I had an hour spare between the apartment hunting appointments this week and found myself outside the very impressive Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway. A massive stone and concrete, turn-of-the-20th-Century affair, it's a hulking edifice complete with the almost ubiquitous Museum Roman Columns. But you'd probably miss them at first glance, for they've dressed the entire entrance side of the building with a bizarre 3 storey high, glass and steel 'bib', that serves as a reception area. It looks completely out of place and entirely like the 100-year-later-afterthought that, in reality, it actually was/is.
Wandering past the synchronised shooting fountain show out the front, i stepped into the afore-mentioned lobby and surveyed the large, square reception desk that also serves as a ticket booth of sorts. In New York, nothing is free. However, this is one time i didn't want to pay. I understand that a museum is not simply limited to the costs of artworks it shows, but also has to furnish a budget that includes expenses ranging from payroll to building upkeep and everything inbetween. I understand that those who reap the most direct benefits from the collections housed inside such museums need to support more of this fiscal weight than others. I also understand that, as i don't exactly pay any rates to the Borough of Brooklyn, i'm actually kicking nothing at all into The Museum's coffers and am not paying my own way at all. However, you need to understand that it's not a situation of being unaware of my responsibilities to this particular end, but rather a situation where i simply don't give a shit.
Juvenile, i know, but..............
So i thought i'd try my luck sans paid entry.
The entrance to the galleries was wide and the middle aged attendant, resplendent in that faded navy blueish, pant and sweater situation, whilst large, was still dwarfed by it's relative dimension. I slinked though. I know there's some people on the West Coast who would suggest it more likely that i 'sashayed' in the way i do, but either way, i was in.... no ticket and all.
Was quite easy actually. I think they don't really seem to have a problem with recalcitrant, roundish, middle aged, Italian tourists plotting to avoid the very nominal small charge of entry and this played well in my favour.
Other than the very impressive interior of the building itself ,the odd Monet and Matisse and a couple of wonderful, early post-modern, abstract murals lifted from some old government housing building, there wasn't too much to report on. Other than the 'Decorative Arts Galleries and Period Rooms', housed up on the 4th floor, that is. In essence, this permanent exhibition, covers New York life from centuries back, the highlight of which is "a group of American period rooms ranging in date from the 18th century to the 20th century".
What is a 'Period Room', you may ask...
Well, to those of you familiar with certain aspects of Jewish Martial Relations Law, this may conjure up an answer that, whilst specific, would be inaccurate. What they've actually done is take several rooms that were designed to and for specific houses and apartments in New York and it's surrounds, and supplant that entire room - including ceilings, trimmings, wallpaper, carpets, furniture, soft furnishings etc - onto the 4th floor. Further impressive, is how they've gone to the great effort to find era correct little tid-bits, to flesh out the whole 'lived in' look. Each one of theses individual installations are only able to viewed though a glass wall, so unfortunately, one is unable to wander around the Moorish Smoking Room that was donated by the Rockerfellers some time last century.
As i wandered around the thin corridors of this erie (almost haunted house like) exhibition, gazing through the thick-plate glass, i realised the symmetry between the two main experiences of the day. Here i was, taking a break from surmising various foreign and new rooms to, well, surmise foreign and new rooms. Yet, whilst the actions, emotions and whole 'sashay' of the two tasks were ever so similar, one could be termed as a necessary chore and the other as a pleasure.
Funny how life works out that way. I guess it's the old question of what is art and what is just a urinal....
If only i could work out a way to avoid having to pay for the pleasure of enjoying the space i will live in (once i've found it) as i did for viewing this rooms on the 4th floor of the Brooklyn Museum.
Wandering past the synchronised shooting fountain show out the front, i stepped into the afore-mentioned lobby and surveyed the large, square reception desk that also serves as a ticket booth of sorts. In New York, nothing is free. However, this is one time i didn't want to pay. I understand that a museum is not simply limited to the costs of artworks it shows, but also has to furnish a budget that includes expenses ranging from payroll to building upkeep and everything inbetween. I understand that those who reap the most direct benefits from the collections housed inside such museums need to support more of this fiscal weight than others. I also understand that, as i don't exactly pay any rates to the Borough of Brooklyn, i'm actually kicking nothing at all into The Museum's coffers and am not paying my own way at all. However, you need to understand that it's not a situation of being unaware of my responsibilities to this particular end, but rather a situation where i simply don't give a shit.
Juvenile, i know, but..............
So i thought i'd try my luck sans paid entry.
The entrance to the galleries was wide and the middle aged attendant, resplendent in that faded navy blueish, pant and sweater situation, whilst large, was still dwarfed by it's relative dimension. I slinked though. I know there's some people on the West Coast who would suggest it more likely that i 'sashayed' in the way i do, but either way, i was in.... no ticket and all.
Was quite easy actually. I think they don't really seem to have a problem with recalcitrant, roundish, middle aged, Italian tourists plotting to avoid the very nominal small charge of entry and this played well in my favour.
Other than the very impressive interior of the building itself ,the odd Monet and Matisse and a couple of wonderful, early post-modern, abstract murals lifted from some old government housing building, there wasn't too much to report on. Other than the 'Decorative Arts Galleries and Period Rooms', housed up on the 4th floor, that is. In essence, this permanent exhibition, covers New York life from centuries back, the highlight of which is "a group of American period rooms ranging in date from the 18th century to the 20th century".
What is a 'Period Room', you may ask...
Well, to those of you familiar with certain aspects of Jewish Martial Relations Law, this may conjure up an answer that, whilst specific, would be inaccurate. What they've actually done is take several rooms that were designed to and for specific houses and apartments in New York and it's surrounds, and supplant that entire room - including ceilings, trimmings, wallpaper, carpets, furniture, soft furnishings etc - onto the 4th floor. Further impressive, is how they've gone to the great effort to find era correct little tid-bits, to flesh out the whole 'lived in' look. Each one of theses individual installations are only able to viewed though a glass wall, so unfortunately, one is unable to wander around the Moorish Smoking Room that was donated by the Rockerfellers some time last century.
As i wandered around the thin corridors of this erie (almost haunted house like) exhibition, gazing through the thick-plate glass, i realised the symmetry between the two main experiences of the day. Here i was, taking a break from surmising various foreign and new rooms to, well, surmise foreign and new rooms. Yet, whilst the actions, emotions and whole 'sashay' of the two tasks were ever so similar, one could be termed as a necessary chore and the other as a pleasure.
Funny how life works out that way. I guess it's the old question of what is art and what is just a urinal....
If only i could work out a way to avoid having to pay for the pleasure of enjoying the space i will live in (once i've found it) as i did for viewing this rooms on the 4th floor of the Brooklyn Museum.
'The streets are full of women and they is looking for romance. But if you aint got a penny in your pocket, you know you don't stand a chance.'
T-Bone Walker, 'Hypin' Woman Blues"
