Last night I stayed up until 11:30 watching a netflix documentary about third term abortions. It was riveting. I figured that I would wake up at 8:30 as usual and be right on schedule for to do my work. It turns out that my body likes having nine and a half hours of sleep. I woke up at nine, and wasn't working until after 9:30. I checked my email and saw a message from Kate. The email stated that the Duchamp lecture that I had signed up for was cancelled due to low student participation. I was disappointed, but I kinda saw it coming. I started thinking about what else I could do with my day. I had to read an article for histories about the urban development in Beijing. Did you know that 1.25 million residents were forced from their homes due to construction for the Olympic games? You can only imagine how cheery the rest of the article was.
I only had to do one reading today, and I was happy to only be 20 minutes behind my usual schedule. Next up on the list was starting to practice my pop presentation. The first time was terrible. I was all rambling and I was almost five minutes over time. I took a break to look up flights to Barcelona and figure out how to get to and from the airport. After that I practiced the presentation again. Not much better. The third time was better, and I was only two minutes over. I need to take a deep breath and let the knowledge flow. Man, I hate giving presentations.
After my third try at my presentation I tried to find something to do with my day. Nothing was appealing to me, and then I realized that I should go see the Duchamp exhibition to make up for missing the lecture. I had been putting it off because I thought the exhibition itself was 10 euro. A little pricy for a broke student. I then figured out (I thought) that all of the exhibitions and the regular museum were included in the ticket price. I then saw that there was a Jeff Koons exhibition that just started a few days ago. I had to go.
After my googling I turned my attention to editing my pop paper. It's coming along, but it's still not there yet. Hopefully it gets there before I see Mindy on Thursday. Halfway through editing, I heated up a plate of thanksgiving food to satisfy my rumbling stomach. After I finished editing, I did my hair and makeup as a break before returning to work on my histories monument analysis. I was going to go see Nic today, but he was so unhelpful last time that I decided against it. The paper is in good enough shape that I'm not embarrassed to turn it in. I'll just have to see how much rewriting Christina thinks it needs when I get it back next week. I emailed my paper to myself and then got dressed. I then looked up the instructions for getting to the center. I was shocked and horrified to see that the last station I was going to was Rambateau. What?! That's the same station that I claimed was close enough to walk to during last week's histories field trip. I didn't know that I lived so close to the center. The weather report said that it would be a cold one, and I thought that I'd better take the metro instead of taking a half an hour walk in the cold.
There was a high of 40 degrees today and I felt it the second I left the apartment. My whole face went numb as I walked to Gare de Lyon. It's supposed to stay this cold for the next week or more. Oh boy. It looks like it's all two pairs of socks for me from now on. I got to the gare and walked through an open gate. I think that gate must be broken because I"m sure that I walked through it yesterday too. I got on the one to Hôtel de Ville and then took the 11 one stop. It was a quick trip before I was at the foot of the Pompidou Center.
I stood in the freezing cold to get into the building which was made worse by a man standing so close to me that my elbow actually hit him. What is with Europeans and their lack of personal space?! While I was waiting for a ticket this group of kids were standing right next to me. It really makes me angry. Back up! When it was my turn, I approached the ticket counter and began to tell the man what I wanted. He just stared at me angrily and it made my nervous. He then asked for my student card and then for something with my birthdate on it. I showed him the copy of my passport (I forgot that my driver's license is in my purse) and I paid the ten euros for my ticket.
The museum was huge and took me forever to go through. I'll just give you the highlights here. I started out with the Frank Gehry exhibition. His drawings were mostly scribbles, and some of his models were pretty shabbily done. Some of his models, however, were really cool. It was a fairly quick trip, but as an architecture student who has studied his work a thousand times I felt like i needed to see it. Next up was trying to find the Duchamp exhibition that I came for. I followed some signs all around the building and out to the escalator. The escalators go up for four flights on the outside of the building. They're the reason that everyone thinks the building is so ugly. I happen to hate the building, but the view from the escalator is fantastic. You can see the Eiffel Tower and Sacré Coeur (which I'm starting to think that you can see from everywhere in the city). Superb.
I got distracted going into the museum portion of the building. It was a huge collection taking up two floors. I spent at least two and a half hours wandering around the levels. The bottom floor was all new, experimental art. There were a lot of movies and political art everywhere. You know I'm partial to multi media work and there was a lot to choose from. One work recreated a clothing factory and set the chairs, lights, and sewing machines to move and spew smoke according to a war soundtrack. Fascinating. The other piece I liked had a bunch of different music stations that you could listen to. There was another room that had all of these clouds hanging from the ceiling a few inches off the ground. The side facing the door was painted all black and there were objects behind each grouping of clouds. As you walked around you saw that the other side was painted blue and white like a cloud. I love it.
Then I went upstairs where the good stuff was. There were several Picasso, Matisse, and Pollocks upstairs. There was also a dressed made out of meat that had then dried and molded. We won't talk about that. What I will say is that there was a group of American art students who were super annoying. You know those kind of students. The one using weird, terms to describe works like "planar" and "how he feels about himself as an artist" and "message". Ohmygod shut up. I'm so glad that I'm not those kids. The second floor really had something for everyone. There were totem poles, Asian art, indigenous Mexican art, African art, sculptures, multi media, paintings, and architectural models all together. You know I love any place where I can see a Matisse in the afternoon. The main problem is that there's simply so much space and works that you have to do a drive by of everything. Not ideal, but it's better to see the works quickly than not at all.
I was beginning to get worried that I was spending too much time there and wouldn't have enough time for Koons and Duchamp. I finally found my way upstairs and into the Duchamp exhibition. The exhibition was immensely crowded. What really made me angry is that there was a group of French college students having a lecture in a tiny, crowded room. How rude can you be? The art is for everyone, and there's not even enough space in the room as it is. The museum should ban lecturing. So rude. On the plus side, there were a lot of really good pieces. There was way more than Duchamps (as should be expected in an exhibition). There were tons of other artists of varying styles (most of them either gory or strange). There were even illuminated books from the 1500s. It is such a shame that everyone remembers Duchamp for his fountain piece. The rest of his work is amazing (besides the comical pieces that I still don't like). He has some really nice pastel paintings that are in the vein of impressionism. He also has these really weird pieces that look like brown, complicated Picasso cubism pieces. It was just such a shame that the exhibition was so crowded otherwise, I would have really liked it.
I'm pretty sure that this painting was in the Duchamp exhibition...or a painting very much like it.
Then it was time for Jeff Koons. I had heard about his work when I took a craft class last spring. I was excited to see one of his balloon dogs. The exhibition totally delivered. There was a room that had big glass tanks with suspended basketballs in them. There were also 1980s/1990s ads for Toyotas and alcohol brands. There were vacuum cleaners suspended in front of lights. There were also tons of his aluminum sculpture pieces. There was Michael Jackson with a dog (which might not be a Koons), inflatable flowers and bunnies, and some of his signature sculptures. There was also a whole room dedicated to Popeye themed works. There was also a sculpture of the Hulk with a the pipes from an organ sticking out of his shoulders and piano pieces at his feet. There was a side room that I noticed out of the corner of my eye. I went inside and was totally shocked. There were huge pornographic pictures on the walls. There was actual up close shots of penetration on the walls. You could see everything. I think it was actually more graphic than porn. I think I was more shocked that the other visitors weren't more shocked. I couldn't believe it. I scurried out of the room like the good Christian girl I am and saw the rest of the exhibition. To my horror there were more pornographic pictures featuring ancient porn. Fantastic.
Ballerinas
The Koons exhibition
I looked around the rest of the center for a minute before leaving. I also stopped at the free modern art gallery in the courtyard that I didn't get to see when my class went. It was small and not worth talking about here.
I went home and got immediately in bed after making myself some ramen. I then spent the rest of my evening watching a documentary on netflix about a teacher for autism students in New Jersey. It was sad. Next up was a shower before my date with mom. I talked to mom for an hour before coming to talk to you. I still can't believe I saw those pictures......
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