le musee Blanton

Morgan/Mommy-time has increased over the past two days, in preparation for the epicness. Yesterday, we took a day-trip out to Austin to visit the Blanton museum, grab sandwiches and catch a few sales at my favorite, quirky vintage and dress shops: Wish, Cream, Manjuu, and Buffalo Exchange. YUM.

The Blanton was definitely my favorite part. We started in the Greek statue section, where mom checked out this guy's plaster reproductive organs:

They also had a great Picasso prints exhibit ("This guy is weird," says mom), a really fantastic collection of Modern and Post-Modern art (see this neat walk-in installation by a Latin American woman- the floor is lined with money and the ceiling with bones, while the tether in the middle made of communion wafers - a very political statement about Catholicism), and a new exhibit called "Desire," which was the strangest, most provocative thing I've ever seen in a museum. It was a multimedia exhibit, that also included a site-based project called "Mapping Desire" (you can listen to the audio part of that project here). Some of my favorite pieces were bronze statues of clothing (i.e. "His Tie. Her Underwear.") littered around the studio space, a slow motion film of a shoe being untied by an erection (I don't even know if that description makes sense), photographs of sexual encounters in a men's bathroom reprinted on pinhead's, and a really cool collection of to-do lists and sketches that normalize desire by scheduling it with other daily tasks. A chilling, yet less overtly explicit piece is this amazing enamel on metal work by Marilyn Minter called "Crystal Swallow" from the Blanton upcoming exhibit website:

I wish I had photos of my own, but they weren't allowed! This kind of experiential, sexual art exhibit was right up my alley, while my mom could only shake her head in disapproval ("Why do people believe in nakedness?" she wondered). The exhibit is up until the 25th; czech it if you're in the area.

Today, I went to the dentist (who's still cavity-free? what, what!), went to the mall (okay, honestly, no more shopping), grabbed tasty gumbo from this great seafood place called Pappadeux, and picked up London necessities. Two more days!