First Fridays at the Gugge

What do you think of when you hear “Guggenheim”? Frank Lloyd Wright, visionary architecture, fabulous works of art? Well all of that would be accurate, but it turns out that on the first Friday of each month, the Guggenheim is all that and more.

On “First Fridays”, the Guggenheim is open well into the wee hours of Saturday morning and the impressive, open rotunda becomes host to hundreds of culture-seekers cum Friday night revelers. There is, of course, a bar and even a DJ spinning just loud enough to create a definite nightclub vibe, but not loud enough to prevent conversation.

Mike suggested First Fridays, having been once before, and had also found out that another of our former college classmates, Steve, was now living in New York, so we all agreed to meet up at a bar on the East Side, not far from the museum. Mike and I arrived first, so we order a drink and start catching up. After about 15 minutes, we’re wondering where Steve and Irene are. We realize we’re actually supposed to be at another bar down the street – oops! Bottoms up, throw some cash at the bartender and sprint down the street – sure enough, Steve and Irene are there.

Off we go the Gugge where Kim meets up with us and the five of us enjoy a fun, random evening socializing and check out the Richard Prince “Spiritual America” exhibit. I have a little bit more of a traditional taste when it comes to art and while I appreciate modern art, I admit that I just don’t get a lot of it.

Richard Prince has been a key contributor to the development of contemporary art since the 1970’s when he made an impact by rephotographing existing magazine advertisements and presenting them as his own art. In a similar vein, much of Prince’s work is appropriated and repurposed images and material direct from a variety of pop culture sources. Many of the giant canvases featured stencils of off-colour jokes and tawdry comments. Of course, one of our favourites was the repurposed cartoon whose caption read: “My father was never home, he was always drinking booze. He saw a sign saying DRINK CANADA DRY. So he went up there.” (This is when I got yelled at for taking photos of the art – oops.)

Even though Halloween was over, there were still three guys dressed up as 70’s porn stars, so I definitely had to snap that photo.

And finally, the most random part of the evening was meeting Andrew, the University of Florida student who was tasered by police about a month or so ago at a John Kerry speech on campus. NBC had flown Andrew to New York to appear on The Today Show the day before and we spent a good hour chatting with him and his cousin, Jason, and hearing more about the “incident” and the fall-out. Apparently, he still has a mark on his back from the taser gun.

We said our goodbyes, went our separate ways and I sang “Let It Be” and “Material Girl” with my cab driver on the way home, cutting across Central Park.