Week of July 25th 2011: Welcome to Washington D.C. and the Corcoran Gallery of Art

The day after the Broadway show, I went to work for a little bit and then I was off on a bus to D.C. (Tangent - if you want to city hop, I recommend the bus system. My bus ticket was about $25 and I got two seats to myself because it wasn't full. It only takes a little longer than the train which was much more expensive.) 

In D.C., I would be staying with my friend Mike who works for congress. Since Mike would be working the first day I was there, I had a chance to explore on my own. If you haven't caught on yet, exploring on my own is one of my favorite things. Company is nice but so is being able to take in as much or as little as you like.

I took the Metro to the National Mall and figured I would just walk from there. I was really excited to check out the museums because they're all free. I thought I would walk around about since it was earlier in the day and the sun wasn't at full force yet. I went on a nice stroll past the White House and the National Christmas Tree before coming to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. I was a little taken aback when I was charged admission... yup, plenty of free, public museums and I stroll into one of the few private ones. I was a little embarrassed by the mistake so I paid the admission and went in.

The Corcoran Museum focuses on American Art but while I was there, many of the exhibits featured contemporary works. If you remember from my LACMA post, contemporary art was really growing on my radar so it was a fun museum to explore. As with any of the more modern types, there was some "How is this art? I made this in 3rd grade?" mixed in with some really cool plays on pop culture. I think you can imagine which was my preference.

One of my favorites though, was an exhibit that had a bunch of little glowing squares of different colors. It seemed cool but I couldn't figure it out so I read the sign and was excited when it said that this was an interactive exhibit. Guests could move around the little squares and if you touch them, they change color. I knew I had to leave my mark somehow and it didn't take me long to figure out exactly what I wanted to create. My contribution to the museum only lasted until the first group of kids appeared but at least I immortalized it in film.

Like many of the museum posts you'll see, I'm not going to go through gallery by gallery but I'll scatter some pretty pictures through the post. However, there was one more exhibit that stands out in my head. The featured exhibit was another modern artist who creates giant pieces while working outside. This one piece he did in a park and let birds walk all over it as part of the work. It was cool to see how it changed with little bird prints in it.

I guess that's the thing about modern art... maybe it wasn't the most skilled piece I've ever seen but there is a "I've never thought about that" quality to it as well. A few months earlier, I would have been pretty annoyed about being in a museum with primarily modern and contemporary pieces but a lot of it is really growing on me. That's a huge take away from this blog... maybe you assume you don't like something but you really just need to try it. There is still a lot of modern art that I really think is stupid but there are just as many that are so talented or creative. I'm glad I've had to chance to discover this side of it as well.