On our NYC Monday, we visited the new and improved MOMA. One afternoon is not nearly enough time to take it all in, but we did the best we could.
I was immediately drawn in by the current exhibit, “Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape”
Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape presents twenty-three
landscape-design projects that reveal the surge of creativity and critical
debate in the design of public spaces, from small urban plazas to large
parks for post-industrial sites to long-range plans for entire urban
sectors. In the last twenty years, the most significant new landscapes have
been designed for sites that were reclaimed from conflict, degradation, or
abandonment. The projects, located throughout North America, Europe, Asia,
and the Middle East, were selected for their outstanding design and to show
a variety of scales, contexts, materials, and types of spaces found in the
contemporary landscape. Many of the projects’ transformations are tracked
through before-and-after visuals to underscore these dramatic shifts in use
and topography. Models, drawings, and photographs are complemented by
large-scale video projections—many created for the exhibition—conveying the
space, time, context, material, and palette of each project.
One could spend hours just marveling at the architectural models. Our own Lurie Garden of Millenium Park is included in the show.
Next we checked out the permanent collection. I’d never seen Warhol’s Soup Cans in person, and didn’t even realize he included all 32 varieties that existed at the time.
I also enjoyed this Jasper Johns piece titled Map from 1961.
After an incredible lunch in the bar of The Modern, the museum’s main restaurant, we headed back up to our favorite gallery, Architecture and Design. I was thrilled to see the entrance graced by the work of two favorite Chicago legends, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan.
We closed our outing with a trip to two of the three new museum stores.