Exhibitionist

Today is "Visit a Museum for Free Day" in the US. I don't have the luxury, unfortunately, so I will instead share with you my top three museum visits over the last decade. 

1. Dali Universe (at County Hall Gallery in London)

I saw this exhibit ten years ago. I did not realize it actually ran for entire decade and was just closed last year. According to its Wikipedia, the curators are looking for a new museum to host the exhibit as we speak. While it'd be amazing if a local museum like the Chrysler could have it, I'm sure it will end up in New York or Las Vegas if it ends up in the US at all.

What stands out most about this Dali museum versus a different one was its lack of obvious pieces. We've all seen Persistance of Memory a million times in books. We know what to expect. So to arrive and learn Dali illustrated an entire room full of works based on Dante's Trilogy was chillingly epic.

2. Musée Mécanique, San Francisco. 

I stumbled upon this place in 2007. We were looking for the actual art museum, having searched topics like "San Francisco Museum of Art" and the like....and we were directed with the certainty Google provides to go to Pier 43 to find what we were looking for. Welp, there weren't any Monets, but there was Laughing Sal (above), and a cornucopia of other creepy, gorgeous, functional games dating back to the first days of Coney Island and Santa Monica Pier. This privately owned collection had been in the Zelinsky family since 1933 and after the city's art museum closed (we had the right address after all), generously swooped in and allowed their collection to be seen--for free, no less. I hope they never stop.

My personal favorite was The Opium Den, a diorama portraying people smoking the poppy and getting all kinds of lazy and intoxicated. They jerk and shake and look both sinister and desperate. Though a can't miss object at the museum, it's nonetheless a tad racist, if you ask me (as are a few other items). I just kept in mind they were created for a different audience in a very different time and this is a place of history, not judgement. If you're interested in more specifics, here's a great blog post I found regarding the museum.

3. Andy Warhol: The Celebrity Portraits at Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, Las Vegas

Apparently this exhibit is back. Read here to find out about it. Weirdly, the article doesn't mention this same exhibit came to the very same museum from 2003-04 (which is when I saw it). It was great to see one of my favorite artist's work all in one place. It's not that difficult to see a Warhol, but to see many in a row, with narration by Seventies scenester du jour Liza Minnelli was funny and beneficial. She describes parties and situations with the subjects of the pieces and laughingly admits sometimes she can't remember details due to drugs and alcohol.

Vegas entrepreneur  Steve Wynn owns an impressive Warhol collection so it's kind of funny his portrait ends up in this exhibit instead of his own museum over at The Wynn. It's also the only time I've seen Warhol's innovative (and extravagant) diamond dust up close and personal (seen in the above portrait of Joseph Beuys). Diamond dust portraits were a Warhol fad in the early 1980s where he would actually crush real diamonds into a rough paste to bring a sparkling element to portraits. Over time, he switched to broken glass to create the same effect.