Walker Art Center

Minneapolis, MN

 The Walker Art Center

Today we went to The Walker Art Center with our NARM pass.  It's about a half a mile away so we walked.  It isn't a huge museum but they have some good stuff there and we saw it.  

The building is cool.

Y.oung P.ublisher 99 cents & Up (2) - Paul Chan

Primitv - Paul Chan

Pillowsophia (after Ghostface) - Paul Chan

My Fear of Night Diving - Pacita Abad

She used fabric, paint, buttons, thread, broken glass, yarn and other forms of sewing to create her art.

Join the Circle - Pacita Abad

Freedom from Illusion - Pacita Abad

Lake George Barns - Georgia O'Keeffe

Selection from Flash - Andy Warhol

Me looking closely at Office at Night -  Edward Hopper

Office at Night -  Edward Hopper

Night Sky #6 - Vija Celmins

Artist's Studio No. 1 (Look Mickey) -  Roy Lichtenstein

Donna in bianco con cappello in mano -  Michelangelo Pistoletto

I liked this piece because it made it look like the art was looking at other art in the gallery.

Pudel -  Katharina Fritsch

Imperfect Painting -  Roy Lichtenstein

Flowers -  Andy Warhol

Untitled -  Donald Judd

Liminal Bathroom - Jon Sieker

Fancy Ice

After the museum we decided to walk back to Kowalski's Market to pick up a few things.  On the way out we saw Clear Ice for sale.  It's the first time I have seen it for sale for consumers so we bought it. Later in the evening I made us both Manhattans using it.

Pure and Clear like the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota! (actually a lot clearer)

It was $12

And came with 6 Cylinders (or Spheres) so $2 per cylinder

So I decided to cut them in half to reduce the cost to $1 per drink.

I watched a YouTube video so now I'm an expert!  I'm a visual learner.

Nailed It!  On the left a $0.60 cylinder, on the right a $1.40 cylinder.

Still the drinks looked good and tasted great!

During this process I put some water in my insulated coffee sipper to make my own clear ice.  It has worked in the past so I figured I would do it again.  it will be ready in a couple days.

After buying the ice but before making the drinks I went to Caffetto to play pinball.  I am practicing my ball handling skills (not those balls).  I started a spreadsheet with the places, machines, and scores so I can track my progress.  I rocked the Bally Star Trek (1978) machine and the Twilight Zone Machine for big points.  My modern game scores still need to catch up to my improved ball handling skills.

Rocked!!!!

Half a Billion!

I also got my ball stuck on the Toy Story 4 machine.  I thought this was funny.  "No I Cantada!"
This machine was all kinds of whack.  I played 3 games and got through 1 without the ball getting stuck enough to ruin the game.

That's it for today.  We hit 1 week in Minneapolis and have a ton to do still.  If you missed Minnesota Yarn Store, check it out.

More Modern Art, A 500 Year Old Painting, and Swedish Meatballs in Kansas

 Kansas City, MO

Morning coffee on the roof

Enjoying the rooftop patio 

This morning we made our coffee and then headed up to the roof of our Airbnb.  It's only 6 stories but we still got some good views.  We picked a cloudy cool morning so it was very nice.  There isn't much shade up there so I doubt we will be using it a lot but it was nice to check out.

No dogs allowed on the fake grass

Seating under a canopy that doesn't' really offer any shade

Looking off towards The Missouri River and The Kansas City Downtown Airport

Looking towards the center of the city

You take the elevator to 5 and then the steps the rest of the way

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

After loading up on coffee we got the car out of the parking garage and headed to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  This museum is free to all with a reservation.  Parking is $12 but we found street parking nearby for free and we were able to walk through the part that the museum is in and see the public art and watch people playing mini-golf on the museum grounds.  

We saw another Roxy Paine at The Modern in Fort Worth TX

Robert Morris' Glass Labyrinth looked cool

You could play mini golf there.  It was pricy but the museum was free

 Auguste Rodin's The Thinker

Shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg, in the distance, are the museums "logo".  There are four of them and they are placed on either side of the museum as if the museum was a net.

We are getting lucky with Art Deco.  It seems we are seeing it everywhere on our trip.

The museum has been updated so you go into the newer entrance and that building is connected to the original building.  The place is HUGE and there is no way we can see it all in one day so we started in the modern section which is our favorite style of art.

Another Art Deco Selfie

Grace Hartigan's Broadway Restaurant

Jackson Pollock's No. 6 1952 This is one of his paintings that isn't totally abstract.  You can see figures in it that represent a She-Wolf in the upper left and a female form in the upper right as well as others.

Mark Rothko's Untitled No. 11 1963 This painting is a lot smaller than most of his pieces that I have seen

Vanessa German's Glory

Jeff Sonhouse's Return to Sender

The afros are made of burnt match sticks.

Andy Warhol's Baseball

Roy Lichtenstein's Still Life with Brushes, Shell and Starfish

Andy Warhol's Little Campbells Soup Can (Consumme) 

Sylvia Pilmack Mangold's Ruler Reflection

Detail photo of Idelle Weber's Heineken showing "Hot Stuffed Clams"

Another 3D Roy Lichtenstein (we saw one in LA) called Brushstroke Chair and Ottoman

I loved this one.  It features Public Transit and Reflections Richard Estes' Bus Window

John Chamberlain's Huzzy.  When I saw this I made the connection to this piece we saw in Dallas and later to this piece we saw in LA.  It's really fun seeing a bunch of art and building a style database in your mind.

Andy Warhol's Portrait of Marion Bloch.  This piece was a commissioned Portrait much like the commissioned portrait we saw at The Belleview Art Museum before I was blogging every day.

Duane Hanson's Museum Guard

The detail is amazing

Kenneth Noland's Everglade

Donald Judd's Large Stack. We made another connection to this Donald Judd in Fort Worth

Charles Hinman's No. 3392 Acrylic/Shaped Canvas

Ivan Navarro's Untitled.  It represents the combined floor plans of the museum

Maya Lin's Silver Missouri.  It represents the entirety of the Missouri River.  1 ft = 75 miles.  It was big!

Andy Goldsworthy's Walking Wall.  We were lucky enough to see quite a few Goldsworthy installments in San Francisco and The Presidio 

The museum had an Art Deco exhibit going on but it was an extra fee so we decided not to go but I did get some sneak peaks in the exit and there was an open door.  I assume they did this on purpose.

That guy's $12 just got him a closer view of the paintings

After sneaking peaks at The Art Deco exhibit we moved on to the photography exhibit.  The featured Photographer was Jim Dow and his Signs.  He drove across the US using lesser highways and byways and photographed signs from 1967 to 1977.

They also featured a few Daguerreotypes on display too.  This one is from 1852.

Here is the travel map that Jim's wife helped with.

We like to break up our museum visits because after an hour or so we just get overwhelmed and start taking the art for granted and get into the NEXT mode where we don't really look at the art.  We had gotten there by this point but there was one piece we came to see and hadn't seen yet.  We decided to go see it and then promise we would come back.  We needed to go to the 1500s European Art area.  The walk through the museum was impressive and I am glad we are going back next week.

This was the piece we came to see and the piece we have been looking forward to seeing for about a year now.

Hieronymus Bosch's The Temptation of St. Anthony

There are very few authenticated Bosch paintings in the world (about 25 and 5 are in the US). Bosch had a workshop of painters he worked with and many of his works were done by this group of artists.  There were also many painters imitating his work.  The piece above was thought to be one of those until an armature art historian alerted the Bosch Research and Conservation Project about his thoughts on the painting being authentic.  This started a six-year $3.3m study that resulted in the painting being authenticated as Bosch.  Donna and I watched a documentary about the whole thing and then when they said it was in Kansas City we got excited to see it.  You can read all about it here.  

2 More Counties and an IKEA in Kansas

After the museum our plan was to go to IKEA to pick up some rug padding to help Francis navigate the hardwood floors here.  We didn't know that the trip would take us through 2 new counties.  We also didn't know until that moment that we would be eating Swedish Meatballs in an IKEA in Kansas.  

A Kansas IKEA looks a lot like any other IKEA

Hey kids, want to play in the Spider Pit?

We ate meatballs!

It's almost pop art

We saw a non original Van Gogh at IKEA

So now we are up to 5 counties in Kansas.  We will be exploring Kansas a bit more later on this trip including a capital trip.

If you didn't read about yesterday's adventure you can see it here.