I went to MOMA a few days ago, mainly to see the new building, more of the collection on display, the fascinating Richard Serra show (and Van Gogh's Starry Night, the Monet, Picasso, Pollock, Brancusi's sculptures, Jasper Johns, Motherwell, De Kooning, Talouse-Lautrec, Rothko, Klimt, et al), and all the other great paintings. And then I stumbled onto Dan Perjovschi's fantastic, politically charged, and humorous wall mural. He creates these publicly on the spot--like Keith Haring did with paint, back in the day. I saw a lot of great art that day, but it took this Romanian to make me laugh.
You can download the newspaper Perjovschi created for the modern exhibit here. The New York Times review today of the show pointed out that his work is far more casual, and less formal than that of Haring's. This is true. It is a pictorial jumble of fragments that bludgeon's you with its politics. That's OK too. In some ways, this reminds me of a lot of Jonathan Borofsky's work in the 80s, where there really wasn't a message, but just deep images that spoke for themselves. Anyhow, if you're in NYC, it's worth it to see this show. The New York Times also pointed out this fascinating tidbit: people spend far more time staring at this wall that they do in front of Starry Night...arguably, the most famous painting in MOMA (or at least right up there).
Note: The Richard Serra show was excellent as well. I like his epic piece at the sculpture park in Seattle, but one of these--Torqued Torus Inversion, was a real mindf'er. I know some people don't think welded rusty steel plates are a work of art, but then they are probably the same folks who think Jackson Pollack can't paint.
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