NYC - Day 5

On Thursday I visited the Museum of Modern Art, not because I was especially interested in the highly-acclaimed Cindy Sherman show there, but more to reconnect with their permanent collection.

I like the Combine series that Robert Rauschenberg did from the mid-50's to mid-60's. He coined the word Combine to indicate that the work was both painting and sculpture. This one, titled "Bed", involved painting a quilt and then stretching it onto a frame. Critics at the time analyzed it as depicting sexual violence, but I'm not so sure. I am always interested in the appearance of fibre in recognized collections of art.

This second Rauschenberg is a painted collage, using bits of paper and ephemera the artist found on the street. While we see this sort of thing all the time in contemporary work, it wasn't much used in collage until the 1930's. Now of course there are whole galleries in art museums given over to stuff found in the street.

 

The views from the museum's windows gave me wonderful opportunities to appreciate the urban landscape.