AMERICAS NEWS

TUPNews recently visited New Jersey, in the United States of America. The weather was cold but clear. I ate Thanksgiving dinner, watched American football and went to a Broadway musical.

There’s not much I can tell you about the United States of America that you don’t know already. In fact, it’s almost remarkable how well the stereotypes and clichés actually prepare you for a visit. America is generally rubbish, for reasons well documented elsewhere. There are two areas, however, where I must admit the Yanks have an edge.

The first is the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. TUPNews is a Tate member and a vociferous supporter of the Tate Modern in London, regarded by some as the foremost modern art gallery in the world. It wounds my sense of civic pride to report that the Museum of Modern Art in New York City first knocks the Tate Modern into a cocked hat, and secondly pisses on said hat from a distance of metres (yards). Yet this is the truth, so I must report it so.

An art critic would argue that MoMA’s permanent collection is simply better than the Tate Modern’s, and this is indeed so. You’ve got your Warhol soup cans, Jasper Johns flags, some actually famous Picassos as opposed to the handful of sketches at the Tate. Proper coffee table stuff.

TUPNews, however, was won over by the Architecture and Design collection on the second floor. This was basically a collection of design classics of the 20th and 21st centuries, with the general conceit being “look, you wouldn’t normally expect to see this in an art gallery, but if you think about it, it’s a design classic.” At times this conceit bordered on the cute, but of course this was always a risk. TUPNews loved it anyway. Here is a selection of items on display:

1. An Italian airport departures/arrivals board

One of the ones where the times and destinations change by small black panels flipping down, making that strangely soothing clicking noise

2. A single blade from a Boeing engine turbine

3. A Smart car

4. A Macintosh SE from 1984.

TUPNews had one of these as a boy. It still works perfectly, unlike TUPNews’ iBook which died after about four years, which is apparently completely par for the course these days.

5. The original iPod.

TUPNews owns one of these now. Seeing it behind glass was worse than when my old mobile phone was featured with a bag over its head in those “ashamed of your mobile” ads. Fellow art lovers laughed at me when I took it out of my pocket and held it up against the glass.

6. A Bic Cristal biro.

Or in fact, two, a red one and a blue one. This is where it came close to being a bit too cute, until you read the inscription and realise that the Bic Cristal’s hexagonal design has been the same since 1950. (The idea for a ballpoint pen was first conceived by Hungarian journalist Laszlo Biro in 1938, before Marcel Bich acquired the patent rights.) Also the inscription is hilarious –

Bic Cristal
Bic Corporation, France
Gift of the manufacturer

I would have liked to have attended the gift-giving ceremony.

As well as these gems there were Bauhaus prints, Soviet typography, 60s computers, Rennie Mackintosh posters, all manner of sublime shit. It was brilliant. Before coming I’d heard the line that MoMA was more stuffy and museum-like – the history of modern art – than the Tate’s freewheeling, thematic approach to hanging. But this was exactly the type of thing – gimmicky, but fun – that I’d like to see the Tate taking on.

In defence of the Tate Modern, it has had some very strong exhibitions, especially Cruel and Tender and that one with all the video work – with the Japanese women archers etc. MoMA’s exhibitions on the top floor were pretty weak (“Safe: Design Takes On Risk” promised much but was ultimately trying too hard to be clever, although the collection of Japanese flight safety information cards was pretty cool.) And of course, it’s worth noting that the Tate Modern is free, while entry to MoMA will set you back twenty American dollars.

I’ll tell you the second thing later today.