On the Scene: My Night at the Brooklyn Museum

A Saturday ago I found myself at the Brooklyn Museum. Alone.

As a result of a few miscommunications, an overcapacity issue, rain, and Jamaican Independence Day, my friends and I found ourselves on opposite sides of this month’s Target First Saturdays at the Brooklyn Museum. I was inside; they were out. Instead of leaving and going to a club or bar with them, I decided to explore First Saturdays at the Brooklyn Museum alone. (Who does that?) Apparently, me.

So, first I took in the atmosphere in the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion. A reggae rock band called The Cool and Deadly was playing. I weaved through the crowds to the concessions. With a cheeseburger in one hand and water in the other, I returned to the pavilion and bobbed my head to the beats for a while … but dancing alone has never been an avocation, so I began to venture.

The Cool and Deadly in the Rubin Pavilion.I wandered into The Great Hall where I was greeted by giant fabric mushrooms, or more specifically, an installation called “reOrder” by Situ Studio.

The giant mushrooms. They looked so ... edible.Then, I  found my way to the elevators, but noticed they were crowded, mostly by people wearing club attire. (Odd, I thought.) The elevators full, I opted for the stairs. The first landing took me to the museum’s collection of Asian and Islamic art. It was almost 10pm (and the museum was to close at 11), so I made my way through the floor quickly, which wasn’t a problem because there were hardly any visitors trolling the exhibits. Where had the mass of people I had seen entering the elevators gone? Maybe I was missing something.

It was quiet ... toooo quiet.And true to form, I was. I made my way to the next landing, the floor on which European and Egyptian art is held and also one which the neo-classical Beaux-Arts Court is. Once I opened the doors to the floor, I was slapped in the face by the smell of alcohol and sweat and the sound of Caribbean beats. Yeah, it was a dance party. In the middle of a museum. In the middle of the staid European art collection. I felt as if I had been warped back to my days in the dining hall parties at Harvard. Oh, it was grand -- in the sweaty, loud music sort of way.

"Stand Up" in Lowell Dining Hall? No, First Saturdays at the Brooklyn Art Museum.But eh, the dancing alone thing again.

And so, I ventured to the Egyptian art collection, which the Brooklyn Museum has been amassing for about a century. As expected, it is quite an impressive collection, displaying Egyptian mummies (once not on display) and original sections of the Book of the Dead. 

On the fourth floor, I viewed some decorative arts (contemorary and historical) and several exhibits and installations of contemporary and feminist art. Perhaps one of the most interesting finds on this floor was Lorna Simpson's exhibition "Lorna Simpson: Gathered." In one of the photographic installation's series 57/09, Simpson has taken 1957 photographs of African-American (mostly) women and juxtaposed them with photographs of herself mimicking these women's self-taken photographs. The lines between fiction and reality, the past and the present is beautifully blurred. 

 

Just before 11, I made it to the fifth floor, home of American art. Although I sped through the floor, I was struck by two things. First, the range of American art, representing diverse time periods and styles, impressed me. And the second thing that struck me was a quotation by Booker T. Washington: "the study of art that does not result in making the strong less willing to oppress the weak means little." I'm unsure if I completely agree with Washington's sentiment, but the quotation provided an interesting thought as I made my way down five flights of stairs, past the mushrooms and out into the soggy night air. 

Comments

[Rachael]

Ahh this looks so cool. Pretty jealous. Get me to a big city, stat!