3 Manhattan Museums in One Day with Mom & Dad - The Banksy Exhibit on 6th, the Met and the Whitney

 In hindsight, it may have been an overly aggressive agenda.

At the crack of 10:30 AM, we headed out to see the new Banksy exhibit. This pop-up is conveniently located (for us) on West 14th in the former Urban Outfitters that closed up last year sometime. I didn't even realize it closed until we were inside and the place was obviously no longer a retail establishment.

Pop decided he's a fan of Banksy. Mom said she always liked his work. She is curious which art school he went to, because it's clear he went. It is easy to see his technical skills are excellent.

Thug for Life print at the Banksy Exhibit

Who can get enough of these rats?

After Banksy, we had a quick lunch at the bowl place and then headed up to the Met to see the Lexicon of Fashion exhibit. This required walking across the park because who wants to switch at 53rd? So much easier to just take the C to 81st and walk over there.

I already saw the Lexicon of Fashion once before, in member previews with Renya. I would have mentioned the show in this blog at that time, but I didn't take any photos. I just assumed there'd be plenty of pro online snaps far superior to any I'd cowboy with one eye and one finger. 

But there were not.

WTF?

This time I took some. Not as many as Pop of course. As we all know, he takes a hundred photos an hour. Also as we all know, no one has ever seen 99% of them. He does not share.

The sign in the entrance to the
Lexicon of Fashion explaining the whole idea.
You saw it here first, folks.
Spoiler Alert: Jessie Jackson

When you first walk in, there's a bunch of
outfits that were cobbled together
just for this event. 

Most are like little quilts. Or gingham.
This one reflects "celebration."

Here's the caption for celebration.
I really don't understand what this has to do with puppets.

Surprisingly, Pop did not bail at any point during our entire tour through rows and rows of fashion. I kept expecting him to peel off and sit on a bench tinkering with his phone. He's gotten really into listening to standup comedians on YouTube and then telling one-liners semi-out of context. This could have been an amazing opportunity for continued research. But he chose instead to wander through the dresses with us. I would award major points to the curators for this achievement.

Downstairs were half a dozen rows of garments from the Costume Institute collection selected to embody words emblematic of America. Here are some examples:

Ebullience

Assurance

Optimism.
While this all black unisex catsuit
did not immediately strike me
as particularly optimistic,
the tag explains it's the dress code
for a future utopia.
I'm still not buying it.

Snugness.
This one I get.

We took a detour through the American Wing and looked at the Tiffany fountain which is currently in a state of dishabille. It looks like it had an evening of too much bourbon and jazz cigarettes and it woke up the next morning with three shoes and missing its fountain.

After a walk back through the park, we all had clocked in well over 10,000 steps for the day. We went back to our place where Dad took up a torch to go to the Rubin museum for a just a sec. If we went to the Rubin for just a sec, he said, then we'd rack up four (4) museums in one day which must be some kind of record.

I said merely stepping foot in the Rubin without an authentic visit would be like counting that you'd been in a state when all you did was lay over in an airport. Obviously this is an egregious violation of the rules. Therefore we did not visit the Rubin even though they now have gongs there where you can relieve your anger through noise.

After dinner, we headed over to the Whitney to see the Jasper Johns:

My favorite Jasper Johns.

Subsequently, we went up to see the beaded kitchen on the 6th floor. It might be the 10th time we've seen it, I kid you not. The Arts & Crafts exhibit has been at the Whitney for literally years at this point. It was there pre-pandemic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I think they should make the beaded kitchen part of the permanent collection and show it all the time. It's a marvel this thing:

Everything is to scale and beaded.

Anyway, 16,000 steps later, my poor mom had to ice her knee up. She does have a torn ACL after all. But then again, last time she tore her ACL she beat Tom in a 5k road race. 

This was 20 years ago... but it still, of course, bears mention at any and all possible moments.