manet by the sea
The exhibit showed not only Manet�s work but also the work of artists who were his contemporaries, influences, teachers, students and others that he influenced. This helped put his work into focus and context, bringing deeper meaning to it.
While Manet painted other subjects, as did all the artists presented in the exhibit, this was just his work depicting the sea. It was interesting to see the different ways of showing the sea, using the sea as a metaphor and how several people represent something in totally different ways.
Part of the price to see the exhibition included the guided audio tour. This is a thing I usually skip if they have a read along pamphlet, which this tour did not. I like to skip the melodramatic music and cheese ball accents. I also don�t like wearing borrowed headphones, you don�t know where they�ve been and if you think the ear isn�t dirty than you�re wrong. I spent the entire tour with the silent fear of the bacteria exchange going on between the headphones and my ears.
This fear of bacteria was cancelled by the comedy of people talking with headphones on. Huh? I can�t hear you? and then The obvious stated, over then finally one of them takes of their headphones and tells the other person, �I can�t hear you when I have these on!� I wish I had a stopwatch so I could have timed the inane exchanges.
Some of my favorite museum behaviors took place as well. There was a big, fat man who kept knocking everyone over to get to the front of the half moon that forms naturally around a painting. There was the white woman who carries around her own chair and parks in front of something and her friend who buts into your conversation with your cousin that wasn�t in anyway directed at them. I was the idiot who didn�t turn of their cell phone. I meant to turn it off but had I known that it would annoy people so much I�d have told people to call me while I was there.
On the outside of the exhibit in the larger world of the museum I was nearly crucified by my Aunt Stella because I ruined Van Gogh�s �Sunflowers� by accidentally taking a flash picture of it. I didn�t do it on purpose and the guard didn�t seem to mind at all. He probably had no clue the cultural significance of Van Gogh, I however do. Tickets to my crucifixion will be sold starting two weeks before Easter, the crucifixion itself will be held in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Mel Gibson will be co-producing and filming the event.
I�m surprised that my Mother or Aunt Stella haven�t killed me yet. I tell them crazy stories, play pranks on them, lurk around with cameras, video equipment and notebooks to catch them (and everyone else really) at their worst. We call Aunt Stella, �Nessy� and make fun of her dog for having a terrible cancer and make fun of my mother�s melanoma , which is too easy and can be expected after years of telling us not to, �cut of your nose to spite your face.�
Other museum highlights were: puking man, sleeping beauty and the drag race.
While we were waiting to enter the exhibit we walked around the museum. We encountered a man who puked five times, hard. Each time sounded as if he were dumping a bucket full of water on the floor. We took pictures but mine didn�t come out well.
Sleeping beauty�s picture came out. A guard in the contemporary art section was asleep on the bench and I took her picture. It didn�t come out as well as I wanted it to so I tried to take another one and she caught me. It was kind of embarrassing but not enough to prompt me to act like an adult.
Finally, in the Manet exhibit there was the most ridiculous man in drag I�ve ever seen. You could tell it was a man because his Adam�s Apple was bulging under his turtleneck, he clomped around his heals like a four-year-old playing dress up and ultimately scratched himself, which is something women never do. I did not take his picture. Aunt Stella held sway there.
Everyone enjoyed the exhibit. I got a lot out of it. I think I�ll look into the museums of Hartford and bring the boys down there.
