Tag Archives: museums and exhibits

Staycation? New York City’s Museums Transport in Time, Place and Space

Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of NYC’s premier museums. Be sure to take one of the Highlights Tours © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Be transported in time, place and even space. Immerse yourself into the realm of ideas and imagination. Come in from the heat or whatever the weather is doing outside by taking in one of New York City’s museums. Here are just a few highlights of summer’s blockbuster attractions:

Metropolitan Museum of Art is like a time travel chamber that can bring you to any era, any place in the world in one quick visit. The museum is welcoming an important summer visitor of its own, Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Saint Jerome.” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Met Museum Welcomes ‘Saint Jerome’

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is about to welcome a very special visitor: Leonardo da Vinci’s Saint Jerome. To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), The Met is presenting the artist’s painting Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness (begun around 1483), a special loan from the Vatican Museums. The exquisitely rendered work represents Jerome (A.D. 347–420), a major saint and theologian of the Christian Church. The scene is based on the story of his later life, which he spent as a hermit in the desert, according to the 13th–century Golden Legend. The unfinished painting provides viewers with an extraordinary glimpse into Leonardo’s creative process; a close examination of the paint surface even reveals the presence of his fingerprints. The display of this monumental masterpiece pays homage to one of the most renowned geniuses of all time. Opening July 15, the painting is on view through Oct. 6, 2019.

From the oldest works of art to the first forays of civilization into outer space, , the Met Museum is marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission with Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography, on view through September 22, 2019. Apollo’s Muse traces the progress of astronomical photography and attempts to produce ever-sharper images of the moon, particularly during the 130-year period between the invention of photography in 1839 and the moon landing in 1969 as astronomers and artists capitalized on technological improvements to cameras and telescopes to create ever more accurate visual records of the lunar surface. Exhibition highlights include two newly discovered lunar daguerreotypes from the 1840s, believed to be the earliest existing photographs of the moon, and works by such pioneers of lunar photography as Warren De La Rue (1815–1889), Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (1816–1892), and John Adams Whipple (1822–1891). A stunning photographic atlas of the moon, produced at the Paris Observatory between 1894 and 1908 by the astronomers Maurice Loewy (1833–1907) and Pierre Puiseux (1855–1928), will be displayed for the first time in its entirety.

Alongside these scientific achievements, the show explores the use of the camera to create fanciful depictions of space travel and life on the moon, including George Méliès’s (1861–1938) original drawings for his film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune, 1902) and a large selection of “paper moon” studio portraits from the early 20th century. Also featured will be artists’ evocations of the otherworldly effects of moonlight, including major works by German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) and American Pictorialist photographer Edward Steichen (1879-1973).

“Separated” by Norma Pace, a 7th grader at Lower Manhattan Community Middle School, is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s P.S. Art exhibit:  “I was inspired by our social studies unit on Native Americans. I wanted to bring the untold story of Native Americans’ past into the light, as it’s sometimes ignored.” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The night of the Museum Mile Festival, I popped into the opening of this year’s P.S. Art exhibit,  an annual celebration of achievement in the arts in New York City public schools. This juried exhibition of the work of talented young artists showcases the creativity of 122 prekindergarten through twelfth grade students from all five boroughs, including students from District 75, a citywide district serving students with disabilities. The exhibition consists of paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs, mixed-media works, collages, drawings, and video. Each work of art demonstrates personal expression, imaginative use of media, the results of close observation, and an understanding of artistic processes. Some of the works on display are completely astonishing

The Met is three museums.

At the Cloisters, “The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy,” is on view July 22-January 12, 2020. A cache of jeweled rings, brooches, and coins—the precious possessions of a Jewish family of medieval Alsace—was hidden in the fourteenth century in the wall of a house in Colmar, France. Discovered in 1863 and on view in an upcoming exhibition at The Met Cloisters, the Colmar Treasure revives the memory of a once–thriving Jewish community that was scapegoated and put to death when the Plague struck the region with devastating ferocity in 1348–49. A generous loan of the Musée de Cluny, Paris, the Colmar Treasure will be displayed alongside select works from The Met Cloisters and little–known Judaica from collections in the United States and France. Although the objects on view are small in scale and relatively few in number, the ensemble overturns conventional notions of medieval Europe as a monolithic Christian society. The exhibition will point to both legacy and loss, underscoring the prominence of the Jewish minority community in the tumultuous fourteenth century and the perils it faced.

At the Met Breuer, “Home is a Foreign Place: Recent Aquisitions in Context,” through June 21, 2020.

(NYS residents still can pay what they wish, by presenting proof of residence; out-of-towners need to pay the regular admission).

The iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art is at 1000 Fifth Avenue, on Central Park, (definitely take a Highlights tour when you visit), The Met Breuer (945 Madison Avenue) and The Met Cloisters (99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park). Visit metmuseum.org to plan your visit.

Jewish Museum Pays Homage to Leonard Cohen With Multi-Media Exhibition

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem” from the album The Future (1992), provides the title for the special exhibit at the Jewish Museum,

“Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything”. The contemporary multi-media exhibition devoted to the imagination and legacy of the influential singer/songwriter, man of letters, and global icon from Montreal, Canada can be experienced through September 8, 2019.

Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything includes commissioned works by a range of international artists who have been inspired by Cohen’s life, work and legacy. A world-renowned novelist, poet  and singer/songwriter who inspired generations of writers, musicians, and artists, Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)  supplied the world with melancholy and urgent observations on the state of the human heart. In songs such as “Suzanne,” “Bird on the Wire,” and “Hallelujah,” he interwove the sacred and the profane,  mystery and accessibility. Collectively, it is the oddest, most creative biographical tribute. Featured works include:

I’m Your Man (A Portrait of Leonard Cohen) (2017), a multi-channel video installation by Candice Breitz, brings together a community of ardent Cohen fans who pay tribute to the late legend, is part of the multi-media homage to Leonard Cohen at the Jewish Museum this summer. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

I’m Your Man (A Portrait of Leonard Cohen) (2017)a multi-channel video installation by Candice Breitz, brings together a community of ardent Cohen fans who pay tribute to the late legend. Each of the 18 participants was offered the opportunity to perform and record his own version of Cohen’s comeback album I’m Your Man (1988) in a professional recording studio. At Breitz’s invitation, the album’s backing vocals were reinterpreted by the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue Choir, an all-male choir representing the congregation in Montreal, Canada, that Cohen belonged to all his life.

Ari Folman’s Depression Chamber (2017) allows one visitor at a time into a darkened room, where they are confronted by the demons of depression, a theme that can be traced throughout Cohen’s body of work. After the visitor lies down, Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” plays while the song’s lyrics are projected on the walls, slowly morphing into letters and icons that symbolize Cohen’s multifaceted thematic universe.

Heard There Was a Secret Chord (after the 2017 work of the same title, 2018)  is a participatory humming experience by the art and design studio Daily tous les jours that reveals an invisible vibration uniting people around the world currently listening to Cohen’s Hallelujah. The work is an exploration of the metaphysical connection between people on a common wavelength. At the Museum, real-time online listener data is transformed into a virtual choir of humming voices. The number of voices played back in the gallery corresponds to the current online listener count, which is visible on the hanging numerical display. Participants can sit or lie down on the octagonal structure, and by humming along with the choir into the microphones, low-frequency vibrations are generated, closing the circuit of collective resonance with their bodies.

The Jewish Museum’s multi-media  homage to Leonard Cohen. Heard There Was a Secret Chord (after the 2017 work of the same title, 2018)  is a participatory humming experience by the art and design studio Daily tous les jours that reveals an invisible vibration uniting people around the world currently listening to Cohen’s Hallelujah. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Organized by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), the exhibition is curated by John Zeppetelli, Director and Chief Curator at the MAC, and Victor Shiffman, Co-Curator. Following its New York showing, the exhibition will tour to Kunstforeningen GL STRAND and Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark (October 23, 2019 – March 8, 2020) and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (September 17, 2020 – January 3, 2021).

During the run of Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, the Jewish Museum will open one hour earlier than usual on Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 am to 5:45pm. Advance tickets are available online at thejewishmuseum.org/buy/general-admission. For questions about ticket sales, email [email protected] or call 866.205.1322.

Founded in 1904, the Museum, on Fifth Avenue’s fabled Museum Mile, was the first institution of its kind in the United States and is one of the oldest Jewish museums in the world. Devoted to exploring art and Jewish culture from ancient to contemporary, the Museum offers diverse exhibitions and programs, and maintains a unique collection of nearly 30,000 works of art, ceremonial objects, and media reflecting the global Jewish experience over more than 4,000 years.

Admission: $18 for adults, $12  for seniors, $8 students, free for visitors 18 and under and Jewish Museum members. Free on Saturdays and select Jewish holidays. 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, New York City, 212.423,3200, [email protected]  TheJewishMuseum.org.

Museum of the City of New York: New York at Its Core

I make it a ritual to visit the Museum of the City of New York during each year’s Museum Mile Festival. I never cease to be fascinated and intrigued by the exhibits:

New York at Its Core is the first-ever museum show to comprehensively interpret and present the compelling story of New York’s rise from a striving Dutch village to today’s “Capital of the World,” a preeminent global city now facing the future in a changing world. There are different galleries that tell the story, but most fascinating is The Future City Lab, where you get to design the city of the future, tackling the most pressing problems like housing, public spaces, water supply. You even get to put yourself in the picture.

Put yourself in the picture of the City of the Future in the Museum of the City of New York’s Future City Lab (I’m the one in red). © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Not to be missed: Timescapes, the museum’s popular and critically-acclaimed multimedia experience, brings the sweeping narrative of New York City from the early 1600s to the present day. The 28-minute, award-winning documentary explores how NYC grew from a settlement of a few hundred Europeans, Africans and Native Americans into the multinational metropolis of today, re-inventing itself multiple times along the way.

Activist New York, an ongoing exhibit, examines the ways in which ordinary New Yorkers have advocated, agitated, and exercised their power to shape the city’s—and the nation’s—future, from the 17th century to the present.

City of Workers, City of Struggle: How Labor Movements Changed New York, traces how New York became the most unionized large city in the United States.

Cycling in the City: A 200–Year History, on view through October 6, 2019, tracex how the bicycle transformed urban transportation and leisure in New York City and explores the extraordinary diversity of cycling cultures, past and present.

In the Dugout with Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait of a Baseball Legend, which opened on January 31, Robinson’s 100th birthday, features 32 photographs (most of them never published); rare home movies of the Robinson family; and memorabilia related to Robinson’s career.

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave., Manhattan, NY 10029, 212-534-1672, mcny.org.

Guggenheim: Summer of Know

The famous Guggenheim Museum is housed in the Frank Lloyd Wright building, a major attraction in itself, celebrating its 60th anniversary as an architectural icon. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Housed in the Frank Lloyd Wright building, a major attraction in itself (just walking through the spiral is an experience),from June 18 through September 3, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is open until 9 pm for Summer Tuesdays, offering music and refreshments in the museum rotunda in addition to exhibitions on view in the galleries. Films, conversations, and performances enhance opportunities for visitors to engage with the museum and the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building that celebrates 60 years as an architectural icon in 2019. Also starting in June, Summer of Know, a conversation series addressing urgent issues through the generative lens of art, returns to the Guggenheim, featuring artists, activists, and other professionals discussing topics such as LGBTQIA+ rights in a global context, environmental activism, and housing rights. Details are available at guggenheim.org/calendar.

Visiting the Guggenheim is the closest an art museum can feel like being in a themepark ride. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Summer exhibitions at the Guggenheim include the first artist-curated exhibition at the museum, Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, as well as The Hugo Boss Prize 2018: Simone Leigh, Loophole of RetreatBasquiat’s “Defacement”: The Untold Story, and Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now.

Actually, you can travel and visit Guggenheim museums in Venice, Bilbao, and Abu Dhabi.

Solomon R., Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue, New York (betw. 8i8-89th St), 212-423-3500, [email protected], Guggenheim.org.

The Whitney Museum Biennial

The Whitney Biennial has long been one of America’s foremost showcases of emerging artists. Every two years, the exhibition serves as a bellwether for the culture, both reflecting on and mirroring the country’s political and social moods. No surprise, then, to see that this year’s work—on view now at the Whitney Museum of American Art—offers plenty of tension, with pieces that focus on gender identity and race, among other issues. Curators chose the works because they represent “a snapshot of contemporary art making”; read on for more about a few of our favorites. (See: https://www.nycgo.com/articles/whitney-biennial-2019) (99 Gansvoort St., Meatpacking district).

Museum of Natural History Presents T.rex, The Ultimate Predator

At the American Museum of Natural History’s blockbuster exhibit, T. rex: The Ultimate Predator, you encounter a massive life-sized model of a T. rex with patches of feathers—the definitive representation of this prehistoric predator,  T. rex hatchlings and a four-year-old juvenile T.rex; a “roar mixer” where you can imagine what T. rex may have sounded like; a shadow theater where a floor projection of an adult T. rex skeleton seems to come to life. At a tabletop “Investigation Station,” you can explore a variety of fossil casts with virtual tools including a CT scanner, measuring tape, and a microscope to learn more about what such specimens reveal about the biology and behavior of T.rex. Finally, you encounter a massive animated projection of a T. rex and its offspring in a Cretaceous-age setting. which reacts to visitors, leaving you to wonder, “Did that T. rex really see me?”

See the most accurate, life-size representation of T. rex, feathers and all, at the American Museum of Natural History © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

T. rex: The Ultimate Predator is the first major exhibition of the American Museum of Natural History’s 150th anniversary celebration. Plan your visit (you could spend weeks in the museum), check out the special programming and events, and pre-purchase timed tickets at amnh.org.

At Hayden Planetarium Space Theater, see “Dark Universe” (through December 31, 2019)

Open daily from 10 am – 5:45 pm. American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, 212-769-5100, amnh.org.

Revolutionary Summer at New-York Historical Society

The New-York Historical Society, the oldest museum in New York (and directly across the street from the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West), is presenting a Revolutionary Summer. A Museum-wide exploration of Revolutionary War times, Revolutionary Summer presents outdoor events every weekend featuring characters from the era; 18th-century art and artifacts; a diorama of the Continental Army and a host of programs for all ages, including trivia nights, DJ evening, and Revolutionary Drag Tea Party. On select weekends, visitors can explore a replica of George Washington’s Headquarters Tent at an outdoor Continental Army encampment, meet Living Historians portraying soldiers and spies, and learn about the many facets of camp life during the War for Independence. (Through September 15, 2019)

Martha Holmes’ 1949  image of singer Billy Eckstine being embraced by a white  female fan, surrounded by other gleeful white teenagers proved extremely controversial for LIFE Magazine. She is one of six women photographers featured in an exhibit at the New-York Historical Society© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Also on view: LIFE: Six Women Photographers showcases the extraordinary work created by Margaret Bourke-White, Hansel Mieth, Marie Hansen, Martha Holmes, Nina Leen, and Lisa Larsen. (through  October 6, 2019); Stonewall 50 at New-York Historical Society, through September 22, 2019, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and the dawn of the gay liberation movement; Hudson Rising explores 200 years of ecological change and environmental activism along “the most interesting river in America” (through August 4).

Panoramas: The Big Picture, opening August 23 through December 8, 2019, explores wide-angle, bird’s-eye imagery from the 17th to the 20th century, revealing the influence that panoramas had on everything from mass entertainment to nationalism to imperial expansion. Through more than 20 panoramas, the exhibition presents the history of the all-encompassing medium in New York City, San Francisco and beyond.

New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West (77th Street), New York, NY 10024, 212-873-3400, nyhistory.org.

Spy v. Spy

The most chilling part of Spyscape, New York’s new spy experience, is the up-to-the-minute, torn from the headlines stuff: Here, Anonymous, as seen from two sides © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

Want a real escape? Visit Spyscape, which offers a different twist on spy museums, and is more of an experiential attraction, immersing you into the psychology and ubiquity of surveillance and espionage, and literally, with the ending “profile” (developed with the a former head of training at British Intelligence) showing you where you might fit into this world (I’m an analyst). SPYSCAPE, which opened in 2018, illuminates secret intelligence, from espionage to hacking, and investigative journalism. It offers a balanced perspective on big issues – privacy, security, surveillance. You get to engage in real spy challenges, including lie-detection in interrogation booths, surveillance in a 360 degree environment and test strategy and agility in special ops laser tunnels. The museum also features quite a good Spy Shop, a Book Shop, Café and multiple Event Spaces. (928 8th Avenue, entrance on SE corner of 55th Street, spyscape.com).

Sergey, a KGB Spy Museum guide, describes the conditions that political prisoners would have suffered in a society where opposition was suppressed by fear © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

And in a very real Spy v. Spy scenario, a very different experience awaits at another new entry to New York City’s museum scene: the KGB Museum. This place presents the artifacts and history of the KGB in a kind of antique-shop setting but the items are chilling. You realize that the spy movies, even the satirical “Get Smart,” didn’t so much fabricate as reveal the tools and techniques and paranoia of Cold War spying. (KGB Spy Museum tickets are available online or in the museum. (245 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011, 10 am -8 Mon-Sun).

Museum of Illusions

One of the fun, interactive exhibits at the Museum of Illusions is where a visitor pokes her head out of the middle of the table, but all you see is a head with no body on top of a table  Laurie Millman/goingplacesfarandnear.com)

The Museum of Illusions, which opened September 2018 in New York City’s West Village, contains three-dimensional illusions on the walls and floors which will mesmerize visitors of all ages. You might assume by its name that it is a children’s museum or about magic which depends so much on illusion. Nor can it be considered an “attraction” although many of the exhibits are interactive and you get to help create the illusions. It is really about educating about the physical and psychological science behind illusion – placards posted near each exhibit provide the explanations for what you sense. And while the museum does not explicitly delve into magic, when you leave, you will have a better understanding of how some magic tricks work. (77th 8th Ave, New York, NY; newyork.museumofillusions.us)

Cradle of Aviation Museum: Countdown to Apollo at 50

Cradle of Aviation Museum, Uniondale, Long Island, has one of only three actual lunar modules on display. Built by Grumman, in Bethpage, Long Island, the other three were left on the moon ©Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Travel out of this world, beyond the city limits, to Long Island: The Cradle of Aviation Museum and Education Center is one of the great space and aviation museums, home to over 75 planes and spacecraft representing over 100 years of aviation history and Long Island’s only Giant Screen Dome Theater.  Currently, the museum is celebrating  “Countdown to Apollo at 50” sponsored by the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation, showcasing Long Island and Grumman’s significant role in the Apollo program. The Museum was recently recognized and listed on New York State’s National Register of Historic Places as a significant part of American history. The museum is located on Museum Row, Charles Lindbergh Blvd., in East Garden City.  For more information call (516) 572-4111 or visit www.cradleofaviation.org.

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

Museum of Illusions, One of New York City’s Newest, is Packed With Surprises

One of the fun, interactive exhibits at the Museum of Illusions is where a visitor pokes her head out of the middle of the table, but all you see is a head with no body on top of a table Laurie Millman/goingplacesfarandnear.com)

By Laurie Millman and Martin D. Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Museum of Illusions, opened September 2018 in New York City’s West Village. You might assume by its name that it is a children’s museum or about magic, which depends greatly on illusion  — it is neither of these. Nor can it be considered an “attraction, ” although many of the exhibits are interactive, as you get to help create the illusions. The purpose of this museum is really about educating visitors on the physical and psychological science behind illusion. With two- and  three-dimensional illusions on the walls and floors that will mesmerize visitors of all ages, placards posted near each exhibit provide the explanations to help you understand what you are viewing and how the illusion is created.  While the museum does not explicitly delve into magic, when you leave, you will have a better understanding of how some magic tricks work.

We thoroughly enjoyed this museum with its many surprises. One of our favorite exhibits was a room with a sloped floor — a monitor shows that you appear to be growing smaller and smaller as you walk across the floor. Another fun, interactive exhibit is where a visitor pokes her head out of the middle of the table, but all you see is a head on top of the table with no body.

Friendly staff are available to give you clues about the illusions, help you figure out where to stand to get the most effective view, explain the science behind a particular illusion, and take your picture. In fact, the museum welcomes photography because the digital photograph makes it easier to visualize many of the illusions. At the front of the museum, a staff member is ready to have two of your party pose as part of an illusion relating to perspective (check out the photo where Marty is patting Laurie’s head — we are literally a few feet from each other! And no — Laurie is not that small).

Photography is encouraged at the Museum of Illusions; a photograph makes it easier to visualize many of the illusions. Friendly staff members are available to help take the photo.

The museum is housed in a bank building dating back to pre-Depression 1920s. Before you leave, be sure to ask to see the old bank vault.

(Be advised: the only downside of the Museum of Illusions is that it has mobility limitations – there is no handrail on the outside steps leading up to the main door and no alternate ramp. The second floor is only accessible by a narrow staircase with a banister — there is no elevator. On the other hand, visitors with mobility issues are admitted free.) 

The Museum of Illusions (77th 8th Ave, New York, NY; https://newyork.museumofillusions.us/) is open Monday – Thursday, 9am to 10pm; Friday  – Sunday 8am to 11pm. To explore with smaller crowds, try to arrive before noon. Plan for 45 minutes to 1-½ hours to walk the entire museum, and bring a camera to capture the illusions at their best! Tickets are $19/adult; $17/senior, military, students with ID; and $15/kids 6-13 years of age (under 6 is free).  Tickets may be purchased online with a small service fee.

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© 2019 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-rubin, and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Send comments or questions to [email protected]. Tweet @TravelFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures

A Spectacle in Motion: Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World is Once-in-a-Lifetime Must-See at New Bedford Whaling Museum

“The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World” is the longest painting in America, as long as the Empire State Building is tall © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

The New Bedford Whaling Museum calls its special exhibition a “A Spectacle in Motion” – a title that proves to be anything but hyperbole. Imagine before documentary, before moving pictures, before photography, where the only way people could see images of places beyond their own experience was through painting, etched drawings in newspapers, or scrimshaw. Now imagine a whaling voyage that starts in New Bedford and travels thousands of miles to Fiji, painted on one mural, nearly one-quarter mile long – the longest painting in America. I can only imagine the sensation “The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World,” caused when it was first exhibited in 1849.

“Purrington & Russell’s Original Panorama: Whaling Voyage Round the World. Three Miles of Canvas” a poster from the Boston showing in 1849 proclaims. “Tickets 25 cents, half-price for children” (at a time when the sailors themselves earned $1 a day).

“A Spectacle in Motion,” a special exhibit of the New Bedford Whaling Museum featuring an extraordinary quarter-mile long mural painted in 1848 (longest painting in America) depicting “The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World”  was the Virtual Reality of its day © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The mural, which is only rarely displayed in its entirety, has not been seen since the 1960s and is only on public view through October 8 by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, in New Bedford, Massachusetts (and very possibly never again), is a documentary of the whaling voyage, and while it stays still, it is you that gives it motion as you walk down the long, long stretch of each of the four panels – altogether nearly one-quarter mile long. But in its day, it was designed to be rolled so that it did in fact create a moving picture.

Coming upon this spectacle was one of the highlights of the Blount Small Ship Adventure cruise of New England Islands, all the more thrilling because it was completely unexpected, as most highlights and adventures are. As I was leaving the New Bedford Whaling Museum, I spotted a flyer saying that there was a free shuttle to “the mural.” I took a leap of faith and within moments, was traveling in the van for the five-minute, two-mile drive to the historic Kilburn Mills,as the van driver (a 47-year veteran of the museum who had a hand in moving it and laying it out to be photographed for the digitized exhibit) explained. Even after he gave me some sense of what the mural was about and why it needed to be housed in such a sprawling building, I was completely unprepared for what I would encounter. Indeed, seeing the Grand Panorama proved to be a thrilling experience and not a mere ‘viewing”. But as I climbed the flights of stairs to the fourth floor and got my first glimpse, it was, OMG. It took my breath away. Titling the exhibit “A Spectacle in Motion” was not over-selling.

 “The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World” starts with the departure from New Bedford in scenes that are mimicked today. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The mural, in four panels each that stretches the entire length of the mill, is as long as the Empire State Building is tall; it is the longest painting in America.

Painted in 1848 by two New Bedford artists, Caleb Purrington and Benjamin Russell based on Russell’s actual around-the-world whaling journey, the mural documents every aspect of the places visited as well as key events. You see Pitcairn, settled by the Mutineers of the Bounty wound up; the scene as the whale rammed the Essex, the 1820 event that inspired Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”; the island of Juan Fernandez off Chile, the temporary home of castaway Alexander Selkirk who was the model for Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe.” It shows in gory detail the harpooning of a whale, blood spewing into the water; the danger as whalers are thrown into the churning sea; the 1847 eruption of the volcano at Fogo, Cape Verde, spewing its orange-red lava; sailing through a dark furious storm.

“The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World” by New Bedford artists Caleb Purrington and Benjamin Russell, depicts important scenes like the whale that rammed the whaler, Essex, the event Herman Melville used in his novel, “Moby Dick.” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The voyage starts in New Bedford, with the first section looking so much as it does from the water as we have seen, coming into port on Blount Small Ship Adventures’ Grande Caribe.

The last scene is in Fiji and the last panel is curious: it seems to depict two women, one giving birth and the other a midwife.

I can only imagine the sensation that The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World caused when it was first exhibited in 1849 – before documentary, before moving pictures, before photography, when the only way to get a visual impression of some place beyond your own experience was through painted or drawn images. But this goes so far beyond. Over the course of 1,275 feet, the mural documents the entire whaling voyage, from its departure from New Bedford, to Fiji Islands. Along the way, it shows the blood, gore, the dangers and hardships of whaling. And because you move, it is the closest thing to a “moving” picture documentary they would have had.

The final panel of “The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World” is set in Fiji where there is a curious scene that seems to depict a woman giving birth and a midwife © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

But where the mural transported these 19th century viewers to places on the globe they had never been – it was the 3D Imax, the Virtual Reality of its day- it transports us back in time. And in its day, it was designed to actually move. Before moving pictures, the scrolls were cranked on either side like reels of film, and displayed on a theater stage.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum calls the exhibit “Spectacle: A Voyage in Motion” in appropriate typeface that shouts its excitement. It is astonishing, captivating, awesome – on so many levels – the sheer size and ambition, the quality of the art – the delicacy and fine line of scrimshaw, stunning use of colors – the insights into the events – the importance of the subject, and on top of that, the achievement of restoring the painting – and finally, the enormity and rarity of the work being displayed at all – just the process of unrolling it and hanging it for display damages the painting.

Reproduction of a poster announcing “The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World” at Amory Hall, Boston. The mural was first exhibited in 1849. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The museum spent two years restoring the mural, which originally was shown by rolling it so that the images actually did move – and important details of that conservation process, along with historical notes, are provided that are fascinating.

The mural is displayed in four sections that each cover the entire length of an historic textile mill (textile manufacturing displaced whaling when that industry collapsed, and then was replaced itself in the 1950s when climate controls made it possible to manufacture more cheaply in the South, which was then replaced by tourism).

Given the extraordinary length, the fragility of the painting, the sheer cost of moving it, setting it up, and finding a room big enough to display it, this is the first time in generations that the entire Panorama can be seen by the public.

Like a true documentary, “The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World” by New Bedford artists Caleb Purrington and Benjamin Russell, depicts the blood and gore, the danger and risk of a whaling voyage © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

From where it is unfurled in the building two miles from the Whaling Museum, you travel around the world and back in time with the whalers without ever leaving the city. The exhibition’s interpretive panels and kiosks are fascinating to enrich the context and content of the Panorama, as well as to give a fuller appreciation of what went into the two-year restoration project.

The notes from the museum describe the Panorama as “a maritime artwork of national historical importance, authentically depicting a whaling voyage originating from the port of New Bedford in the mid-19th century. It was painted in 1848, by New Bedford artists Caleb Purrington and Benjamin Russell, who traveled it around the country as a commercial enterprise.”

The panorama as a form of public entertainment was developed in Europe in the late 18th century and subsequently made its way to the United States after demonstrating its commercial potential to an armchair traveler audience. Robert Barker, who patented this exhibition style, defined a “panorama” as “all view.”

He felt that spectators should feel like they were “really on the very spot,” that they should feel as if they were part of the scene in a surrogate reality, an imaginary “Grand Tour” of the world.

This is precisely what visitors will experience. It was the Virtual Reality of its day.

In the late 1840’s and early 1850’s, well before the age of cinema, the Panorama was designed and performed as a moving panorama, a form of entertainment where multiple scrolls moved across a stage similar to how a reel-to-reel film would later be shown.

The Grand Panorama depicts the island of Juan Fernandez off Chile, the temporary home of castaway Alexander Selkirk who was the model for Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe.” © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

But, “after years on display, the wear and tear on the 170-year old painting was so extensive that it was deemed worthless and impossible to conserve. After decades of conservation planning and method strategy research, the Museum brought this national treasure back to life and is proud to share it with the public. However, due to the extensive conservation efforts that have been invested into the painting, it will no longer be shown in its original format – as a moving panorama – as this would undo the extensive work recently completed.”

The Panorama drew crowds in the era of public entertainment before moving pictures and films. To celebrate this origin, the exhibition is coupled with dynamic and engaging programming all summer long. Live performances, contemporary artistic presentations, and other unique interpretations accompany educational programs and cultural celebrations.

Plan on being dazzled for at least one to two hours.

The exhibit is billed as a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” and is free and open to the public, through Columbus Day, October 8, 9 am to 5 pm at Kilburn Mill (the museum provides a free shuttle service every half hour from 10 am to 5 pm through Labor Day).

The Grand Panorama: The Experience 

As the Panorama was being conserved, it was photographed at high resolution to produce this fully digitized recreation of the entire painting for the first time, allowing the Museum to create a exhibition of The Grand Panorama it calls “The Experience” – recreating the same experience the 19th century audiences had of seeing the original Panorama on a theatrical stage, with music and narration.

You stand on the bow of the world’s largest model whaleship, the Lagoda, and watch the Panorama scroll by in a life-sized digital format projected in a full theatrical setting, and experience what Benjamin Russell and other whalers saw as they left the port of New Bedford and traveled the sea in search of whales. This re-creates the experience that the 19th century viewers would have had, since the mural was originally rolled.

Visitors can stand on the bow of the world’s largest model whaleship, the Lagoda, in the New Bedford Whaling Museum and watch the Panorama scroll by in a life-sized digital format projected in a full theatrical setting, and experience what Benjamin Russell and other whalers saw as they left the port of New Bedford and traveled the sea in search of whales. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The stage set is based on drawings and prints from the period and is installed off the Lagoda’s bow so visitors can experience the performance from the deck, from theater seating on the floor level, or from vantage points to the port and starboard of the iconic whaleship.

Since the original score and narrative have been lost over time, they have been recreated and remastered for the new installation, and includes new research and points of interest.

Visitors are able to dive deeper into the specifics of the Panorama story on a large, touch-screen, interactive kiosk. The kiosk will have thematic tabs on various subjects, including a map of the voyage, related Museum artifacts and paintings, and the Panorama’s conservation history. You will be able to zoom in close to any scene or detail that interests you and get rich context for each section.

Enhancing the experience, artifacts from the Museum’s permanent collections further illustrate Russell’s own global travels and connect locations represented in the Panorama with relevant ethnographic material and objects. Exhibitions that tell the stories of Yankee Whaling, the connections with the Azores and Cabo Verde, as well as the many stories told in the existing Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World exhibition help amplify the content of the Panorama. The Panorama in the context of its own time – the era of the “public spectacle” is explored in the exhibition, and includes complementing pieces from the Museum’s permanent Collection.

While I strongly recommend the incomparable experience of seeing the mural first-hand and this Virtual Reality experience, the museum will also have an online digital version, an interactive designed to expand access to the Panorama and to supplement both the Spectacle in Motion exhibitions, the Original at the Kilburn Mill and The Experience at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. While it will work on a phone or tablet it has been optimized for desktop viewing.

At the New Bedford Whaling Museum, you can look through etched glass to see the exact port where our ship, Blount’s Grande Caribe, is docked today and yesterday © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The quality of the collection at New Bedford Whaling Museum – consisting of the merger of two private collections of whaling artifacts – is not to be believed, including what is claimed to be the largest collection of scrimshaw. I love the way the gallery rooms are like a warren – you come upon them.

I love the theming of the rooms: From Pursuit to Preservation: The History of Human Interaction with Whales;  Energy and Enterprise: Industry an d the City of New Bedford; Enlightened Counters: the Two Nations of Manjiro Nakahama  (about a 16-year old Japanese sailor who was rescued and spent eight years in New Bedford, the first Japanese person to live here, then went back to become a major counselor to the Emperor negotiating with the US and England) and The East Unlocks its Gates: American Whalers and Trade in Asia.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum, in New Bedford, MA, a private non-profit museum, has one of the largest collections of scrimshaw in the world © Karen Rubin/ goingplacesfarandnear.com

There is (of course) a Herman Melville room (while Melville never actually visited Nantucket before writing “Moby Dick,” he sailed from New Bedford on his whaling voyage), artifacts collected from around the world brought back by the whalers and opened the New Bedford people to the cultures of the world. There are sections dedicated to the Portuguese from the Azores and the sailors recruited from Costa Verde and how they impacted the diverse community in New Bedford. I am introduced for the first time to Captain Joshua Slocum, the first to solo circumnavigate the world.

An astonishing sight is the skeleton of a whale that is suspended from the ceiling as you enter the Museum, its bones with oily brown patches. It turns out that the bones still have oil which drips out and is collected in a jar below.

Whale skeleton still drips oil from its bones at the New Bedford Whaling Museum © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

There is the world’s largest model whaleship, the Lagoda, at half-scale that takes up the entirety of the Bourne building, that you can climb aboard. In addition, there is the Mariner’s Home that is used for exhibit, and the Seaman’s Bethel which offers a superb video about whaling.

It drives home the theme that is so pressing today: “Trade: Expand American Ideas” (but also bring ideas back).

New Bedford Whaling Museum, 16 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford MA 02740, 508-997-0046, www.whalingmuseum.org. 

They are contained within the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, a 13-block historic district of cobblestone streets, historic, stately buildings now juxtaposed with contemporary art galleries and funky restaurants and shops (my favorite: Sanctum – Folklorica: Apothecary and Witchwares, Tarot Reading). At the visitors Center, you can watch a 20-minute orientation movie and take in exhibits about whaling and New Bedford, “The City That Lit the World.” (www.nps.gov/nebe/planyourvisit).

Blount Small Ship Adventures’ Grand Caribe docked at the State Pier in New Bedford, Massachusetts, just steps away from the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

This was one of the incredible highlights of our own voyage aboard Blount Small Ship Adventures’ Grande Caribe, on the third day of a seven-day New England Islands cruise. We docked in the port along with the largest fishing fleet on the East Coast, and could look through etched glass of the same port in 1914 of our ship. Arriving by ship – we had come from Warren, Rhode Island to Bristol and had come this morning from Newport and will be going on to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket – made this experience even more tangible.

Blount Small Ship Adventures, 461 Water Street Warren, RI 02885, 800-556-7450, www.blountsmallshipadventures.com.

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