Visiting the Museum of Modern Art

Vincent Van Gogh's special exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (more affectionately called MOMA) in New York City was our main reason for visiting the museum. Even though we flashed our corporate members card to get into the museum for free (admission is $20 for adults unless you go on Friday afternoons starting at 4pm), we still had to get timed tickets to walk into Van Gogh's exhibit. We had almost 2 hours to spare before we could get in....so we quickly walked through most of the major exhibitions on the other floors.

Modern art, for the most part, is lost on me.....light installations, a gentleman's suit hung 20 feet up in the air, a pile of carpet shag on the floor, paintbrushes glued to a clear canvas, an upside down chair....

Luckily the Van Gogh exhibit did not disappoint. Despite the crowds, I was content with staring at the beautiful colors and thick paint strokes for several minutes. I was also impressed with his many letters to his brother Theo (which were all preserved nicely!). In these letters, he would sketch out the paintings in a miniature form. Sadly I couldn't read what he was actually saying in his letters because he was fluent in 4 languages.

I've already seen some of his paintings in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, I would definitely go back to the MOMA exhibition before it closes in January 2009. However, next time I would go early in the morning so the Van Gogh exhibit would be available for earlier viewing. I recommend sitting in the outdoor Sculpture Garden - it was very relaxing and beautiful as well. Oh and the vanilla ice-cream was very tasty too.