Sometimes all it takes is a day trip to recharge. Today Cara and I departed Grand Central Station for trip up the Hudson on Metro Transit Rail to the town of Beacon to see some hills, some views, the river and some exceptional art.
Foggy weather gave the landscape an eerie melancholy vibe that matched the multitude of ruins and abandoned factories that line the route north. Locals say this area is seriously haunted, and it’s no surprise given how much history the land steeped is steeped in. It’s hard to wrap the mind around just exactly how much has actually happened here the past couple hundred years.
It’s a short 80 minutes to our destination and shortly before arriving we catch a glimpse of Bannerman’s Castle (second from top) just off the shore. I remember seeing this years ago on another trip I made up North and never forgot the what a bizarre sight it was to see crumbling turrets come out of nowhere, wondering what the hell this place was and what it was once for.
A short walk from the station led us to the museum, a renovated Nabisco factory that reminded me of the resourceful application of renewing industrial spaces for public art I had also seen at Mass MoMa my last time in this area.
The gallery is huge, vast spaces that allow for works you just wouldn’t be able to see otherwise: Michael Heizer’s audacious sunken geometries; Andy Warhol’s immense Shadow series; Sol LeWitt’s massive and obsessive wall drawings; Bruce Nauman’s charming neon sculptures and cryptic video projections and John Chamberlain’s whimsical and totemic twisted steel sculptures were solid portions of life-affirming soul food. Yet to see Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses in person, to walk through and experience the tremendous impressions of this immense contoured steel is stunning, having a meditative, calming effect combined with the blissfully muted afternoon light.
Cara, suffering from the same rotten cold I had earlier in the week mustered enough strength to get through what can only heroic doses of art, about half of which actually resonated for the both of us. We left hungry and wandering into the town, finding solace in a little diner that served up some tasty and unusuall inexpensive burgers and fries. We headed back to the station, riding home in the dark on an express train that had us back to Manhattan in little over an hour.
Foggy weather gave the landscape an eerie melancholy vibe that matched the multitude of ruins and abandoned factories that line the route north. Locals say this area is seriously haunted, and it’s no surprise given how much history the land steeped is steeped in. It’s hard to wrap the mind around just exactly how much has actually happened here the past couple hundred years.
It’s a short 80 minutes to our destination and shortly before arriving we catch a glimpse of Bannerman’s Castle (second from top) just off the shore. I remember seeing this years ago on another trip I made up North and never forgot the what a bizarre sight it was to see crumbling turrets come out of nowhere, wondering what the hell this place was and what it was once for.
A short walk from the station led us to the museum, a renovated Nabisco factory that reminded me of the resourceful application of renewing industrial spaces for public art I had also seen at Mass MoMa my last time in this area.
The gallery is huge, vast spaces that allow for works you just wouldn’t be able to see otherwise: Michael Heizer’s audacious sunken geometries; Andy Warhol’s immense Shadow series; Sol LeWitt’s massive and obsessive wall drawings; Bruce Nauman’s charming neon sculptures and cryptic video projections and John Chamberlain’s whimsical and totemic twisted steel sculptures were solid portions of life-affirming soul food. Yet to see Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses in person, to walk through and experience the tremendous impressions of this immense contoured steel is stunning, having a meditative, calming effect combined with the blissfully muted afternoon light.
Cara, suffering from the same rotten cold I had earlier in the week mustered enough strength to get through what can only heroic doses of art, about half of which actually resonated for the both of us. We left hungry and wandering into the town, finding solace in a little diner that served up some tasty and unusuall inexpensive burgers and fries. We headed back to the station, riding home in the dark on an express train that had us back to Manhattan in little over an hour.
posted by Stewart A. Williams at
11:43 PM
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