Brooklyn Museum

Last weekend, Katie, Patty and I went to the Brooklyn Museum to see the costume show, American High Style. It was excellent, but then exhibitions of old clothes almost always are. There is something innately fascinating about costumes from another period; they are so familiar, yet so other.

While we were there, I dragged them into the newly installed Egyptian galleries for a quick look around and to see Melvin the Mummy, who had gotten a write-up in The New York Times. I was underwhelmed by Melvin, but pretty intrigued by the galleries because of my work on the Tut exhibition. It was nice to finally have some context for the objects I blow by on a weekly basis as I chase down errant cameramen.

This afternoon, I went back to the BM to look around and read the wall text in the Egyptian galleries at my leisure. I didn't find the the layout of the galleries intuitive and wasn't quite sure how to move through them to move through time and read the interpretation in chronological order. So, I abandoned that and just did a lot of looking and read a lot of object labels--I became most interested in the materials the objects were made of. Most of Tut's stuff is gold, wood, or some form of alabaster. The objects at the BM were more work-a-day with many being some type of ceramic or carved stone. Not surprisingly the craftsmanship of objects made for non-royals wasn't as fine either. It must have been nice to being a living God on earth and have a God's send-off into the afterlife.

While I was at the Museum today, I also went and paid a visit to my favorite work of art in the collection, Martinque Woman by Malvina Hoffman. It's an arresting black marble sculpture of a larger-than-life woman's head. The interplay of textures and color--her smooth, flawless, dark black skin juxtaposed against the rough, stippled carving of her grayish white hair--is delicious. She gazes at the entrance of the gallery, pulling the viewer in and demanding their consideration. It's a powerful piece in a gallery of exceptional artwork.

In fact, I had forgotten how much I liked her gallery, a sort of hodge podge of late 19th/20th century paintings and sculptures located in front of the American Wing's Luce Center. It's the eclectic, thoughtfully curated nature of the gallery that makes it so gratifying. At the front of the gallery, are folk-art sculpture of animals--a giraffe's painted head, and two fierce lions, carved from salvaged railroad ties and whose whiskers are made of wires. Beyond them is a marble statue of a woman, a late-19th century interpretation of classic Greek statuary. It's not very good (actually), but it's juxtaposition against the untrained folk art carver and across from Hoffman's statue, shows the range of sculptural work happening in America within a 60 year period.

Rounding at the gallery's look at sculpture is John Koch's homoerotic painting The Sculptor. The foreground depicts a naked, male model lighting the cigarette of the sculpture who is taking measurements of his calves and thighs with calipers. In the background stands a monumental sculpture, depicting a Grecian figure (perhaps Hercules?) battling some sort of monster. The focus of the painting is the finely rendered model's back, with it's rippling back. The figure is more sculptural than the sculpture in the background, which acts almost as a mere placeholder.

I'm pretty darn lucky that I'm only a 10 minute walk from the Brooklyn Museum. It's become my defacto hangout when I have a spare hour or two. Every time I am delighted and charmed. It's, honestly, a privilege to become familiar with a collection through repeat viewings.