Four museums in North America worth the trip
Exhibitions focus on rock music, Greco-Roman treasures, design pieces and multimedia installations, respectively
Thousands showed up when relics from King Tut’s tomb toured, and museum-goers slept overnight on the pavement to see the designs of Alexander McQueen when they were exhibited at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum in 2011.
But a show doesn’t have to be a blockbuster to make it worthy of a trip to see it.
Here are my picks for four museum shows that definitely are worth planning a vacation around (in no particular order): Re: Collection (at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; madmuseum.org):
In honour of its fifth anniversary at its Columbus Center building, the museum has staged a wonderfully eclectic survey of the best pieces (sculpture, textiles, jewelry, ceramics and furniture) it’s exhibited during the past five years. Big names are represented (such as Cindy Sherman and Judy Chicago), and even bigger ideas, with works that take traditional forms and subvert them in all sorts of delicious ways.
There’s an elegant, French Empire couch that has somehow melted; a sculpture of what can only be described as a truck married to a gothic cathedral; and a tapestry that succinctly sums up the history of mankind. It’s not a large show (you can see it in an hour), but boy does it pack a whallop. Common Ground: The Music Festival Experience (at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio; rockhall.com).
A good percentage of the tickets for Lollapalooza, Coachella and other famed fests are sold even before the full lineup of artists is announced. That’s because the social aspects of these gatherings are as important as the music — think Woodstock — and it’s this sociological aspect of the festival experience that is at the core of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s new exhibit.
In a nod to the power of the group, rock fans have, in a sense curated this issue, deciding via social media which clips of famous festival performances should be shown. The exhibit also will feature live streamed music from some of this summer’s biggest fests, and artifacts and commentary some of history ’s most important rock festivals. Masters of Olympus: Treasures from the Greco-Roman Collections of Berlin (at the Musee de la Civilisation; mcq.org).
Some 150-plus ancient masterworks — sculptures, amulets, jewelry and ceramics — are crossing the Atlantic for the first time and it promises to be quite the show.
The exhibit, which focuses on portraits of the ancient gods, includes such iconic objects as the Dresden Zeus (a model from the second century AD based on a sculpture from around 440 BC) and the Ermanthyian Boar (which dates to the sixth century BC).
The works are being borrowed from the Berlin Antiquity Museum. Ruffneck Constructivists (Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; icaphila.org):
Contemporary superstar Kara Walker curated this show.
You likely know the silhouette cutouts and sculptures she’s done on themes of racial discrimination.
Bringing together artists from across the globe, the exhibit mixes video art with compelling installations and sculptures, all of which explore the way inequality shapes our daily lives. Pauline Frommer is the creator of Pauline Frommer’s Travel Guides series.