I have been Miss Culture this past week with my visits to The Corcoran’s Modernism exhibit, the National Museum of Women in the Art’s Free-da Kahlo Day, and the Chuck Klosterman book reading at Wonderland last night. And I think I need more of this in my life, to be fed by art, architecture, and all things creative.
The Modernism exhibit was amazing to say the least. It had everything from teapots to chairs, original drawings to scale models, oil paintings to bronze sculptures. This was the era I should have lived in: it was about defining a utopia through art and architecture. One of my favorite pieces there was the Mies van der Rohe original drawing of the Ontwerp Friedrichstrasse. Architects don’t make beautiful drawings that generate emotions like that anymore; today’s version of it would be a 3d rendering from China with metal panels, developer-style, trying to imitate reality as best as possible. Within Modernism was one movement after another, or beside each other in different countries: precisionism, futurism, da-da, etc.;I was especially fascinated with the difference between the subjectivists and the constructivists, mostly because I’m still not quite sure what the difference is. Modernism seems to be where industrialism and existentialism collide. Houses were machines for living, yet art, architecture and literature could create whatever meaning one desired in their lives.
And then there was Frida. Wow. She was a woman who lived her life passionately, despite all obstacles. I highly recommend watching the movie before going to the exhibit. The exhibit had amazing photographs of her, she had this intensity in her eyes that blew me away. Love letters. Photographs of her body cast. I hope I find a passion that gives me that same kind of intensity one day.
And then last night I met Chuck Klosterman, the advanced guru of pop culture. I am not a follower of pop culture, but I got into him when the cover of his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs would catch my eye every morning in the hands of my fellow readers on the bus. So I picked up his new book at the Harvard bookstore during my Thanksgiving in Boston trip. And since then I’ve been addicted to his writing. I only know maybe 1% of the things he talks about in his books and during his reading, but the way he analyzes and dissects his topics is like a comedy show for me. Very different, very refreshing. And similar (but way more insightful) to the way I look at life. And the best end to the evening: after the reading my friend Kevin and I went to dinner down the street at the newest contributor to gentrification in Columbia Heights, and as we were sitting outside digesting our meal, we saw Chuck hailing a cab with his buddies so we ran down the street and yelled “Bye Chuck!” And as he elusively disappeared into the cab he said “Thanks for coming out!” And to top off my brush with pop culture’s most advanced guru, I watched the new Harry Potter movie last night. I’ve never read the books, nor watched the movies consecutively so I went in expecting to fall asleep (it was after all a midnight show) but surprisingly, I was able to follow the movie and be entertained by cool effects and a good story line.
And that my friend, was a lot of deep-linking, my new buzzword. (Last week’s was “Another one bites the dust.”)
This weekend I would like to do the National Portrait Gallery, as well as a day at the pool.
