Guggenheim!

Chris and I realized that we have lived in NYC long enough to be falling into that dangerous trap of no longer taking advantage of all this fabulous city has to offer. It's so easy to become complacent and think "we'll do that next week". I was also falling into the dangerous trap of longing for what we used to have...namely, a backyard. But we bucked up and decided that instead of moping about expansive green lawns, we would go visit one of our neighborhood museums. It just so happens that by living in upper Manhattan, our neighborhood museums are places like the Guggenheim, MOMA, etc. We live 5 blocks away from a stretch of 5th Ave known as Museum Mile, for heaven's sake. It's a crime that we haven't been going more often!
So we loaded up the girls one Saturday morning and headed to the Guggenheim. It's a modern/contemporay international art museum and the installation right now is Gutai: Splendid Playground. It's all about a movement that happened in Japan in the 1950's that sought to explore new art forms by combing performance, painting, interaction, etc. A significant part of the movement focused on getting children to participate in art, so this was perfect to take the girls to!
As with most museums, we weren't supposed to take any pictures, but I did sneak in a few.


Not a great shot, but the center of the museum is a giant spiral up to the ceiling. They periodically change the exhibit featured in the space. Right now, it's a series of giant plastic tubes with colored water running through them. The girls loved it.

Inside a giant red cube. People were encouraged to go inside it and try to make shadows on the walls.

Noelle loved being inside the cube. Could have stayed for hours.

Delilah was especially intrigued by this red timber piece.

So she decided to sketch it.

Here is her sketch of "Red Timber". Whenever she found an exhibit she liked, she would sit down and start drawing it. As she put it, she was "sketching just like a real artist, Mommy!"



Graffiti Wall



Delilah getting a boost from a nice man (Daddy was getting our coats from the coat check)



 

We had a blast. Noelle is still a little young so there were a few meltdowns because she wanted to touch all the art. We certainly got a few dirty looks. But we also got several encouraging looks--people who were happy to see children being exposed to these sorts of things. More than one adult stopped to kneel down next to a sketching Delilah and ask about her art...so sweet. So happy we decided to get out this morning!!