MoMA and all that

 On a recent trip to New York in March 2022, one 'must see' in our book was MoMA (Museum of Modern Art).

As if by terrible coincidence, before we could decide on a date, on the afternoon of March 12th, this story was all over the news; "2 employees stabbed at MoMA by man whose membership was revoked." and it led to the immediate closure of the museum. 

Yoakum's UFO siting!

Fortunately, the man was quickly nabbed, the employees were not badly injured, and the museum reopened two days later. 

When we arrived at the address, we were quite impressed by the long line of persons trying to get in, which made me wonder out loud if it was a result of the recent assault!

 It was also our lucky day, as when we went to purchase our tickets and asked for 'senior citizen rate,' the nice young man serving us declared; "it's your birthday, so you can come in free today!"

We sure were grateful for it is not normal to get anything free in New York😁. 

It was an interesting and educational visit too, for my experience with art musea, is they tend to highlight famous artists mostly. However, MoMa seems to be different (it was my first visit here) for they did the very opposite, which made it super-educational.

I was very impressed by some interesting works presented as "What I saw" by Joseph E. Yoakum 1891–1972. (He even saw a UFO he said).

I had never heard of him before. He was part Native American, but his mother was a formerly enslaved African American. He left his home as a child to travel with circuses. 

As someone who loves to travel, two aspects of his work intrigued me most; he traveled to every continent except Antartica, he was a self-taught landscape artist who never started to draw until he was 70.

He used anything he could find whenever inspiration took him, but most of his work was mainly with ball point pens, crayons and pastels. 

Amazingly, during the few remaining days of his life, he created over 2000 pieces of which 100 are on exhibit at MoMA, portraying a different perspective of many places that we normally see.

Sex between two starfish!

Another artist that I had the opportunity to learn about was Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, one of Africa’s best known and most celebrated 20th-century artists.

Born in 1923 in the Bété village of Zéprégühé, near Daloa, the major city in west-central Côte d’Ivoire, Bouabré is heralded for his untiring attempts to codify, archive, and share information that connects the human story.

 

In the formative period of his career, Bouabré was concerned with transcribing the history and knowledge of his native Bété ethnic group. He also set out to create the first writing system for the Bété language in the 1950s and pioneered a Bete alphabet.
 

I found his series entitled, "Creation" a bit amusing and even primitive, as he depicted the sex act between numerous creatures from the starfish to the elephant!

Moving on; I thought a particular photograph on display by the Ukranian artist Boris Mikhailov was very timely. For this picture was taken in 1991 and was displayed in his series portraying the hardships Ukrainians suffered after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

It really shows a lady at her lowest level in Ukraine then!

Depiction of hardship 

There were lots of other photographs and really imaginative creations on display at this museum, even a masterful piece designed from women's panty hose!

The pictural history of the independence of India and separation Pakistan also caught my attention.

I loved MoMa.

Apart from Moma, we went to the New York Natural History Museum but I guess because I had only recently gone back to the comprehensive and educational Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC, I was not particularly impressed.

Made from panty hose!

The Native American Museum had some very interesting information though. 

This is located right opposite the Bowling Green subway station in Alexander Hamilton's Customs house.

There you gain accurate knowledge about the various tribes that lived peacefully in and around the New York area, before their lives and liberty were taken away from the white invaders. 

Native American Museum is in this impressive building

I was especially pleased that they corrected the long-circulated lie that the Dutch bought Manhattan in 1626. What they did was to trick the Native Americans to get it, but I guess that has been the order of the day by the colonizers and invaders since the beginning of time.

This museum is definitely worth a visit.

 

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Loved this pic in Natural History Museum