THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

Today, I went to the museum (it’s free on Thursdays) to see paintings and art by James Rosenquist. Here’s a little blurb about him:

An internationally recognized artist since his emergence on the New York art scene in the early 1960s, James Rosenquist (born 1933) was a leading player in the American Pop movement. He began painting as a commercial billboard painter in the Midwest. Rosenquist developed his own brand of the “new realist” style by fragmenting, combining, and juxtaposing images from advertising onto large-scale canvases. Through this technique, Rosenquist has created complex, enigmatic narrative and abstract paintings. You can see some of his paintings at http://www.mfah.org. Click on current exhibition. (We also viewed some cool ornamental gold pieces and tribal headdresses from all over the world).

Rosenquist’s style is sort of psychadelic Picasso and really isn’t my cup of tea, but next month’s exhibition has paintings by Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh and Salvador Dali… so I’m all over that one.

I had fun, though. It was cool in the museum and very quiet and I tried to imagine what was going on in Rosenquist’s head… I mean, about half of the paintings I saw featured lipstick… so that led me to interesting thoughts. I’m not sure it was Amy’s cup of tea, either, but hey, we were cultural for an hour and a half for free and that’s worth something.

Next week on the day I’m not working, I’m thinking about going for a walk at the zoo. The zoo costs $2, and without children, I can actually spend time at each exhibit and even read about the animals. If I go early enough, I should be able to avoid heat stroke. 🙂