters for the next few months. Apparently, the curators' organizing theme for this exhibition is cash, i.e., the guiding spirits will be all those robber barons of yore who bought and gave the paintings to the museum.
I plan on going, given my current state of idleness, today or tomorrow, to commune with Monsieur van Rijn for a bit. This unless, I get my ship-out orders to the Olde World or the Newe World's back-country later today, to help folks make some money. I am doing it to keep another beneficent karmic wheel of capitalism in motion - so that these nice folks in turn can buy and donate conceptual art or something like that to the Met.
My Daily Notes
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I saw this - very crass
I read the review of this - very crass. Don't get me wrong. I understand art needs patrons and collectors and donors. Without these it would be me and my finger paintings. But to put out so much splendid art and to make this the theme? American in the worst possible way. Sorry to sound Olde World (must be the bad influence of London?) but art should be about more. They might as well put a price tag next to each one, and perhaps even sell off a few of the lesser canvases, just to get in the true spirit!
Having said that, I'll be there when I'm next in NY!
BB
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Until you wait for NY, BB,
email me yon snail mail, so that I can post you cards of what is going for cheap at the Met, for you can buy em up when you get here.
Also since you like art, you may enjoy watching this movie, with a bag of popcorn or papads.
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thanks
so kind of you -- thanks, but ny is soon on the horizon and perhaps it will be better to have wonder shimmer in front of my eyes. will report back! cheers, bb
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managed to find my way
I managed to find my way to NY over the weekend. From London it's no easy feat these days. The paintings are splendid, and some of the galleries were fascinating, such as pictures from the original 1871 purchase. We have a window into the aesthetic of another age, which both resembles our own (in valuing Rembrandt and Vermeer) but is also different (what seem to us like too many genre scenes and still life paintings - excellent lobster though).
But as I progressed I did long for another thread.
Still it was impressive seeing 6 Rembrandts lined up on a wall as part of the Altman gift. But did we really have to know that someone paid $300,000 in 1910 for a Hals?
Cheers,
BB
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Glad that you made it
out to this neck of woods BB. I for one was too dumbstruck by the surfeit of riches on display to notice too much to the numbers to which those canvases exchanged hands for. And also, much happiness was had from all those direct and bawdy Halses.
Also as we are speaking of lobster, let's not forget all those Moorish costumes, on folks who look much different than Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia!
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