mansplaining modern art on our first date

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:01][music] >> Today we're going on a solo date to my favorite museum in New York, the MoMA.

[00:00:18]I'm just going to dress casually. I decided to change my outfit.

[00:00:25]Wow, it looks like my neck is like really sick.

[00:00:37]>> [music] >> First time coming to New York was when I did a piano performance at Carnegie Hall. So, this part of town is always very nostalgic to me.

[00:01:10]MoMA was created in the 1920s.

[00:01:13]I believe it was established in 1929, six days after the market crashed.

[00:01:19]And that MoMA was created by a random old man who actually was the director of MoMA. He helped advocate for putting in different art forms such as photography, films. The idea of a modern art museum was actually created by three women over a cocktail lunch. We had Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan.

[00:01:46]Yes, I know, Rockefeller. During the 1920s, the most popular art form was still realism.

[00:01:53]There weren't a lot of representation for artists like Van Gogh, Picasso, or Cezanne. Because these girls have a a little more money, a little more connections, they gathered resources, and they got Alfred H. Barr as the director, who's the guy that a lot of people assume created the MoMA.

[00:02:11]And I'm not entirely sure about this, but I do think he was wrongfully credited because of a journalist's assumption. Their very first exhibition was called "Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, and Van Gogh" and opened on November 7th, 1929, [music] which is a day after my birthday. It focused on a lot of post-impressionist artists. If you're familiar with any type of modern art, you just want to come here and ex- see like the most famous pieces, I would tell you that the fifth and fourth floor has pretty much everything you want to see.

[00:02:47]>> [music] >> Although this is the Museum of Modern Although this is the Museum of Modern Art, there is both modern and contemporary art included in the museum.

[00:03:14]The difference between it is modern art is older and contemporary art is newer.

[00:03:19]I guess modern art really started around the 1860s to the 1880s, and that era would be impressionist art, and one of the most famous impressionist artist is Claude Monet.

[00:03:37]>> [music] >> A very key quality in impressionist art is very visible brushstrokes. You can't really see what's going on until you step far away. Then, over time, the Impressionist art movement sort of developed into more symbolic colors, dreamy textures. So, then we have artists like Vincent van Obviously, a lot of tourists come here to see The Starry Night, which is in the gallery behind me. I think Van Gogh passed in 1890, and since then, it was just passed through a bunch of art collectors until it landed >> [music] >> in MoMA about 15 to 20 years after its opening in 1940. And I believe one of the women who started MoMA, Lillie P.

[00:04:29]Bliss, she was the one that requested for Van Gogh's Starry Night to be in the MoMA.

[00:04:44]As we entered the 20th [music] century, art has slowly progressed to become more aggressive, darker, sharper. We were transitioning from Impressionism to Expressionism. I learned all of this through like YouTube [music] videos, by the way. Henri Matisse is one of the more prominent artists from the beginning of the Expressionist era.

[00:05:07]>> [screaming] >> We've got a whole room here >> [music] >> of Picasso's works.

[00:05:14]He's the one who started Cubism.

[00:05:22]This reminds me of that scene in Sex and the City where Carrie shows up at Big's door.

[00:05:28]>> [music] >> This is Klein blue.

[00:05:44]Behind me is Mark Rothko, who was a famous [music] painter in the 1940s and 50s.

[00:05:52]He's very famous for his abstract expressionism. And a lot of people find his work very simple, but I think the way that [music] he paints really portrays how strongly colors can vocalize emotions such as doom, ecstasy, despair.

[00:06:19]>> [laughter] >> Has anyone ever read the Olivia the pig books? I remember there was one book where she tries to attempt a Jackson Pollock painting because she saw it at a museum and she was like, "I can do that." If any of you guys watched my live streams, you would know that there is a big poster of a Basquiat painting in my apartment. It is a portrait of him and Andy Warhol. I love so much about modern art and contemporary art. I remember when I was 18, I went to a Basquiat exhibit with my mom and it was my first time seeing so many of his work up close. It was an exhibit organized by his family, specifically just circulating [music] around his work and his history.

[00:07:03]And [clears throat] I when I saw his paintings up close, I actually got very emotional because unlike realistic paintings like Renoir, you can really see his emotions, his urgency through the paint strokes on the on the canvas. [music] You could see his footsteps around the canvas and you could see the layers and layers of paint, markers, spray paint. I just found that raw expression of frantically putting your emotions on canvas much more touching than >> [music] >> a realistic painting, but I do think I do have an appreciation for any kind of artists. Except for Jeff Koons.

[00:07:41]Even Amanda always does this to me.

[00:07:45]>> [music] [music] >> Oh, Charlie Chaplin.

[00:08:30]My husband is calling me.

[00:08:35]Um, I was wondering if I could do a double helix.

[00:08:38]>> Something like right about there.

[00:08:48]Deep breath in and let it all out.

[00:08:51]Awesome.

[00:08:56]How you feel?

[00:08:57]>> Feels >> And we're going to take off all those purple marks we made, okay?

[00:09:07]>> Oh my gosh.

[00:09:10]Like your ear is so Oh my god. It's like super red.

[00:09:18]But it doesn't hurt that much. It hurts a little. It's just throbbing a little.

[00:09:22]Trees are so pretty in the summer. I wanted to get these piercings for about 2 years already. I've always been so scared of the pain and healing process. Here is your sign to do something that you always wanted to do.

[00:09:35]Don't overthink things that you're trying to say, you're trying to do.

[00:09:39]Just do it. Just say it. Um most of the time it's not as bad as you think.

[00:09:46]We'll figure it out together.

[00:09:48]Okay.

[00:09:51]Love you.

[00:09:52]>> Bye.