Thursday, July 26, 2012

Trip to the Museum

Earlier this month I took a much needed vacation to one of my favorite places. I've only visited New York City once in my life and it was nice to get back there. I mention in an earlier post about going to a Mets game, today the focus is on going to some of the New York's art culture.


Don't worry, there is some card related photos at the end of this post.


I've Guggenheimed once before and it was a lot nicer last time. I recall it was a surrealist exhibit featuring the works of Salvador Dali among other artists. My mind is not sharp enough to remember the other artists sharing the exhibit with Dali.



This time around it was a little odd. I ran into a really nice, kind of cute docent, along with a really rude older docent. The exhibits weren't that good, and part of the museum was shut down.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was a lot nicer.

This was my first time visiting the Met. It's a huge, huge place. A lot larger than it looks on the outside.



I really don't remember all of the artists and time periods of the pieces that I saw.

I would like to sound smart and be able to speak intelligently about the artwork in these photos, but I'm afraid I would end up sounding like E. Buzz Miller:


Here's a link if you are so inclined. I realize that if anyone clicks on the link now, they'll never finish this blog post. So I just lost most of my 2 or 3 readers. Oh well.


"If you look closely you'll see a little Titian right there."


There was a no photography sign by the front desk, but nobody really paid much attention to it.


I held off as long as I could, but I wanted to get a few snap shots. I had my f1.4 lens so I didn't need a flash, but it has a really loud shutter so I thought I might get in trouble. I'm happy to report that nobody said anything about me taking a few shots.


I promised something card related so here it is:


I forgot which blogger mentioned that there was some cards from Jefferson Burdick's personal collection at the Met. I looked at the link and it seemed like it would be cool to check out. It was a pain to find that part of the museum. I finally found it about 15 minutes before they closed.



I was worried that I might not have enough time to look at all the cards.


I shouldn't have worried; there was only one wall with about 30 or so cards.




It wasn't an overview of his whole collection, just some of his cards relating to African Americans in baseball. A worthwhile exhibit, but I was just hoping for some tobacco era cards.







This is another guy taking photos of the cards. His friend (son?) didn't want his photo taken. He backed off when I was snapping these.



I was shocked that this was all there was in the exhibition. I yelled out "Is that it?!!" A little embarrassing, but nobody else was down there except the three of us. They were just as disappointed as I was.

Still some really nice cards.


I barely got through 1/3 of the museum before being ushered out the door. I don't know if there was more Burdick cards in the museum. It wouldn't have mattered as I wouldn't have been able to find them.

Making my way outside I noticed this street performer on the sidewalk in front of the museum.



He was playing a variety of songs from different countries on his clarinet and saxophone.



I tried taking his photo, but as you can see it was easier said than done. I'm used to getting photos of people in action, but I've never had an experience where someone tried to get as close to me as possible. He moved around pretty fast, but slowed down enough for me to get one shot.



I finally got one good shot.




Here is a shot of a girl trying to take his photo on her phone. As you can see he is too fast for her and her cellphone camera.

At least he got some tips for his effort.


This probably should have been three smaller posts, but I got carried away. I hope you all enjoyed looking through my boring vacation photos.

3 comments:

Potch said...

Thanks for sharing. I had hoped to see the cards there next trip but I'm also surprised that's all they are showing. Still pretty cool though.

Jeremy said...

Maybe they have more, but I couldn't find them. Good luck. The docents are trying to help, but it's a big place. Lot of cool stuff to look at besides cards.

Hackenbush said...

Tit-ian. Bon Apatite, boys!