Palm Springs, California, United States
For many years I’ve been making a point of visiting the art
museums in the cities I travel to based partly on a guidebook I have to the
main ones across the U.S. The Palm
Springs Art Museum didn’t feature in it, so I assumed it wasn’t a very important
institution. I was positively surprised by how significant it is, though, with
a quite large collection of mostly modern art in an open visually appealing
building. Like most things in Palm Springs the emphasis is on the modern and
contemporary, but there’s a smaller collection of art of the American West and
pre-Columbian Latin America. To be honest, this kind of art usually isn’t my
favorite but it fits with the setting and can sometimes be interesting, and the
overall atmosphere of the building is pleasant.
There’s, of course, also space for changing exhibitions -
very contemporary stuff including oddly juxtaposed materials, photographs, and
bright neon lights called “Brave New Worlds: Exploration of Space”. I must be
missing something because I just don’t get the appeal of such “art”. Ditto for
the special exhibition at the Architecture and Design Center, a striking mid-century
modern building that’s an annex building of the museum a few blocks away. The exhibition
there was one entirely of weird “ping pong table” paintings by a West Coast pop
artist. But some people oooh an aaah over it.
2025-02-10