Art the Beautiful Goes on a Museum Trip

Very close to home, in fact, the Princeton University Art Museum, where it was almost the last day of a watercolor exhibit of holdings from the collection.

With the exception of a lovely Arthur Dove, a couple of Milton Avery pieces (vertiginous as expected with AD! though not the best I've seen of him) and a lovely John Marin, it was a pretty timid show.  Of historical rather than art value, I'd say.  Worth taking a look, mainly for the names I quoted, but not the sort of excitement I was hoping for. I made a side trip to the gallery where they have a Dove and an Avery on permanent display, just to pay my respects.

However, in the lobby of the museum there's a perfectly wonderful artwork, of a Nigerian based Ghanaian artist, El Anatsui, who uses tossed away items such as bottlecaps, flattened and attached, and with cloth passing behind here and there, to make a huge, draped and amazing work. It's like a giant golden fleece, or a extra terrestrial animal hide, just a great experience, and hung right where you see it as you come in.

It's a marvellous artwork and a social statement at the same time, but not like propaganda.  Go here for more information but alas a terrible picture, why oh why with their endowment not get a better image on their website, sigh.  Photos not allowed, so I can't give you a better shot at any of the exhibit items I liked.

This big piece may be responsible for my feeble reactions to the watercolors, too, since its energy took out all the oxygen! and it reminded me vividly of the months I spent on the Great Tin Quilt, and what an experience that was, too.  Editorial update: if you want to know more about this, go here

Outside there's an interesting foretaste of things to come

and a bronze sculpture, in the trees near Prospect Gardens about which I have mixed feelings, but I thought you should see it for yourselves.

And, dwarfing all the work of people, the sequoia outside Prospect Gardens, can't get it all in one shot, but I wanted to be sure you could see the trunk.  

This one's for you, Quinn!