For the past 10+ years I have been spending the large part of my time on the road, travelling to many amazing places around the world and enjoying every new discovery.
At the same time, one of the things I like the most about travelling for work is the possibility of returning regularly to cities and places that are extra special to me. It takes away the “fear of missing out” and the stress of having to see “everything” and replaces it with a nice sense of “home away from home”. I love the feeling of knowing my way around the city and having my special spots to rediscover every time. This is particularly the case for many museums, from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris to the Tretyakov gallery in Moscow. Here the anticipation of new discoveries is replaced by the kind of warm feeling one gets right before seeing an old friend again after some time you have been apart. By now, I often remember in which room certain artworks I am more fond of are located, and the walk around the museum is a build up to that last corner before I turn into the room and the “old friend” will be there, almost waiting for me to come say hi. At the same time, I also cherish the feeling of rediscovering painting I had forgotten about, but that when they appear generate the same kind of happiness as the first time I got to see them.
While I have only been to NYC on quick trips a couple of times before, the city is fairly easy to navigate and I can fake the “being a local” enough not to be harassed by the guys selling bus tours around the city. Yesterday I took the chance to go back to a couple of museums I had visited in the past, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Guggenheim.
While I do spend a lot of time in art museums, I am not exactly an “art expert” and my connection with these artworks is more intimate and spiritual, often more related to how the specific combination of shapes and colours makes me feel rather than who the artist or the subject is, or whether the piece was meant to have a special message.
Here are a few of my favourite pieces from yesterday’s visits, from Kandinsky to Delauney, Marc and Severini.
