By Sam Bendinelli
Near the end of fall, 10 of us went to the Museum of Modern Art and finished the day with a late ramen lunch in midtown. The major draws of the trip were a retrospective of the African American artist Charles White, the museum’s permanent collection with its household name pieces, and—surprisingly perhaps—a survey of cold war Yugoslavian architecture. Of course, there was the ramen, too.
On our visit to MoMA, we made the mistake of rushing to the top floor and working our way down to save the exhibits we were most interested in last. The students were great sports with a challenging collection of modern pieces by an artist who won’t be named, and whose work both represented and literally conveyed feelings of alienation and misunderstanding.
Our mouthwash was Starry Night and a plentiful serving of Picasso. I talked with a small group of students about the move from representation to the abstract in painting, and they immediately started making connections with other works on the floor. We later enjoyed black and white photography and scale models of stunning Soviet architecture. In this exhibit, we gave students some breathing room to peruse maps, models, and photos at their leisure.
The highlight of MoMA was the fantastic exhibit on Charles White, a virtuosic painter known for his stirring images of African Americans. One of the students, Jabez, merged with a tour group and proceeded to offer a spot-on interpretation of a painting that the group had stopped at.
All of this browsing left us a little tired and very hungry, so we went to Ippudo, a buzzy and acclaimed ramen restaurant, and somehow squeezed the 10 of us into a table within 15 minutes. Many students had not had ramen or any type of the Japanese appetizers we sampled, and all were willing participants in the meal (and once they took a bite, they didn’t need any convincing to fill up). Midway through the lunch, Jabez had his second memorable quote of the day, saying that this had been the best Saturday in a long time, because he got to “see art [he’d] wanted to see, and try food [he’d] always wanted to try.”