1 Art museums without collections are always going to be on the back
foot. This Jackson Pollock exhibition of over 30 major works was a
collection show! Everything was either purchased by or gifted to MoMA.
2 Shocked yet again by the old museum practice of stamping items that
came into the collection. In this case it was the Metropolitan Museum
‘owning’ a page of illuminated manuscript showing David in prayer with
the initial letter M by Girolamo dai Libri painted in 1501.
3 Nice surprise to see Christchurch's cardboard Cathedral on the cover
of Philip Jodidio update to his book on architect Shigeru Ban. Now that
was a very bold move by Christchurch.
4 There’s a lot of completion out there. This guy spent nearly half an
hour sitting in this gallery at the Met totally concentrating on visual
imagery, which was more than anyone else that entered the room even came
close to.
5 Some great artists have also been great designers. You can still
purchase one of these Noguchi baby-minder speakers. The speaker was
called 'Radio Nurse' and the receiver 'Guardian' (almost worth it for
the names alone). Noguchi designed them in 1937. An almost new set was
sold this year for around $NZ6,000.
6 Remembered seeing this painting Duchamp’s A network of stoppages in
the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in Christchurch back in 1967. If we'd
seen that Matisse, that really would have been something.
