Rivane Neuenschwander, A Day Like Any Other, 2008.

I went to the New Museum for the first time ever with a thought that it would be like regular museums, filled with rare paintings from the past.  However, as I stepped in this building, which reminded me of a decorative cake, a different mood entered my mind.  It was a very open space with white walls.  Up ahead, there was a room of different colored strands.  It was amazing to see that.  For a museum, my first impression was a good one.  Even the elevator gave you a good vibe.

When you look at these pieces of art, you may say something like ‘No way, this is unbelievable!’  The response to that is on the front of the building.  Hell, Yes!

There were pieces of art by an artist named Brion Gysin, whose work involved different types of art such as spray paint, oil on canvas, moving images, videos and other.  These were all part of an exhibition called Dream Machine. One of his paintings was a collection of pieces called “Untitled” which were oil on canvas and created in 1982.  These paintings were abstract, containing colors of the same hue, in a form that looks like the artist swayed his brush back and forth quickly.  It may remind someone of a DNA strand, since the sways of the brush remind them of the way DNA swirls around a strand.

On a different floor were pieces of work by an artist named Rivane Neuenschwander.  Her art was displayed on two floors in an exhibition called A Day Like Any Other.  The exhibition name probably meant that it was a day like any other for someone who sees the world differently from all of us.  There was even art on the stairwells!  On one floor, there was a big room with white walls and a few paintings hanging.  Hanging from the ceiling were buckets filled with water that had a little small dropper on the bottom.  It was called “Rain Rains.”  Slowly, water dripped in to another bucket on the floor.  If you stood in the middle of it, you could hear all the buckets dripping water at different times.  It was like a melody of rain drops. It felt like you were in a shed with holes on the roof.  Each droplet would maybe fall into pans, bowls or whatever you could find to store the water.

Another piece of work from her exhibition was called “I Wish Your Wish,” which were the colorful strands that were visible from the entrance.  There were many strands of colored ribbon, which were all the different colors of the rainbow, with wishes written on them in a different color.  An example might be as positive as “I wish to graduate” or negative like “I wished I loved myself” and even as hopeful as “I wish we could give back to earth what it gives to us.”  You could even take these ribbons home!  As you took ribbons, an empty hole remained in the wall.  From this you could write your own wish on a little piece of paper and stick it in the hole.  That hole would later be replaced with your wish.