MoMA Goes Through a Face-Lift

I'm a fan of PS 1 myself, MoMa's sister site in Long Island City that features contemporary artists and contemporary works. It's important to note that "Modern" in MoMA's name refers to a specific period of art history around the early part of the 20th century, but you're unlikely to see anything made much later than the 1950's there.

It used to be a not-too-expensive membership card got you in for free to any of their fantastic foreign and art film screenings. Is that still true, does anyone know? What's happening with the film screenings during the renovation?

MoMA did a clever thing by sending their permanent collection on the road to other major cities while the renovation is going on. I'm guessing it helps pay the bills, because the show the had in Berlin a while back was packed the whole time, with huge lines outside. I didn't bother going to the Berlin show it because, like a good New Yorker, I had already seen my Monets and my Picassos many times while they were still on view in New York.

I'm not an artist so I am into it. But I do respect artists and their work. I have seen art in galleries and just think about the length of time it took the artist to create the painting, as well as the talent the artist had to do it. it amazes me what talent and creativity can do.

Anyhoo, um, the MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach is now running PS 1 and is quite an IT man of the moment. Can't tell yet how that's affecting the quality of the art being shown, but he's certainly good at creating a hotspot of art sensation even in bad economic times.