Style needs

We visited the Metropolitan Museum today. We especially wanted to see The Pictures Generation, Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective and The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion. It was a giant undertaking to see all three shows in one day, but we were determined and we marched on.

We started with The Pictures Generation, which was a revelation of the 1974-1984 period of post-minimal and post-conceptual art, which ushered in a new era of recognizable imagery. This important period brought in new forms of appropriation that have become commonplace in every creative endeavor, from fashion to music. Many of my favorite artists, including Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Robert Longo and Richard Prince are represented.

Viewing Francis Bacon, a darkly inscrutable painter, takes an emotional toll. The culmination of the show is the room of portraits of the artist's lover George Dyer painted after his fatal drug overdose on the eve of Bacon's Paris show in 1971. Bacon is an uncompromising painter with a very dark vision. His self-portrait mourning the death of Dyer is perhaps the saddest painting I have ever seen. This heart wrenching show is worth every painful moment.

Model As Muse served as a break between our more intellectual pursuits. It was a joy to see images of the Super Models of the 80s and 90s as well as iconic photographs and fashion from the birth of fashion photography to the present.

Finally a quick lunch at the Roof Garden, where we viewed Roxy Paine's bewitching sculpture: Maelstrom.

Make a day of it.