Cool building design, neat gallery, overrated sky-room

NYC has so many museums, I don't think you can visit them all in a week, maybe even in a month. The New Museum is of the smaller category of museums that are cater to people that live in NYC rather than tourists. I have passed by too many times and still did not know what it is, so I decided to pay a visit this past weekend with a few friends.

The ground floor is very modern looking (white everywhere), it almost looks like a lobby of an ultramodern hotel. After you pay the admissions ($12, pricey for museum, but not terrible), you are allowed access to their "monolithic" elevator that can probably fit a small elephant. Love the bright lime green paint in it.

We first went to check out the sky room, which was, saidly, underwhelming. The city does look nice covered in white, but there really wasn't that much to see. We didn't try to go outside cuz of the freezing temperature. The drinks they serve in the sky room is from a lame looking street vendor cart. I didn't even bother to approach it.

We then checked out the Elizabeth Peyton exhibit that is open til Jan 09. Her artwork is quite interesting, as she feminizes all her male subjects by adding bits of her own features to them, and then masculines all her female subjects (to who, I don't know). The most interesting paintings are of Al Gore and Michelle Obama. Her art work is very vibrant, full of life, and she captures her subjects in a very natural setting.

Then we went down to the Mary Heilmann exhibit. The first word from my mouth is "What?" Although her art work is a lot bigger, the over abstraction makes it extremely hard to understand what she is trying to express, and didn't jive with the work from Peyton. Where as we spent almost 2 hrs in the EP exhibit, we barely spent 1/2 hr for Heilmann.

Overall, I like this museum a lot. Its not crowded like MOMA, and you really get to appreciate the works of the artists, even if some is not as easy to understand as others.