All posts tagged: Metropolitan Museum Of Art

Sunday At The MET With Swoon

Sunday At The MET With Swoon

The Eidophones at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Mezzanine Gallery.

Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

What is a more quintessential activity in New York on a Sunday than to go to the museum? The steps of the Met Museum were crowded despite the cold blustery (spring?) weather. We climbed the steps with Martha to see one of street arts’ best storytellers in the mezzanine of a warm-hued private gallery area. A small collection of peers and friends and fans, adults and children, milled around the taupe linen space for a meet-and-greet that glowed like stained glass Mission table lamp wrapped in copper foil upon a thick oak table.

Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We were here to look at a new body of work inspired by that time – 30 or 40 small-scale pieces mounted on the wall. “Their paper forms take inspiration from harmonographs, Chladni plates, natural forms such as ice crystals and radiolarians,” said the invite, “as well as traditional textile and weaving patterns, alchemical symbols, and architecture.” Curated by Laura Einstein, she calls these collected pieces “Eidophones”.

She greeted us all, red bubbling ringlets spilling, happy for the reunion, pleased with the new works. Martha was taken with two girls who played on chairs patiently, their mom with one eye trained to them while talking with someone else nearby.

Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We chatted with a Bushwick artist named Felix who helped hang the show and who showed Martha his taxidermy, Steve talked with Robert Aiola and friend Fabiola about their trip this afternoon to the Hip Hop show at Sotheby’s. Robert was fascinated with a crate of vinyl there from DJ Jazzy Jeff. Faust arrived and interviewed a woman who carried a tablet like a clipboard and looked like a salesperson. All of us got to meet a young painting prodigy of 10 whose mom showed us her paintings on her phone, and then Jaime asked to snap a pic of Swoon before we left.

Naturally, we exited through the gift shop.

Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Martha and Jaime perusing new Swoon items at the Met, shaking off the too windy cold outside on 5th Avenue. (photo ©Steven P. Harrington)
Jaime asks a gracious Callie for a shot in front of her wall at the Met in a flurry of texture and lines and hearthful tones at Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. . (photo ©Steven P. Harrington)
Swoon. Eidophones. The Mezzanine Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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50% Off Everything at MET Museum! Nelson Saiers Commercializes the View

50% Off Everything at MET Museum! Nelson Saiers Commercializes the View

Not to say that folks punching each other over a flatscreen are philistines, but you have to wonder if they’d be better off gazing upon the ravishing and lucid Delacroix exhibition instead of unreality TV.

If you want mystery or to trace the lines of power, corruption, and examine who’s pulling the strings behind so-called “Western democracies”, you might want to skip up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy exhibition.

” . . . as much a reckoning with our past as a road map of our current era . . . “Surface

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Alas, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, artist Nelson Saiers wondered why there weren’t many people hanging out in the museum’s gracious galleries to gaze upon masterpieces of the world – and thought he would install SALE signs that might draw crowds away from Best Buy.

“If you went to the Met as it opened on Friday many of the galleries were essentially empty, so you could spend some quality one on one time with some of the greatest works of art ever created,” says Saiers, who has been experimenting with “statement” Street Art installations like putting a large inflateable “Bitcoin Rat” on Wall Street in front of the Federal Reserve building last month.

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Whether many people saw the “Black Friday Special 50% Off” signs he placed around the museum or not (he estimated they each lasted about a half hour) he is still glad to have his critique on societal priorities.

“It was meant to be a bit of a satirical commentary on the non-stop commercialism we experience daily,” says the Hedge Fund manager turned artist, posing wittily or scurrying in some of the photos in the empty galleries with romantic artists like Ernest Meissonier, Paul Cezanne and his wife.

“Would you prefer to spend time with some of the most significant culture ever produced or shop?” Saier asks. “In the end, it was meant to be a humorous commentary, and hopefully, it was entertaining for the few who did see it.”

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

Nelson Saiers. MET Intervention. (photo © Jazmin G)

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