I recently went with a couple of friends to the Skin Fruit exhibition at the New Museum. I walked in with no expectations, just excited to see something new. The exhibit, which was a selection of art from Dakis Joanno's collection curated by Jeff Koons, reminded me why seeing is not enough, sometimes we all need to look closer. For me the act of viewing this exhibit was a practice in re-evaluation.

For some reason while viewing this exhibit the experience of looking seemed much more intense. Not all of the art was beautiful, some of it was outright grotesque. It all had a certain undeniably human, mortal, fleeting quality to it. The sort of quality that gets under your skin...and perhaps that is the point.

The exhibit title "Skin Fruit" is interesting. On the outside there is the skin, possibly tough, possibly rough protecting the sweet fruit inside. And with the pieces in the exhibit, you are skinning the fruit with your eyes. Each additional second spent looking reveals more  to you, until you finally reach something sweeter...a conclusion, realization or fresh perspective you didn't have before.

My favorite piece in the exhibit was All by Maurizio Cattelan. The work was sectioned off in it's own room; the room itself and the room before it had the lights lowered slightly -- compared to the stark white and bright rooms of the rest of the museum this really shifted the atmosphere. From a distance you see nine body bags lying in a row in the next room. At first you're apprehensive: death, decay, the reminder of your own mortality float to the top of your mind. At this point my friends were ready to turn around having seen enough to be satisfied. If it weren't for my natural inclination to question EVERYTHING I likely would have too, instead I moved closer.

Maurizio Cattelan, All, 2007. White Carrara marble, 9 parts each: 11 7/8 x 39 3/8 x 78 3/4 in. Overall: 11 7/8 x 78 3/4 x 339 1/2 in.

I see some very slight gray markings on the bags, at first I think it's dust -- these are white body bags on a floor after all. I bend closer: it's marble. All at once I get it. This is not just about death, it's about what death brings or more importantly what you do in life. The form:body bags a reminder of our body's mortality. The material: marble a reminder of our life's actions and the potential immortality of our legacy. More importantly it seems to make one question what a country's actions will allow the legacy of those who die for it to be. In that moment, a work which was possibly grotesque, definitely morbid becomes something so beautiful to me. Not only because the craftsmanship is absolutely stunning but because of the gorgeous layered idea behind it. For me the work went from banal to profound in less than a second.

Our lives are so hurried. It's so easy to be content with assumptions and first impressions. I feel like it's easy for us to let ourselves off the hook for not understanding or knowing something when all we really need to do is embrace our inner curiosity. We don't give ourselves enough time to allow ourselves the luxury of being surprised. This exhibit reminded me of that. Despite the extremely adult nature of the show, I felt like a child wandering through the unexplored -- constantly curious, constantly questioning. At the end I walked away feeling refreshed and totally inspired. The simple act of looking closer allowed me the privilege of knowing more. It was wonderful and I loved it.

I should also say that I really loved the curation of the exhibit, Jeff Koons really did a great job. If you haven't seen the Skin Fruit exhibit it will be up until June 6, 2010 - take the time to go check it out.

I recently took a trip to the upper east side of Manhattan to visit the Guggenheim and Jewish museums. The Jewish Museum was awesome the Guggenheim was awful...here's why:

A glance at a successfully curated museum experience

I began at the Jewish Museum to see the Alias Man: The art of reinvention exhibit. This exhibit was easily one of the most well curated exhibits I've seen in a long time. It was well thought out presenting Man Ray's work in a relatively chronological order, hooking it to the artist's biography and world events allowing the spectator to understand the 'why' of the art with considerable ease. The text accompanying the exhibit was well written, so well written in fact that it almost stopped traffic flow as even I (like many others) read to find out what came next in this artists life. Artworks that were relevant to one another, were presented together leading visitors to draw conclusions on their own (what I like to call 'ahh ha' moments).

In my opinion the curation was flawless, but more importantly it was accessible. The visitor did not need a fancy pedigree or a background art history or philosophy background to understand the core tenants of why Man Ray's work was important. There was no need to struggle for understanding or focus, this made it easier for myself (and I'm sure many other visitors) to remain receptive when viewing works such as The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse¹ an object (we don't know what kind of object) wrapped in cloth and bound with string. Artworks like this often turn people off of art, but in this exhibit the sterile, unfeeling, lack of thought was stripped from the object. It was presented in context with Gift², one of my personal favorites, the juxtaposition of the objects I felt helped with understanding: it was much less object in the center of a white box without a plaque fuck you we normally see in museums.

For me the reason I loved this exhibit is that I could tell that a lot of though and effort went into sharing Man Ray's legacy with the public in a way that allowed ANYONE from the public to understand. I could feel the love and passion of those who worked to create this exhibit and their passion to share that with the museum's visitors. It was very delightful.

A glance at a museum experience gone wrong

My delight at the Jewish museum I fear may have lead me to expect the same from the world renowned Guggenheim Museum. After waiting in line for 15 minutes in front of the most annoying and pretentious European pricks I finally was inside the museum. The line inside the museum to get tickets was non-existent. Instead the bevy of potential ticket holders loitered around not knowing who was next to make a purchase. I usually can overlook chaos at a museum's entrance but this seemed slightly more ridiculous than usual.

Once I was in the ground level I could see the Tino Sehgal³ performance in the center: a couple making out. This performance was awesome, in fact it may have been my favorite thing I saw all day. As I wound my way up Wright's spiral I noticed a shocking absence of something relatively important in an art museum: ART. The spiral was void of the very thing it was intended to display. I am not entirely sure why this is, I am not so secretly hoping this absence is actually part of an idea or artwork that I completely missed (if so please let me know), in any case I felt cheated.

If you've been to the Guggenheim before you'll know that each level of the spiral has galleries off the main path. These galleries each contained different exhibits. I want to tackle them each separately since I was disgusted by each for different reasons. PLEASE NOTE: The museum was crowded, loud, and frustrating to begin with -- my disgust and inability to feel at ease really made a poor experience even worse.

Malevich In Focus: 1912-1922⁴

First off, the lighting in this gallery was terrible, secondly the Guggenheim took arguably one of the least accessible (and possibly most innovative) artists of the first half of the 20th century and failed to explain to someone who has never seen Russian avant-garde why Malevich was one bad ass dude. Great, I'm a first time visitor who has never seen Malevich before, what the hell is this guy doing with all of these red and black triangles and squares? Further more even if there were placards explaining all this (and there were a few, the ones I read were boring as hell and not exactly my idea of well done) I would not want to read them since it was a space that was way too small and poorly lit. It was clear that this exhibit was not designed for the general public but for the art history buffs, who not only know what Cubisim, Italian Futurism and the Russian avant-garde are but can write an essay outlining their importance to modernism.

Paris and the Avant-Garde: Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection⁵

There is no disputing that the Guggenheim has an awesome permanent collection, but the title of this exhibit lead me to have a few expectations:

1. The fact that the exhibit is centered around Avant-Garde artists who worked in the same city (Paris) leads me to believe that I will learn something about which of these artists influenced each other, spent time together or better yet despised each other.
2. Since these artists were working in the same city, I would expect at least one pair of paintings by two separate artists depicting the same Parisian subject matter in different ways. They're all working in the same city, surrounded by the same things: I want proof.
3. I want to know what was so avant-garde about these paintings (I know, but I want the average Joe to know too: I'm tired of explaining to Grandma why Norman Rockwell is not a better painter than Marc Chagall or Pablo Picasso)
4. Tell me why they're masters, these paintings are obviously important as they are owned by the Guggenheim -- but nothing has been done to convince me why their works are important or why these men (there may have been a woman in there, but I didn't notice any) were masters.
5. As a museum nerd I really want to know where these pieces came from, why they were purchased and more importantly some cool facts about them. The Guggenheim as guardian of these works must have the most complete history, and know the full importance of each of these works, they should share that: I paid $18 for you to tell me.

Needless to say, none of these expectations were met.

Anish Kapoor: Memory⁶

In the time I was at the museum I saw one piece (a gigantic piece) by Kapoor called Bombay, it was cool, but if there was more than one piece there was no apparent way to get to it, see it and there certainly weren't any signs pointing to it. I was surprised because I honestly expected Kapoor's work to adorn the spiral. I was disappointed.

Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum⁷

Possibly the most accessible exhibit at the museum due to designer/artist/architect documentation of their submissions to this exhibitions, but the exhibit read something like my high school art show. I am unsure of how much I like this, on one hand it was not pretentious and therefore much more approachable. On the other hand there were no names next to the artists work -- instead the visitor had to pick up a newspaper like pamphlet (super awkward format for a gallery setting, and the supply was running low when I grabbed mine) and match the number next to the piece with the number on the paper to see who the piece was created by. For the love of God I don't want to play a game of match-the-numbers when I am looking at art, save that shit for kindergartner worksheets and multiple choice tests. More importantly save yourself the hassle of printing multiple copies of the same thing when you could make one damn copy and hang it on the wall. What were they thinking?

Why the Guggenheim should install an enormous 'Fail Whale' sculpture in their lobby

Some museum experiences are successful, my experience at the Guggenheim just pissed me off -- here's why:

1. Doing something as simple as getting a ticket should never be a cluster-fuck. I don't care about waiting in line, just don't make me wait in line only to be fed into a loitering group of apathetic hipsters who don't know where the hell to go next.
2. If you are a museum, you should display art -- the absence of art in an art museum can only be interpreted as two things: 1.) Someone hasn't done their job and needs to be fired, 2.) an artistic statement that will only be understood by those who write the art theory books...the average tourist from Nebraska will likely not get it (no offense Nebraska, I'm sure you're awesome)
3. I don't want to guess at why an artist created something nor should I need to pick up the poorly design fugly audio guide device to figure that out. Give me a brief well written description so that I don't need to listen to a 5 minute long audio track to get the information I could have gotten by skimming a description in 10 seconds. Seriously, Guggenheim....cut it out with the audio guide only bullshit.
4. I came to a museum, so don't display work like a high school art show or make me play match-the-number. Grow-up Guggenheim, you're people get paid to do a job, make sure they're doing it and doing it well.
5. The day I visited lack of diversity in the visitors was appalling, the Guggenheim should be ashamed. Where was the color? Where was the different point of view? Where were the people reminding me that museums are there to serve the community not just a segment of society? It was sad.

Avoiding the fail whale is easy

Museums should make their art accessible to the general public, this begins at the ticket line and carries all the way through to the placement of artworks and artwork's documentation. In short, I shouldn't need to be an over educated ass to understand art, it's importance or why I should care in the first place.

My name is Rachel Diesel and I am an art addict. I love art, I always have. I know I am not the only one who loves art, there are millions of art lovers across the world, which is why I was always surprised at the lack of a good website for information on the art world with the web 2.0 flavor I have come to expect of a good informational website. I was elated when I discovered NY Art Beat last week, finally the kind of site I expected and wanted to help me curate my artistic activities in the city.

NY Art Beat provides information on both their website and iPhone application. Both mediums are well designed (though I expect many additions and updates to the iPhone app, I would happily redesign the app for free -- contact me ;)) NYAB even provides an API to developers allowing their information database to basically go anywhere. As a developer, the prospect of doing a visualization of this information is extremely exciting!

Why I've fallen in love...

In NY there are about a million places to go see amazing, cutting-edge, inspiring art. Selecting, curating, and actually going to these events/exhibitions is nothing short of a small miracle at the end of the day. By the end of every year I can name at least five exhibits I missed because I put it off til the last minute and forgot the end date. I hear about exhibits all the time, I never can remember where they are if I remember them at all. NY Art Beat fixes this by allowing me to bookmark events and exhibits to my NYAB Account. Furthermore I can count on reviews of exhibits and up-to-date information about all the important art events in the city. This has become my new go-to place for my art world information.

To add to my absolute love for NYAB is a solid first version of an iPhone app, providing basic information on events around the town (GPS proximity filtering included!). My ONLY disappointments are that I can't sync my NYAB Account to my iPhone or pull the latest information to my device for viewing when internet is not available (pesky subways). That being said, I usually suggest that apps release with a lighter first version and build out from that. I hope to see these features added in the future.

What I expect in the future

Make it social

Much like the rest of my internet hubs (Hulu, Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, etc...) I expect to be able to share what I like, my recommendations, and events I'll be attending with my social network. I also want to see what my friends are doing. Facebook Connect integration would be great to find friends bookmarks, events and recommendations. Integrating Facebook Connect would also afford the iPhone an easy, pre-built login platform to retrieve user information. Another feature I think would be great is an event badge for bloggers who often talk about specific exhibits. This would not only help bloggers provide up to date information on exhibits without having to gather it all by themselves, but it would allow them to point to NYAB driving traffic to the site -- effectivly becoming a relevant in-line ad targeting it's desired demographic.

Make it .mobi

I am surprised when I see major websites that don't have a mobile version of their site, especially when the information on that site pertains to being out-and-about. If I had an android phone I would be pinching and zooming to try and see the information on the site. The extra time it takes to make the site mobile would be completely worth it in my opinion.

Make it intelligent

The more data you have, the more conclusions you can draw. Zappos knows what shoes I like, Netflix knows what movies I like, Amazon knows what books I like, FreshDirect even knows enough to remind me to buy my favorite items before I check out....NYAB should know what kind of art and art exhibits I like. The NY art world is huge, please put the content I'll like on the front page when I visit.

Remind me

If I have an exhibit saved to my account I should get a reminder via text or email before that exhibit ends. Furthermore I should be able to export or sync my NYAB saved events to my iCal or Google Calender. [CORRECTION: Email reminders are sent from NYAB]

Summary

If you're an art lover like me do yourself a favor and jump on this bandwagon. I'm super excited to see how this site grows, I think it really has the potential to become the best of the best when it comes to information, especially as expands into new locations.