I went to 19 different art museums in 2019. No idea what my previous record was, but this destroys it.Already starting to look at exhibits and museums for next year, let’s see if I can get 20 in 2020!

New York

Gugenheiem

The Basquit exhibit was my favorite small exhibit of 2019. For as few works of art as it was, the power was incredible.

The Death of Michael Stewart, also known as Defacement, by Jean-Michel Basquiat

Whitney

Warhol, and Protests, and Color of the 60’s! The Whitney had a lot going on. Rachel Harrison’s mid career retrospective was a lot of fun to see, I also really love the rehang of the permanent collection on the 7th floor.

Alexander The Great by Rachel Harrison

PS1

Gina Beavers is someone who I haven’t been able to shut up about since seeing her works. Nancy Spero inspired me alot. Was especially powerful seeing her work in contrast to her husband Leon Golub’s work at Met Breuer in 2018.

Nancy Spero
Gina Beavers’ Van Gogh’s Starry Night rendered in bacon

MoMA

Back in the New York Groove. Bigger and more badass. It was odd going 4 months between visits, but for the increase in space, It was absolutely worth it.

The opening night party

Met

Play it Loud was a fun exhibit. One thing that the Met always reminds me is that Art is much more than Pictures and Sculptures, which is ironic since it also has an incredible collection of both pictures and sculptures.

Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness by Leonardo da Vinci

Met Brauer

This museum is not for long, as the space is scheduled to become the temporary home of the Frick Collection, but I like that they are doing a long term show entitled “Home is a Foreign Concept”. What has really made this place special in 2019 for me was the individual artist shows which allowed me to see in depth work by a number of artists.

Freedom of Speech by Faith Ringgold

Los Angeles

LACMA

Going to an art museum and having a 3 year old show me some of her favorite works was a different experience and one that was a lot of fun since my friends I was with are incredible. I need to go back to see more of this musuem.

Hammer

My team took an evening last year to do some team building wandering together around the Hammer. Getting to know my coworkers better by discussing art and learning just how many of us had studied art in some way was awesome.

Getty

The views were better than the art, but the art was also really good. I mostly prefer more modern and contemporary art, but the Bauhaus Beginnings show was great. Awesome to see some of the educational materials and lessons that the great artists used to teach with at that transformative institute.

Minneapolis

MIA

This was like a mini version of The Met. Almost all the greats were represented, and some phenomenal examples of a lot of different types of art. I want to go back as I didn’t give myself enough time to fully appreciate all that they had.

Lake Superior Landscape by George Morrison

Walker Center + Sculpture Garden

Incredible collection of art and highly inspiring. The individual shows and the main collection (formatted around the themes of Self, Inside, Outside, Everyday, Everything) were fantastic. The Sculpture Garden is something I want to spend many more hours exploring. Especially want to look at every Jenny Holzer bench. And eat that damn cherry.

Columbus

Wexner Center

I am lucky in that I got to see the Jason Moran exhibit here and then see it again when it came to the Whitney. This was a smaller museum, but I enjoyed how it had multiple areas that could be setup in what appeared to be isolating ways. I often felt alone in galleries, but in a good way.

Billy Ireland

If you are ever in Columbus, I highly encourage you to check out this political cartoon museum. It’s free! It’s also not very large but both exhibits I saw were extremely informative and entertaining.

Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

This one is kind of cheating on my behalf, since I was here for a conference and other than 20 minutes at the end of lunch, I didn’t spend much time looking at the art.I really enjoyed a piece by Lee Krasner who I don’t feel is given enough credit or space in art museums.

Boston

MFA

I was in Boston for a wedding and decided to take a vacation day and visit the MFA. I was not disappointed. It was a large museum, so I’m glad I gave myself a full day. I loved how they had the Kehinde Wiley/John Singer Sargent duality. Listen to Wiley talk about Sargent.

  • Katharina Grosse with Jackson Pollock in the background
  • Contrast between John Singer Sargent and Kehinde Wiley. Premier Portrait artists
  • Chamonix by Joan Mitchell. A part of Women Take the Floor

San Francisco

SFMoMA

Before visiting SFMoMA, I would have told you that MoMA was the premier modern art museum. Now I’m not so sure. Everything was incredible but the Leichenstein Nudes are what stood out to me. I had just started my own work on nudes (contact me for the Instagram I am posting those on if you are interested) so it was very timely.

De Young

I was a bit underwhelmed by this museum. I think in part since I had just been blown away by SFMoMA and expected a premier institute in a city like San Francisco to have more.

St Louis

St. Louis Art Museum

I was very impressed with the German art. The Contemporary collection was incredible and the Shape of Abstraction was the one exhibit I visited this year that was so good I bought the book.

Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago

A fitting final museum of the year for me to visit as it is also the first art museum I ever went to. This is the second time I visited as an adult and I could spend hours with the Chagall windows. I also had a little fun using google translate.