A cultural affair

It's not often that I step foot inside a church or attend a performance involving any sort of classical music, both of which happened last weekend. And as if that weren't enough of a culture shock, on Sunday afternoon Y, Jake and I checked out a whopping three art exhibits in Midtown and on the Upper West Side.

First on the agenda was the Museum of Art and Design for the "Pricked: Extreme Embroidery" exhibit. Pieces ranged from a set of wings made out of black gloves to figures embroidered on a light silk fabric that looked as though they'd been sketched in pencil. This very unique and interesting show will be up until March 9th and is well worth seeing.

Next, we wandered uptown to the Neue Gallery for a Gustav Klimt exhibit: “Gustav Klimt: The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections.”

It’s primarily a collection of Klimt’s drawings, as well as some photographs, most notably one of him in a large blue robe cradling a cat in his arms, and a replica of one of his studios featuring original furnishings. Some of Klimt’s most famous paintings are also present, including “Lady With Feather Hat,” and “Adele Bloch-Bauer I.”

I saw a number of Klimt's drawings at the Met two summers ago and one of my favorite things about his shows is people watching. There’s nothing like seeing the look on an 80-year old, wheelchair bound woman’s face as she gazes upon Klimt’s sketches of nude women exploring themselves.

This exhibit will be up until June 30th.

Finally, Y offered to take us over to the Met to check out Damien Hirst's “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,” AKA, The Shark.

I'm not a huge Damien Hirst fan and generally find myself scowling when I come across his work, but being the kind of girl who stayed up all night watching Shark Week as a kid and whose idea of a dream vacation is South Africa to cage dive with Great Whites, this particular piece attracted me.

The shark is massive and when looking at it, I can't help but to try and envision the story that brought this animal from its home deep in the ocean to this giant formaldehyde filled tank inside a museum in New York City. Where and how did Hirst even get a shark? It's an impressive feat and certainly worth seeing in all its gruesome glory.

The Met will house it for the next three years so there's plenty of time to see it.