The Blogging Intern goes to the Frick, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim

Yesterday I made a trip to the upper eastside to three museums I had never been to before: the Frick, the Whitney and the Guggenheim. It was a day filled with looking at different types of amazing art!

The Frick is like a sanctuary of beautifully done classical pieces, with art of the Rococo period, romantic english landscapes, religious painting and so much more, especially the Spanish Manner show that is up now displaying drawings from Ribera to Goya. The Spanish Manner exhibit was astonishing, from Jusepe de Ribera’s Head in Profile drawing showing his amazing ability to cross hatch to the point were it looks like fluid tone to Francisco Goya’s loosely drawn ink and water pieces where character and action are distinguished in tones.

The rest of the Frick continued to blow my mind, although when everything I am looking at is amazing, nothing could blow my mind more than seeing my favorite painting highlighted at the very end of all the rooms. My favorite painting being, John Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral, and it usually lives at the MET.

At The Whitney they had The Collecting Biennial Show, were they had pieces from their own collection. This show contained art from the 1950’s through the 1980’s. There was some pretty unique art within the show, from David Hammons, Untitled piece with consists of hair, stone and wire, to Duane Hanson’s Women with Dog. Hammons’s piece at first looks like it might attack you, but then you get up close and realize what it is; hair covered wire, made to imitate dreads. While Hanson’s piece of the women next to the dog, is so incredibly realistic, it is also frightening. I was sure she was going to come to life even if she was made of fiberglass.

Also at the Whitney, Lee Friedlander's America by Car photography show. Friedlander went through all the states taking photo's out his car window at the review mirror and the front windshield. The show is set up with two rows of pictures along the wall and each column of the the two photographs interact or have similarities. It is interesting because each picture is from a different location in America. America isn't all that different from one place to another.

The Guggenheim was my last stop, and I must go back, considering I did not see everything. Nevertheless, what I did see was fabulous, I was particularly fond of Otto Dix's etchings. There was one etching called Skull, which had things coming out of the eyes and mouth. I like looking at heads, in reality we can all relate to heads because we all have one.