Met Morning

Saturday morning was a Met morning. I met up with Julia bright and early to create a strategy for conquering selected exhibits. As regulars, we know it’s best to go in with a plan if you really want to enjoy your visit without getting tired or overwhelmed.

We decided to check out some of the temporary exhibits first, which included “Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans,” “Vermeer’s Masterpiece ‘The Milkmaid,’” “Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection,” and “Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom.”

All were wonderful, though I most enjoyed Robert Frank’s exhibit, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Americans, Frank’s collection of black-and-white photographs taken on a cross-country road trip in 1955-56. In addition to featuring all 83 photographs published in the book, the exhibit includes the contact sheets that Frank used to create the book, which were especially fun to look at, as they conveyed the sense of urgency with which he developed his prints (he didn’t bother to rotate them or line them up neatly and scribbled on the pages).

The Maelstrom, a 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless steel sculpture, was also fun to look at. The organic nature of the piece was a match made in heaven with the greatest backdrop in the world – Central Park and Manhattan’s skyline. Though the day was a bit overcast, I always find it uplifting to look out on the city from rooftops because it gives me a sense of perspective and reminds me just how lucky I am to live where I do.

The Vermeer exhibit was a bit frustrating to view as it was packed and noisy, but it was nonetheless exciting to see the painting in person. Also on view were four other Vermeer paintings from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and several other important works by other Dutch artists of the period.

We also breezed through some of the permanent exhibits before heading out to enjoy the nice cool afternoon weather. Thanks to the plan, I left feeling peaceful rather than weary and irritable.