GUGGENHEIM AND GARDENS

"They are filled with concrete to embody the stagnation of grief."  Not words I ever expected to hear my husband utter.  But he actually enjoyed our visit today to the stunning Frank Lloyd Wright designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The building is as fascinating as the artwork.  The floors coil around and up, with each Rotunda level leading to larger Tower Level gallery space, as well as smaller, intimate spaces pocketed about to discover as well.

 A huge dome is at the apex of the looped levels, above open central space below.

 Let's face it.  A lot of the artwork I didn't understand, but there was a variety to see.  This person uses  a various materials to create people.  Whilst the faces were so lifelike, the bodies were often more representation of the shape.

 This is taken from above and was a huge glass topped box, on top of a beautiful arrangement of found objects.  The way the colours were grouped and flowed into each other was quite arresting.

 Our main artist on display in most of the Tower Levels was DORIS SALCEDO, from Columbia.  She addresses the issues like violent oppression, social injustice, torture and atrocities.  Real cheery stuff.  Rather than front on, her work confronts these issues with more suggestive displays.

 Here is Robert with a wardrobe full of concrete, hence his usual statement.

 These neatly folded white shirts are an oblique reference to men taken by force from their homes and shot.

 Her work also included these delicate garments, threaded with thousands of burnt needles and silk fibre.

 In one gallery space, set in niches covered with transparent animal hides stitched roughly to the surrounds were shoes, symbolic of the remains of mass graves that have been found.

These tables were joined by huge slabs of earth and the shape is similar to coffins.  So many of them in one space.

 On each Rotunda level two sets of these gold bead curtain hung, leading to the stairways.  They glimmered from the other side of the looped levels.

This is by a German female artist and the dark splatter is actually hundred of bent nails.  Whole nails and a hammer lay below.

 This was in the Guggenheim Shop.  Lego version of the building!

 We crossed the road and began our third foray into Central Park.  We were further uptown this time, near the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir.

 Being another hot day, we sought the Conservatory Garden for some shade.  Central Park has just so many different sections.  We sat just behind these trees, in a tree lined avenue, on the benches.  The following three photos show the same fountain from different vantage points.  This is the centre garden in this section.

 Then there is the North Garden, with a formal structure.

 And the South Garden, with more flower beds and this lily pond as the central feature.

 Little sparrows were enjoying the water in this statue and an artist had her easel set up painting the entire pond

We stopped at our local fruit street vendor and bought an orange, a peach, two pears and four bananas, all for $3.00.

Downstairs in the lobby for the free wine between 5 and 6, I got talking to a delightful couple called Anne and Mansell, dairy farmers from near Cohuna in Victoria.

Now it is time to refresh with a shower and head out somewhere for dinner.

What I would like to know is, however, why were two policeman inside our hotel lobby this morning, plus another three with ominous weapons and a police dog, right outside, as we headed out this morning.  The doorman said to me, "Nothing is happening."  But I didn't believe him.