The Best Lonesome Cowboy I've Seen Since Brokeback Mountain

In April, the entire 4th grade took a trip to the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see Judy Chicago's Dinner Party. When we were there, we saw a couple of the Takashi Murakami pieces in the lobby. Most of my students were fascinated by the Murakami pieces (except for Girl Who Loves Sparkly Clothes But Hates Hillary Clinton who said it looked too gangsta for her). Within a few weeks, many of the students visited the Murakami exhibit with their parents. I was glad that I encouraged them to visit the museum on their own.

This past Sunday, SHR and I finally got around to seeing the exhibit and I was a bit surprised by some of the pieces. I had no idea (because I really don't know anything about art) that some of Murakami's pieces were so, um, ejaculatory. What made the sexualized pieces seem even more odd to me were the innumerable descriptions targeted at children sprinkled throughout the sprawling exhibit. I did not hear any complaints from parents of students in my class. I suppose that after seeing an exhibit of Judy Chicago's vagina plates, the kids were ready for Murakami?

Of course, most of Murakami's themes speak directly to children so there were many kids there. But I didn't notice any signs warning parents that some of the art might not be for children. No one seemed too worried about the odd juxtaposition of such kid friendly art with such adult pieces. Very strange.

Talk about strange. SHR and I enjoyed these bizarre ads that Murakami made.



We decided not to buy any of the 42 dollar T-shirts or 40 dollar mouse pads.