MUSEUMPALOOZA #1: NYC EDITION
Andrea Duffie
By this point in our first Museumpalooza, things were looking...wet. As in, "I barely avoided heading into a hurricane on my way into New York" levels of wet. In fact, most of New York was fully prepared for said hurricane, and was pleasantly surprised when it swung back out to sea and merely drenched the city in buckets of icy cold rain.
The environment upon my arrival was not great for photo-taking, so I'm going to kick things off with a much sunnier portrait of Tim in NYC, which was taken later in our trip. (And also, I was starting to come down with a cold, which also made photo-taking during my first 24 hours in NYC a lower priority.)
The sun finally came out...eventually.
And so it goes. First stop was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for our very first tour with the most bad-ass of all museum tour groups, Museumhack!
Antoine-Emile Bourdelle, Herakles the Archer. Gilt bronze. (1909)
"A little higher...a little more..." Tim the T-Rex had a great time running around the Met yesterday with @Museumhack! #Museumpalooza
I didn't get a lot of pictures this trip, because we were too busy venturing into a Roman temple, scavenger hunting through the Greek sculpture galleries, trying to figure out who in the Renaissance art wing would be the best person to party with...it was not your ordinary museum tour!
Which is why we promptly went on another Museumhack tour the next day, at a completely different museum: the American Museum of Natural History!
Top priority: Getting locked in at night to play with the dinosaurs.
My priorities may have been a little obvious. But in my defense, the American Museum of Natural History has one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of dinosaur skeletons in the entire country, and I was gonna see 'em all!
All of us – me, my friend Laura, and Tim – are very excited about the dinosaurs, both large and small.
Our Museumhack tour guide, Dustin, was absolutely awesome and just as excited about all the dinosaurs as we were. (Which was kind of refreshing. Usually nobody gets as excited about dinosaurs as we do.) Throughout the tour, Dustin provided us with all sorts of scientific evidence linking dinosaurs to modern birds, from their warm-bloodedness to the way their hip sockets fit together (in therapods, at least) to the fact that they probably – GASP! – had feathers!
They're like giant chickens, really. Giant, carnivorous, intelligent chickens.
Dustin sent us all on a dinosaur scavenger hunt, which resulted in a #DinoSelfie in front of my corresponding plastic specimen – a Pachycephalosaurus, which means "thick-headed lizard" in Greek. Scientists have hypothesized that these herbivores used their thick, dome-shaped skulls to smack each other around during mating season, similar to modern big horn sheep.
I'd read up on this dinosaur A LOT as a kid, or rather, my parents had provided the reading assist...and I was happy to learn, after the tour, that some of that knowledge remained after all this time...
But Dustin's Museumhack tour wasn't just dinosaur awesomeness.
Dinosaurs & meteorites - what could possibly go wrong? Tim the T-Rex enjoyed getting to see the 34-ton Ahnighito meteorite yesterday, which is made of iron - and is therefore magnetic! (These facts brought to you by Dustin / Museumhack.) #Museumpalooza
After a short break for sustenance...
Because Tim is in NYC, he's gotta visit a deli and get a corned beef on rye. Obviously.
...we proceeded to wander along the High Line area, where we promptly ran across a pop-up Mr. Brainwash gallery that I may have geeked out over.
Works featured in the pop-up installation, Life is Beautiful by Mr. Brainwash.
We also ran across LUMAS art gallery, where I bought my first piece of "legit" New York art and learned a very valuable lesson:
And then, our final stop: Museumpalooza stop #15, the Whitney Museum of American Art in its brand-spankin' new building.
Ed Ruscha, Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights. (1962)
Tim is a fan of Ed Ruscha, although he's less of a 20th century and more of a pre-century, Mesozoic Era kind of dinosaur.
And so concludes Tim and my first-ever #Museumpalooza tour: 15 museums in 3 cities, in 10 days! Quite the accomplishment, and easily the most exhausting "vacation" I've ever had!
This is what 15 museums in 10 days looks like, when unpacked. Tim the T-Rex and I would like to thank everyone again for an awesome #Museumpalooza, particularly the great folks at the Phillips Collection, SAAM and Museumhack for their support via social media!
TRIP SUMMARY
NEW YORK CITY
Museums visited: 4
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- American Museum of Natural History
- Mr. Brainwash, Life is Beautiful
- The Whitney Museum of American Art