The Guggenheim Museum Essay -- Personal Narrative Art Essays

The Guggenheim Museum I first visited the Guggenheim Museum two weeks ago with Claus, my friend from Germany. We had the MOMA in mind solely I guess talking, talking we must have passed it by. Half an hour from the MOMA we found ourselves in front of the Guggenheim, the astonishing white building that was Frank Lloyd Wrights outlast project. Why not? We said to ourselves. And so we walked right in. According to the pamphlet The Guggenheim Museum is an embodiment of Wrights attempts to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture. His inverted zikkurat (a stepped or winding pyramidal temple of Babylonian origin) dispenses with the conventional approach to museum design, leading visitors through a series of interconnected rooms and forcing them to retrace their stairs when exiting. The galleries are divided like the membranes in citrus fruit, with self-contained yet interdependent sections. The open rotunda affords viewers the unique possibility of seeing several bays of prepare on different levels simultaneously. The spiral design recalls a nautilus shell, with continuous spaces flowing freely one into another. At the coat check, I suddenly withdrawed my pen. (Afterwards, Claus because antiquated school would jump ship, for the Guggenheim mostly contained non-objective, therefore abstract art. This thing called art, this thing called art. Is this thing called art because it resists apprehension? Only what is at stake, Claus? If art forsakes literal representation, it is further to get at the subconscious, at things that cannot otherwise be expressed - surely there is something to be said for that Still, he said and we let it go.) Shoulder rub, tag stub we were in Avant-Garde Art is Borne ... ...r je veux pas le juger, I write on the napkin. This time I expect a goodbye. At least a goodbye. I am thinking back to the day before. I am thinking back to a conversation both of us had right later on our visit to the Guggenheim. In this con versation, we are parting ways because I am meeting someone for an appointment I am too civil to invert down. In this conversation Claus is saying hell go back and rest, maybe talk to Yoshi. Hes like me, Im thinking, so goddamn civil. Everyones going to end up doing things he doesnt want to do. Everyones going to have his hands full of social acquaintances he doesnt care for. So I say, You dont have to talk to Yoshi if you dont want to, you know? I dont remember how or where we are standing anymore. The only thing I remember his gaze towards me is oblique. Im just making conversation. He is saying.