cleveland museum of art

12/20: my brother is here in cleveland! yesterday, we went to the "modern masters" art exhibit at the cleveland museum of art. i think i've enjoyed the exhibits at the cleveland museum more than any other that i've seen. (in may, crystal and i got free tickets to see the monet showing. it was amazing.) usually, when i go to museums, i become overwhelmed from the amount of art in the exhibit (visual overstimulation!! ahh), especially if the display isn't cohesive to make sense to me, a person with little "cultural capital" in the visual arts. the exhibits just overwhelm me emotionally.

but my time at the museum of art wasn't chaotic. each room was spacious enough for the viewer but small enough for a good collection of pieces. usually i get bored when reading the placards, but theirs were well-written, wry, witty, etc., explaining only the most intriguing works (for the right amount of information.) the pieces in each of the rooms were well-chosen so that i could pick out a cohesive theme, and each of the rooms were well-explained so that i could see artistic progression of the major modern movements.

i was overwhelmed at the end, though, because we experienced 50 years' worth of social deconstruction in 2 hours: we saw the impressionists (degas, monet), the post-impressionists (cezanne, gauguin, van gogh), one small room with the Symbolists, avant-garde (picasso), rodin (gets his own shoutout), a short Dada exhibit, and finally, the Surrealists (dali). it was great because we saw 3 different parodies of manet's "luncheon on the grass". i could definitely see how one these movements were challenging prior conceptions of art, nature, and the artist himself.

my brother just finished taking an art-hum class this past semester and was able to help me understand a LOT of these movements/works. i think my favorites were the cleveland-only displays of degas, this one von gogh with these two trees (with thick layers of paint), a rodin sculpture, etc. i enjoyed the "luncheon on the grass" parodies -- i liked seeing the progression of artistic movements.

i also like that the exhibit went to asia (china, japan, korea.) one viewer (i think from china) basically said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see these works of art in person, rather than in a textbook. they, too, are able to get a chance to increase their cultural capital.... it reminds me that living near some of the greatest cultural institutions ("even if it is cleveland") is a privilege.

one other museum stands out in my mind: the african-american history museum in detroit. it's seriously worth going to see. apparently, the detroit institute of arts is a museum significant enough to be mentioned in the NYT's "53 places to visit in 2008."