What’s it like to go to the Corning Museum of Glass with kids? I heard its holdings were extensive and one could easily spend a complete day or two there, exploring the galleries. I thought they might be bored. Turns out they loved it. While others could spend days there, our visit was limited to 3 hours (including the “make your own glass” experience – separate post). And that was enough time to see much of the museum, even though we rushed through the very large 35 Centuries of Glass gallery, as the kids were running out of steam.
We took our teen daughter to the Museum of Arts and Design recently, curious to check out a smaller Manhattan museum we hadn’t yet been to. I highly recommend taking the free docent tour, which lasts about an hour and gives a good highlight of the exhibits. Of course you can head back to look further before or after you’re done.
It’s not a big museum, so if you’re looking for something manageable with the kids (an hour or less), this is a good option. It’s in Columbus Circle and it’s free for kids 18 and under ($16/adult). They have a number of family programs as well, so check that out when planning your visit.
When I went to check out the new Discovery of King Tut exhibition at Premier Exhibitions for a press visit, they said we could also go to the Saturday Night Live exhibition. Woo hoo! I hadn’t realized that was even a thing (shame on me). It was like a super guilty pleasure that turned out to be fascinating as well. And so much fun I brought my family back the next week to get their take.
We flew into Chicago early morning, and took a taxi straight to the Museum of Science and Industry (as for luggage – we sent that ahead with my husband who had other plans for the day). We planned to spend the day there but I didn’t realize we would spend the ENTIRE day there. So much to see and do. And we still missed out on some of the exhibits. My kids are tween/teen age, and they loved it as much as I did. Plenty for the younger set too.
While I did a more comprehensive review of taking the kids to the Liberty Science Center for a previous post, I was there recently and wanted to fill you in on some of the changes and new exhibits. The most exciting is the new Infinity Climber, which finished installation a few weeks ago. This “multi-story play space” is suspended 35 feet above the ground. It has 64 petal platforms (they look like lily pads), to climb on, taking you higher and lower. It’s surrounded by a net, which is stiff enough to keep you in, but not so stiff that it hurts.
This summer I went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. I went without my kids because I wanted to see if it was appropriate for them, and also wanted the time to go through there without the pressure of “I want to leave!” “I’m hungry!” “Are you almost done?”
I’ll get into details about tickets, timing etc. at the bottom, along with age issues. I’ll also save my grand overarching thoughts about the museum for the end, so if you’re just looking for that, scroll to the bottom area. First I’d like to lead you through the museum. Continue reading “9/11 Museum Review – Should You Take Kids?”
I had one thought when walking up to the Whitney Museum, to see the Jeff Koons’ retrospective. Thank God we were getting in via the corporate sponsor ticket line. That regular line snaked out the building and around the corner, and it was LONG. We only had to wait behind four people who were either members or also worked for corporate sponsors. The lesson here: if you aren’t either category, expect a long line.
I learned a bit about Jeff Koons during my modern art history college classes, but after going through this four story retrospective, I realized just how little I actually knew. Get the free audio guide (you can listen to parts of it here) or take a tour. The signage is good too, but it’s nice having a little extra information. The retrospective covers 1978 to present, with 150 objects on display.
The exhibit is broken up into sections based on his genre of work/time period. They were all quite different and diverse, and the way they organized it provides an excellent way to see his progression of art and what concepts he worked with at that time. The first section (The New) was the vacuum cleaner one – first picture on top. He was exploring the interaction between the viewer and the object, using only new vacuum cleaners that had the added anthropomorphic ability to express life/death, male/female (phallic bag/womb of suckage) etc. Not such an interesting gallery for us, I’ll say. Continue reading “Review: Jeff Koons Retrospective at the Whitney – Should you Bring Kids?”
–This is part of our series on Philadelphia with kids. See all the posts in the series at the bottom.–
I thought the Barnes Foundation wouldn’t be kid-friendly. Surprisingly, it was.
The museum is organized in a different kind of way, with each gallery containing ensembles – groups of pictures and utilitarian metal tools that looked decorative, designed to make you think about the art in unique ways, to see how they relate to each other. You won’t find only Renoirs in one room, or paintings from a certain time period displayed together. Plus there are no signs on the walls with the names and artists, nor any explanations at all on the walls. Many of the frames do have the artist’s name on them, though, if you look carefully. Find a gallery guide at the benches in each room.
Barnes continually changed his ensembles around, and the displays you see are the same ones (in the same order) as when he died. He never wrote up explanations as to why they were put in those orders, nor is anyone sure what he hoped viewers would see in them. Continue reading “Philadelphia: 5 Ways to See the Barnes Foundation with Kids”
–This is part of our series on Philadelphia with kids. See all the posts in the series at the bottom.–
Let’s start out by saying this is not the Mutter Museum, pronounced like it looks. The “u” should have an umlaut over it – two dots next to each other. Say it like “Mooter Museum.” This museum was on my list to visit for a long time, and I figured the kids would find it strangely fascinating. They did, but they also found it unsettling enough that they sat out out a good portion of it because they couldn’t stomach looking through it all.
Of note, you can’t take pictures inside. These photos are all courtesy of the museum. Dr. Mutter collected these strange specimens to use in teaching. The museum is part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.