Posts Tagged ‘Museum of Modern Art’

Post-Easter Activities in Manhattan: Car Show, Egg Hunt, Gauguin and Broadway

Despite the chilly weather, Easter marks the start of some pretty wonderful New York City events this year.

New York Auto ShowIf you love cars, this is the time to get into gear.  The New York City International Auto Show runs through Sunday April 27.  This year’s show has a number of showstoppers with a wide range of electric cars, the 50th anniversary Mustang cars, and the 25th anniversary Miatas.  The second generation Rolls Royce Ghost is a stunner as are the new Mercedes-Benz C Class and BMW four-door 4 Series, both due to arrive in the US later this year.  You can also take a test drive over an off-road course with Jeep (Camp Jeep Outdoor Off Roading Ride Along), shoot a selfie with Nissan for a chance to win a free car, and enjoy other pop-up contests.  The show is an annual favorite and takes place at the Jacob Javits Center, 11th Avenue between 34th and 40th streets, in Manhattan.  Show hours are 10am-10pm through Saturday and 10am-7pm on Sunday.  Tickets can be purchased online at www.autoshowny.com.

Fabrage EggsIf you missed the Big Faberge Easter Egg hunt that took place over the past couple of weeks throughout New York City, you still have a chance to see all the eggs in one giant nest this week.  Visit Rockefeller Center, with your camera, and you’ll see the 282 eggs that made for a great scavenger hunt high and low in all five boroughs.  If you’d like one for your very own, you can bid on the Great Egg auction at www.paddle8.com, with all proceeds going to charity.  Download The Big Egg Hunt app or go online to www.thebigegghunt.org for more details.  Books of all the eggs are sold at Saks Fifth Avenue’s pop-up egg shop.

Moma ExhibitMOMA’s Gauguin: Metamorphoses exhibit is in full swing, now through June 8.  The artist’s paintings from 1889 through his death in 1903 displays rare prints and transfer drawings related to his better-known paintings.  Exhibit is located on the sixth floor of the museum. Ticket lines can be long, but the exhibit is worth it. 11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan, 212.708.9400. www.moma.org, The Museum of Modern Art.

Plays on Broadway in New YorkAnd, for those of you who want to be “in the know” about the theater scene before the Tony’s (Sunday, June 8 this year at 8pm), there’s a crop of interesting shows worth seeing.  Some of my favorite plays are “Of Mice and Men” starring the prolific actor James Franco with his apt sidekick Lennie, played by Chris O’Dowd of Bridesmaids fame. At the Longacre Theater, 220 West 48th Street. Tickets via Telecharge, or 212.239.6200.

Also, intriguing is The Realistic Jones, an odd but thought-provoking show with Marisa Tomei, Toni Collette, and Tracy Letts. At the Lyceum Theatre, 149 West 45th Street.  Tickets via Telecharge, or 212.239.6200.  If you prefer musicals, “Cabaret” will give you a hearty Willkomen at the Kit Kat Club at Studio 54.  The revival of the revival features one of its previous headliners, Alan Cumming, as Emcee.  Studio 42, 254 West 54th Street. Tickets through Roundabout,  or 212.719.1300. Also designed to envelop you in a musical haze is Audra McDonald’s one-woman depiction of Billie Holidayas Lady Day in her final days at the Emerson’s Bar and Grill.  Circle in the Square Theatre, 235 West 50th Street. Tickets through Telecharge, or 212.239.6200. For all listings, visit www.playbill.com.

Posted by Meryl Pearlstein
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Chagall Exhibit Closing February 2 — Don’t Miss

Closing February 2, the Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, exhibit at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan should not be missed. This exhibit of paintings, prints and artifacts makes its debut in the United States, showing an important period in Marc Chagall’s artistic career: the effect of the fascism and World War II on his creativity.  It also show the impact of the death of his wife Bella in 1944 and the inclusion of his new wife Virginia Haggard McNeil into his paintings, which are filled with many familiar icons of earlier works.

Always hearkening back to Vitebsk, the village in Belarus/Russia of Chagall’s birth, the paintings include fondly remembered symbols of the shtetl or village, such as the cow, a brightly colored horse, houses, violinists, religious villagers and mothers with children. Later, darker paintings incorporate Chagall’s memories of the Bolshevik Revolution, a dark period of exile from his beloved Russia to France.  The exhibition includes 31 paintings and 22 works on paper, as well as telegrams, letters, poems, photos, books and more, all works of Marc Chagall or ephemera from his life.

Chagall: Love, War and Exile focuses on the artist’s works from the 1930s through 1948, following his move to Paris in 1922 (where he changed his name from Moishe Shagal/Segal to the more French Marc Chagall and incorporated much French style into his paintings), and during his second exile to New York at the invitation of Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art. One of the most revered modernist painters, Marc Chagall (1887–1985) displays here the influences on his style from folk art, religious painting, Cubism and even Surrealism (one painting shows a “walking” street lamp). Especially interesting is his attempt at outreach to both Christians and Jews, showing frequent depictions of the Crucifixion of Jesus as well as of Jesus in the form of Jewish figures wearing Jewish religious vestments, both functioning as an everyman symbol of anyone who has been the victim of persecution.

Moving from the folk style of Russian art, to French-influenced flower-filled paintings, darker persecution-themed paintings, and mourning images following his wife’s death, Chagall finally shows splashes of color again in the final paintings of the exhibit. World War II has ended, Chagall has re-married and has a second child.  Themes of his past — “the village” that he so adored — remain but are now more vibrant, showing the Chagall that one has come to know more familiarly from his earlier paintings like “I and the Village” (1911) at the Museum of Modern Art.

The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, 1109 5th Ave, Manhattan, (212) 423-3200 http://www.thejewishmuseum.org

Posted by Meryl Pearlstein
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