I feel like, no matter how much I want to see something, I always end up waiting until the last minute…especially when it comes to museum exhibitions.  Last year, I had ample time to make my way to the Upper East Side, fling myself onto the steps of the Met, and attend the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit, but sadly, I waited until one of the last weeks to do so.  I think one of the problems with living in New York is that, there are so many things to do that, you tell yourself, I’ll go tomorrow, or next week, and before you know it, you have missed your opportunity.  Had I not waited so long to see Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, I might not have gotten stuck on a two-hour line (which, thankfully moved enough so that I was only waiting for scarcely little more than an hour), and a claustrophobic second hour as I walked through the exhibit itself, more often than not barely moving, and reduced to tiptoeing just to be able to catch glimpses of some of the items on display.  I bought a few postcards and the exhibition catalogue (my first coffee table book), and walked out of the Met into several downpours, desperately clutching my purchases.  By the time I got home, all was thoroughly soaked (me that is), except for my museum bag.  I threw on some dry clothes, opened a bottle of wine, and poured over the content of the catalogue in its entirety; I had gotten a decent view of part of the exhibit, but I was not by any means satisfied with my experience.  It was then that I vowed never again to leave my museum goings to the last minute but, like the next-day hangover that is bound to follow an all-night excursion where you vow never to drink again, this was not the last of my tardiness.

My latest exhibition tardiness commenced around three months ago, before the exhibit even opened.  By accident, I had found an exhibit in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I’m not sure if it was for Picasso or Van Gogh because the museum was going to have overlapping exhibits on both of them.  One, or both of them was going to close in May, so, planner that I am, I figured that I had plenty of time to go.  I brought it up to the guy that I was dating at the time, who thought it was a good idea but wouldn’t commit to a date; we broke up a few weeks after and I never did bring myself back to Philly.  I am not a huge fan of either of their works, though I feel like you can appreciate an artist’s style even if you are not fond of it (especially when that artist is Picasso or Van Gogh).  I do have a reprieve for Picasso though; there is a gallery on Madison that will be exhibiting some of his paintings starting at the end of this month in conjunction with another painter.  None of those though, are the exhibit that I have once again become tardy to.

The exhibit that I have been dying to see is entitled Documents pour artistes.  Over one hundred photographs by the French photographer Eugène Atget are on display, with the city of Paris as the theme.  This exhibit is appealing to me for a few reasons, the two prominent being that I love photography and I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.  In one of the reviews that I read on this exhibit, it said something to the effect that, going to the exhibit left you with the same feelings as if you had been walking the streets of Paris.  The only unappealing thing to me about this particular exhibit was its location: MOMA.  I have been to many museums in New York: the Met, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Natural History, the International Center of Photography, and MOMA (to name a few), but MOMA has been my least favorite…followed closely by the Guggenheim.  I’m not saying that either of them are bad museums, because they are not by any means, just that I am not a fan of modern art, and they tend to have realllly modern art on display; the Met isn’t like that.  But…it’s Paris. 

Needless to say that it is now April, and the Documents pour artistes will be closing in less than a week….oh, and if you hadn’t guessed, I still have yet to get there.  This all will change on Friday though, as I drag myself to MOMA and finally see my coveted exhibition…I just hope that the lines aren’t anywhere near as long as the ones from the McQueen exhibit.