Breakfast with Andy, Part Deux

There are days I really love my job. Today was one of those days.
As a journalist, I do get some awesome perks. Media preview at the High Museum of Art's new "Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913 >> 2013" was one of those awesome perks. I wrote about the High's last collaborative exhibit with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City several months ago. The one with Fourteen Modern Masters. Lots of Andy Warhol, one of my favorites.
Well, this year's exhibit takes a look at a century's worth of modern art, but in "six slices." Specifically, the years 1913, 1929, 1950, 1961, 1988 and today.
Some of the art in this exhibit include:

Umberto Boccioni's "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space"

Salvador Dali's "Illuminated Pleasures"

Willem de Kooning's "Woman, I"

Marcel Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel"

 

Ernst Kirchner's "Street, Berlin"

Jeff Koon's "Pink Panther"

Roy Lichtenstein's "Girl With Ball"

Kenneth Noland's "Turnsole"

That Noland piece made me think at first it was a Jasper John's target work, but there is a Jasper Johns work at the exhibit.
I will say, I was more impressed with the Fourteen Modern Masters exhibit, but this exhibit has some really great works, too. One that really knocked me out was in the 1988 gallery, and was a work that used the word AIDS that looked like the Richard Indiana's LOVE sculpture, which I have seen in Philadelphia. Really cool.
I wish I could have spent a little more time at the museum this morning. I think there was more for me to find and study. Looks like I'll have to go back. But I'm sure at my next visit there won't be coffee and yummy chocolate croissants. You know, breakfast with Andy.

Breakfast with Andy

Friday morning I had a great breakfast meeting with Andy Warhol.
Because of my job, I got to attend the media preview of the High Museum of Art's upcoming exhibit "Picasso to Warhol: Fourteen Modern Masters."
Coffee + chocolate croissant + modern art = bliss.
My love of modern art started early.
My father is an artist. I grew up with his abstract art and sculpture.
I remember going to art fairs in the New York City area where Dad would show his art and hope to sell something. What a tough life to be an artist. Dad had a family to feed, so he could not give 100 percent to his artwork, but I know he would have rather done that than work in the factory.
Yet, it provided me a wonderful framework for art appreciation. Not everyone gets modern art.
Truth be told, there are some types of art that I don't care for.
Byzantine art leaves me, well, flat.
But modern art. Well, I LOVE modern art.
Friday morning it was nearly heaven to wander around and see the artwork, some of which is on loan from the Museum of Modern Art in New York (one of my favorite places to go in the city.)
What fun to see Andy Warhol's iconic "Campbell's Soup Cans."

Andy Warhol, "Campbell's Soup Cans."

(c) 2011 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 The exhibit also has his "S&H Greenstamps" painting and I had to laugh when I saw it because I'm just old enough to REMEMBER S&H Greenstamps.
I got my first blender out of college by saving S&H Greenstamps! It wasn't long after that the little green stamps disappeared forever.

Another artist in the exhibit is Jackson Pollock. I like Jackson Pollock's work.

Jackson Pollock, "Number 1A"

(c) 2011 Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In fact, I named my cat Pollock after the artist.
Pollock is my "found" kitty. She was dumped in my neighborhood and is declawed. It makes me so angry that people would dump a declawed -- or any -- animal, but particularly one that cannot defend herself.
She is a tortoiseshell cat and has about the darn ugliest coat you can imagine. She looks like Jackson Pollock himself threw paint on her fur. No rhyme or reason to its pattern. Hence, her name!
She even has a white tip on the end of her tail that makes me think of a paint brush.
But she has the most beautiful gold eyes and he is the sweetest animal I think I've ever had.

My Pollock. You can just she the white tip of her tail in this photo.

I could have spent all morning at the High Museum in Atlanta, but alas, work called.
The exhibit runs Oct. 15 through April 29, 2012 and if you are in Atlanta and love modern art as much as I do, go.
I'll be back as well. I'll be the one gazing at the art with a big grin on my face.