In Our Time: The Museum of Modern Art

Older Comments on In Our Time: The Museum of Modern Art

• Posted 02/09/10 by George Karpel
  I grew up with MOMA ( the old one ) as my mandatory 1st stop when I went to Manhattan. Dad worked there & it was like a second home to me. On my early visits to the library, on the 4th floor, I was small enough to walk under the reading tables.( or so I was told )... The LIFE magazine pictures were my favorites. There were children's art classes on Saturdays and I still have a photo of myself, at about age 10, doing a piece that never made it to the gallery walls. When old enough to roam the 1st 3 floors of the collections, I walked into a dream world of color & shapes that amazed me each & every time. There was always something new to be seen in the same pictures & sculptures that I saw 99 times before. The silent movies in the basement theater were new to me & hearing Alex Hruska play the perfect piano piece for each scene was as much fun as the films themselves. When I visited the New MOMA building, my 1st impression was to compare it to the old. That was the wrong thing to do - I realized that change & progress was inherent in the concept of MOMA itself , and to enjoy the experience requires an open mind and clean slate. It was great ! There were my old friends on some walls , and some new ones that made my old home shine. Some of the pieces I liked and some just left me puzzled : that's life and that's what the whole show is about. The building itself was wonderful - light flooded everywhere it was needed. You could never get a helicopter in the old building anyway ! The gallery spaces were open & available for any kind of art and sort of visitor ; and the garden was still an oasis for weary feet. The film barely scratches the surface of what the site has to offer. In a city filled with superlatives , MOMA can still list it's 81 year old name with the best of the best. Thank you for taking such good care of my old friend. GWK
• Posted 12/29/09 by Renee Brown
  Very inspiring!!!