Martin Puryear at the MOMA

I was blown away at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City this weekend.

The Martin Puryear retrospective was a surprising blast of fresh modern sculpture I had never seen. In my mind it far overshadowed the much more packed Georges Seurat: The Drawings exhibit next door.



Welcomed into the MOMA by a dramatic wooden ladder rising high above the main atrium, I already knew I was in for something special upstairs. The atrium installation was a tease, an amuse bouche, for the bold exhibit they put together encompassing the career of this enormous modern talent.

A master at working with natural materials, he makes wood deftly turn or curve in unexpected and enthralling ways. His mixture of materials clearly show a broad palette of global influences that he chooses carefully to convey feeling and spacial interaction.


I could have spent hours that I did not have that afternoon just going back to individual pieces and finding new surprises in them.

The beauty of a world-class museum like the MOMA is that in one afternoon I could go from sharing with my little brother the intricacies and depth of a Jackson Pollack splatter to discovering for myself a new -- and just as impressive -- sculptor that achieves much the same with natural, hand-manipulated elements.

For more on Martin Puryear, check out this PBS profile on him HERE.