BORN AND RAISED

I took a trip out to Philly this weekend. Apparently some of the other CTY folk went out there for a big group trip, but I couldn’t stand to hang around with these guys all day. Plus, they left at 9am, and I did not want to abide by their schedule. So I left around 11, and hung out at the art museum for most of the day.

From out front, you get a good view of the Philly skyline.

I was extremely pleased to see the Segway tours held here, too. I’d take a tour on them just for the ride if they didn’t make the passengers wear helmets:

The museum is big and beautiful and out in a relatively secluded part of the city.

I took the requisite Rocky shot from the top of the steps, but I couldn’t have orchestrated this shot any better if I had planned for weeks.

Outside the museum, there is this sprawling metal spider on one side of the steps.

And directly inside the building is this guy, by Miro. Harmony and I saw his brother at the MOMA last winter, and I was happy to see him again:

I knew the museum was big, but I had no idea what to suspect. I was thinking it would probably be a lot of traditional stuff, so I didn’t have my hopes up. But the collections here were amazing. They have quite a big Rodin collection, and one of the first things I saw was Thinker, which just made my day.

Across the gallery, however, was a much better sculpture by Rodin: Thought.

I was giddy as a school girl, and it was the first room I had walked in. There was lots of famous van Gogh, and all big impressionists, (Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Degas), including lots of stuff I recognized from books and general cultural awareness. I refused to take pictures of any of it, though- my cell phone wouldn’t do them justice, and really you can’t look at an impressionist painting in any way other than to see them close up. In any case, I was still looking for the contemporary collection, when I stumbled upon this room:

There was lots of neon work in the room. I really like Flavin, but most of the pieces here were by Bruce Nauman, and I wasn’t terribly taken by them. Too wordy. There was also a big display covered in potatos hooked up to wires that measures the electricity produced. Most of the potatos were moldy and sprouting. There was some Warhol framing a small collection of Beuys pieces (Felt Suit, etc). I don’t remember the title of this one, but I liked it a lot.

There were two rooms devoted to early Picasso stuff that a lot of the old people were gathered around. The only thing I saw that caught my eye was Jester:

There are a lot of nooks and cranies in the museum, and I kept seaching for gold somewhere. And then I stumbled upon their Twombly collection, which was awesome and way in the back corner and almost entirely unattended:

You can browse the full Twombly exhibit, entitled Fifty Days at Iliam, here. That was one of the museum guard people, scribbling a letter about something. No one else was around. In one of the rooms nearby was a huge Duchamp collection, with Nude Descending 1 and 2. It also had a replica of Fountain made in 1950, which I enjoyed much more than the original I saw a few weeks ago at the MOMA. The one at the MOMA had a huge crowd around it, and was surrounded by a bunch of other dada pieces like a glowing white bride surrounded by her aesthetically ambiguous bridesmades. The replica in Philly stood unnoticed in the corner and was dirty and covered in mold and dust, and the people walking by were snickering and whispering to each other under their breath.

There was also a bunch of Jasper Johns stuff. I really don’t like Johns, but I must admit that Two Balls made me laugh:

I walked through the American collection, which had quite a few pieces of furniture and whatnot, but it was around 3, and I had more city to see, so I left the building… and as I did, a huge thunderstorm hit Philly. I mean, huge. You couldn’t stand anywhere outside without getting wet since the wind was pushing the rain sideways. The wind was so bad that the giant fountain outside was getting blown onto the sidewalk. People huddled under the overhang in front of the museum were getting pushed back in doors to avoid the wind and rain, but I decided to be a man and run through it. I made it to my car, which was fairly far away, and I was pretty soaked once I got inside. I waited for a few minutes in the car, and then decided to try and find the touristy Philly stuff. I drove through the downtown area with almost zero visibility, but once I hit Independence Hall, somehow the rain magically stopped. They had roped off a lot of the square due to flooding, but I found the line to take the tour and waited around. It was close to 5, and I didn’t have time to see both Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, but I decided that a stupid bell wasn’t worth it. Plus, the “Liberty” Bell is trapped in a little glass building and surrounded by barriacades, which were decorated with flags to seem less menacing.

Independence Hall, on the other hand, was pretty sweet.

This is where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and signed, and the park ranger giving the tour had lots of famous speeches made on that floor memorized.

Anyway, after Indy Hall, I called the CTY people and found out where they were meeting for dinner. It was at a Vietnamese restaurant a few blocks away, which was pretty good. But then they left, and it was 5 o’clock, and I wanted to see some night life before I left. I went down state street and found some bars and had a few drinks, and then left for home.

It was a good trip, and really it was the first time I had been in a major city by myself, so I think I did alright.