The Noguchi Museum

A and I visited The Noguchi Museum today. On the left is an image of the museum's Zen garden. Isamu Noguchi is responsible for the artwork at the Associated Press Building in Rockefeller Center, and the big red cube at 140 Broadway in Manhattan.

On exhibit is The Imagery of Chess Revisited. There are chess sets from pre-Revolutionary France (a chess set on sticks made for play at the beach!), boards by Man Ray and Max Ernst, as well as a Hartwig Bauhaus chess set. One of my favorites was a board by André Breton and Nicolas Calas called Wine Glass Chess Set and Board. The player who captures a chess glass is supposed to drink the wine out of the chess glass captured.

At the end of the chess exhibit is a room with tables, chairs, and chessboards for museum patrons to play a game. Or two. A challenged me to a game, and he won. Gulp. Just kidding. We did not get to play the wine glass board.

A's favorite things about the museum: "the garden, the Dadaists' work on exhibit" (surprise, me), that he beat me at chess, "the portable French pin chess board on leather," a magnetic chess board that he saw at the museum store, and the museum store in general.

LaMai's favorite things about the museum: that you can view the entire museum and exhibit in two hours. If you want to. That there was an interactive element available (the chess boards for the patrons), and a media room where we could view a film biography of the artist.

LaMai's least favorite things about the museum: that I can't live there. And that while we played chess, we were observed by the (very nice) museum employees. As if I actually knew how to play. hah hah.