"All" Maurizio Cattelan, Guggenheim Museum, NY

Nov. 4ht, 2011 - Jan. 22nd, 2012

Couple weeks ago, I visited an exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan at Guggenheim. For his retrospective, Cattelan chose the unusual style to exhibit his work---he decided to hung everything from the ceilling.

I learned about Cattelan for the first time during this visit, and I was impressed. He was born 1960 in Italy, and became a well-known post-modern artist of his era. As Guggenheim describes, his works is strongly "disruptive and disrespectful" toward establishments and authorities---political, religious or artistic---and he made very strong statements in really smart and cynical way.   Many of his work looked a bit humorous, and really really dark at the same time. Often you have to look close, read plates and think about it for a while to find out how dark it actually is (there were a lot of animals in his work, and I was pretty disturbed when I learned they are all actual stuffed animals). The style of exhibition was  itself his latest and probably largest project, and he did it right.  I would really recommend you to actually go & see, but in case you miss, here are pictures.

Guggenheim has a really great application for iPhone and iPad, explaining each works. Check them out.

Renovated Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC: Part 2

 As I mentioned before, one of the highlights of this gallery is how they display the artworks.  The selling is from Islamic art influenced part of Spain. 

 I love how the sailing ship looked so modern. Almost Marimekko-ish.

 Damascus Room: Syria, Damascus


Another "restored" rooms. The museum did a great job installing computer panels in each of those rooms, which include videos of how the rooms are done, showing videos step by step. It's just amazing. You can see those videos at their HP.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/140009477

http://blog.metmuseum.org/newgalleries2011/en/

Renovated Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

The section opened on November 1st, 2011 after a major renovation. It became one of the "must see"---very well designed, well thought, comprehensive, educational and absolutely beautiful. I had rather little academic knowledge about the art from the region, but I was totally fascinated. Hope the pictures give you some idea.

So sharp. Love how it was displayed. Must have been owned by somebody very special...

There were a lot of people, there had been quite a hype about this gallery---and for reason! 

The way animals depicted were very cute & humorous.

I was very surprised how much those Islamic/Arabic/Middle Eastern art had common with Chinese arts. For example, the bowl above is from somewhere Middle East ( Iran/Mesopotamia? sorry I forgot the detail...) but the picture of the lady looked just like the ones from ancient Chinese Buddhism art.

The lights on the ceiling were so nice and beautiful. Must have been specially designed and ordered.

I

The Met put so much attention to the detail of how they display the artworks. The tile above was held by metal nails, but the tip of the nails were painted with EXACTLY the same color with the background.

 Praying Niche: Iran, Isfahan (above)
 One of the highlight. I was always fascinated by Iranian art, it is sad how the country has been going through really difficult time and it is the place hard to visit....

Moroccan Court, Morocco (part)

One of the absolutely beautiful "re-created" rooms. The decorative details were actually new, done by some artisans who were invited from Morocco for making this room. You can see how they did it on the video (at their HP), it is just amazing.

Surprised to learn that this clothes is for men.

Probably the most beautiful pen case I have ever seen.