NYC: The Met!!!

I took my stepson to the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few weeks ago. I was completely amazed at the size of the building alone. Feeling overwhelmed yet excited we ventured around the first level looking at many different works of Greek and Roman art. After about a half hour of aimless wandering, we smartened up and rented the audio-guided headphones. It was then; I was able to truly enjoy my time at the Met.

You will experience almost every emotion possible when you visit the Met. It is amazing that a picture or a sculpture can make you feel so many emotions just from first glance. I decided that for this class I would only write about the works that truly made me feel “something”. So for my first piece I chose James Rosenquist’s Gift Wrapped Doll #16. You encounter this painting in a stairway in the Modern Art section of the museum. My first emotion was, “Oh my good Lord!” It is disturbing, yet beautiful. Chaotic, yet perfectly painted to look just like a photograph.




We found ourselves looking closer, just to make sure it was not a photograph. Could this really be paint on a canvas?? Yes, she was paint. A perfect blend of colors created this amazing work of art. I was in awe!



What am I seeing? What comes to mind first? An older brother torturing his sister’s dolls with cellophane?! Then it hits me. Anxiety. Entrapment. Prison. But to a child who is naive, there is still a beautiful smile. The lines of the cellophane are amazing! Reds, pinks, yellows, with the perfect touch of white to give the “shinny” look to it.




The eye on my left I am drawn to. It appears that there is a crease in the wrap, which sets in my feeling of anxiety, blurred vision from the inside. What a feeling. Her mouth is covered and closed but still smiling.




The right side of her face is very disorted. This side of the cellophane is not smooth at all! It is also very red as if the light is shining on the left side and this side has more shadow to it.



Rosenquist uses thin dark lines to show depth and the movement of the cellophane. Technically the work is unlike any other I have ever seen. Creatively it is a masterpiece! What is behind this work? What is the inspiration? Motivation? I am eager to learn.



I know what I feel but what did Rosenquist feel? What provoked this work of art and the other 36 just like her? After researching him, I found out that his Gift Wrapped Doll series was a response to the AIDS crisis. These works were made in 1992-1993 during a time when the epidemic was at its highest. It is a representation of feeling trapped by the disease, hopeless and despair. There is nothing inspiring about a doll wrapped in cellophane.




Rosenquist is one of the great artist of the American Pop Art Movement. This was truly a very strong message to this severe issue. This piece says so much with so little. It exposes the stigma of the times. What I found to be very interesting was he used dolls from what seems to be the 50’s or the 60’s on works created in the 90’s. Why didn’t he use a more modern looking doll? I can only guess that he wanted the pieces to stand out. Many of the dolls aren’t really childlike. You know that they belong to a child, but their faces are very mature. Most wearing make up. I believe he is exposing the fact that AIDS effects the young and the old.

So we walk up the stairs to continue our journey through the Met, but I am left feeling a bit raw. Feeling sad for the dolls and for the artist who envisioned such a site. The overwhelming size of the portrait is what grabbed me and I can’t seem to let that image out of my mind. Even Chuck Closes’s portrait of Lucas, which I considered writing about, couldn’t completely take my mind off the little dolls trapped forever. My research on the dolls has put it into perspective for me. I get it. How simple yet so complicated. How beautiful, yet so frightening.