Met Breuer

Got up to the new old Met Breuer building last week to take in the two large exhibitions “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible” and Nasreen Mohamedi. Like many I was not familiar with Mohamedi’s work and welcomed the opportunity to get to know it. Maybe I was a little (or a lot) tired after the two packed floors of the Unfinished show, but after a while the Mohamedi’s started to blur, and not because they were not beautiful and rich, there was simply too many of them and think the show would have benefited from some editing. That said do see this show and also the spectacular Unfinished that is full of many great masterpieces by many of my favorite European painters. At first I was a bit thrown off being back in the old Whitney, gee I didn’t know El Greco was an American but I quickly came to my senses and this is a show to slowly savor and to point and stare at. It is crowded so have patience. The lighting is a bit dark and moody, maybe too dark and moody, but there are many many great works here, but not so with the contemporary pieces. I won’t mention names, why bother. The place itself is a bit scruffy and I hope they spruce it up, but the great elevators are still here (they should have taken them to the new building because the ones they have there now stink) and everyone was pleasant and sharp. My favorite overheard comment of the day was the docent who said that “Cezanne was the father of us all.” And I would be hard put to argue with that. Don’t you just love art?