Museums: The Met Breuer

The newly minted Met Breuer museum opened to the public a few days ago.  The Met Breuer will exhibit art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's modern and contemporary collections.  The Met Breuer (sounds like Sawyer) is located on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side not far from the Met.  The building, opened in 1966, is the former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, which moved to the ultra-trendy Meatpacking District during 2014 and 2015.  The Met has leased the building, designed by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer.

The Met Breuer, NYC

A sneak peek afforded us the opportunity to view one of the initial exhibitions--Unfinished:  Thoughts Left Visible.  The exhibition examines  "the question of when a work of art is finished".  Some works are left unfinished intentionally at the artist's volition, others by accident because completion was interrupted.  One of the curators of the exhibition said a work of art is finished once the artist has conveyed the work's meaning.  (To learn more about the exhibition, click here.)

The exhibition is an amazing collection with pieces from Mondrian, Picasso, Turner, Pollock, Rodin, Klimt, da Vinci, Titian, Rembrandt, Basquiat, Johns, to name a handful.

Her are some photos from the exhibition.

Napoleon, Elizabeth Peyton (2005)

Scene from the Steeplechase:  The Fallen Jockey, Edgar Degas (1866, reworked 1880-1881, reworked 1897)

Boulevard des Capucines, Claude Monet (1873)

Shooting the Rapids, Saguenay River, Winslow Homer (1905-1910), renamed "Up a Creek with No Paddle" (the paddler in front has lost his paddle)

"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), Felix Gonzales-Torres (1991).  Visitors are permitted to take and eat a piece of candy from the pile, which is replenished daily.  We watched as some visitors did just that.  If you read more about this work of art, the meaning might surprise you.

P.S.  Following our visit to the Met Breuer, we rested at Greg's namesake coffee shop and enjoyed an artistic beverage. 

A finished work of art?  Perhaps yes.  Art is wherever you find it.