Catching up on an event that happened a while back…
On December 26th, Jen, Kate, Katie, Kim, Cousin Drew, Kenny, Krissy, Alex, his friend Mikey, and I all went down to see Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976, an exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum. I was really excited to see the Pollocks up close, and while I was a little disappointed to see that there were only two on display, the ones they had were really great. I’m not a big de Kooning fan, but there were also some other artworks that were really nice, especially a large Rothko.
Perhaps the painting that generated the most discussion was Peter Saul’s Icebox #3, which is filled entirely with penises, some obvious, some more deviously subliminal.
After the exhibition, the party moved to Schlafly Tap Room where they were celebrating their 17th birthday party by selling beer at 1991 prices: $2.95 / pint. Nice. We ate and drank there for a couple hours (there was a wait for a table of ten, plus somewhat leisurely service) but the atmosphere was great and everyone had a good time.
I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, but there is no reason in the world why we shouldn’t go to the Art Museum more often. Plus, there are so many great artworks there to see:
5. These 10 signature artworks from our beloved Saint Louis Art Museum (not all of which are on view at all times): the Egyptian Mummy Mask, the Buddhist deity Guanyin, Liu Cai’s 8-foot-long hand-scroll Fish Swimming Amid Falling Flowers, George Caleb Bingham’s The Verdict of the People, Vincent van Gogh’s Stairway at Auvers, Henri Matisse’s Bathers With a Turtle, Max Beckmann’s Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, Jackson Pollock’s Number 3, 1950 and Gerhard Richter’s Betty.
We managed to see most of these before our allotted time at the exhibition, and in doing so, we checked off another on the STL 101 list. Good times!