new york city: moma's material lab thursday

no sooner than landing at jfk in pre-dawn hours last thursday, john, dylan and i found ourselves walking smack-dab through rainy, downtown manhattan with cousins sunny, gabriel and katherine by noontime. our destination: moma and the petting zoo at central park. whew---talk about a whirlwind tour of new york city! our first stop was moma's material lab, a must for kids and parents. moma---quelle musee. browsing its galleries and exhibits, i was moved to tears and could've spent days and weeks browsing each floor filled with early 20th century modern art.

the dramatic view from the fifth floor at moma: new york, rainy and historic. 

i viewed matisses, picassoes, calders, and elbowed my way through the crowds gathered before truly iconic works by modern american and european artists: marcel duchamp, andrew wyeth, andy warhol, etc. moma's modern coffers were satisfying and immense--i'll definitely be back to study the galleries a bit more.




and the kids had a load of fun too. after a dirty-water hot dog and pretzel-cart lunch, the kids dove into the lab's digital painting, collage and sculpture labs. cousin katherine and dylan started composing on-screen and the adults couldn't help but start painting too. the digital painting was hands down, the most impressive computerized painting i've seen anywhere (hint, hint children's museums everywhere: time to update those tired old 90s era computers!). using the latest techno from microsoft, this moma-specific software and interface allowed kids to use a soft stylus brush directly onto the monitor to paint. 

after you pass warhol's cows, you'll be on your way to the material lab. 

katherine and dylan dove right into the digital painting and created these masterpieces...

everyone got into the act, sunny, katherine, dylan and john.

the material lab entices kids to create, as seen here with dylan. totally absorbed!

cousins! they could've painted for hours. 

gabriel, on the other hand, loved manipulating this very cool folding cardboard chair...

pressing it into an accordian/book shape....

then back into a couch. fascinating and architectural.  

dylan's van-gogh inspired painting.  

kids could make dolls and sculpture out of raw material (the view outside is of the famous sculpture garden--but we got rained out and had to skip it). 

each lab was inspired by artists' styles and different mediums. here, a lightbox displays cutouts to create vignettes.  also included were assemblage boxes inspired by the work of artist joseph cornell. 

inside the lab, it was calm and cozy, creating art. but the galleries were mad-house with the tourist rush. so we headed to another tranquil oasis for kids: central park and its zoo.

traipsing around the city was the most fun, according to dyl, kath and cousin sunny. more to come!

...stay tuned for part ii of our new york city trip!


read more about the material lab here on moma's blog.


(and a big thanks go to cousin ken for picking us up, sunny for chauffering us around, and to gabe and kath for the good new york-style fun--thank you!)