Chasing art in New York

AI edits: “Chasing art in New York”

The diff covers the AI grammar fixes and the author’s own follow-up edits. Each change is listed below with who made it.

Diff (original → edited)

--- "Chasing art in New York.md"	2026-11-09 06:34:52.687999000 +0300
+++ "Chasing art in New York.edited.md"	2026-11-09 06:44:28.328307055 +0300
@@ -5,12 +5,13 @@
 tags:
 draft: false
 ---
-New York City offers whatever you want, quickly and without much fuss. You just gotta walk the walk. I was excited to see the art in city's museums. So I walked the walk, between museums.
+New York City offers whatever you want, quickly and without much fuss. You just gotta walk the walk. I was excited to see the art in the city's museums. So I walked the walk, between museums.
+
 ## Whitney Museum
 
 We visited the Whitney Museum on Halloween eve. The museum was open until 10 pm and entrance was free.
 
-We started directly from the 5th floor, top of the museum. The floor was dedicated to artist [Minnie Evans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_Evans) whom I've never heard before. Her mandala-like paintings have a lot of Ancient American motifs, so I thought she's Mexican or Peruvian or maybe a Native American. After walking around the floor my wife, Gule, whispered to me "I think Evans is a black woman". I couldn't understand how she intuited that, but it was true:
+We started directly from the 5th floor, the top of the museum. The floor was dedicated to artist [Minnie Evans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_Evans) whom I'd never heard of before. Her mandala-like paintings have a lot of Ancient American motifs, so I thought she was Mexican or Peruvian or maybe a Native American. After walking around the floor, my wife, Gule, whispered to me "I think Evans is a black woman". I couldn't understand how she intuited that, but it was true:
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/Minnie-Evans.jpg" />
 <figcaption>Minnie Evans</figcaption>
@@ -24,15 +25,15 @@
 
 After seeing Paula Modersohn-Becker's last painting in [[./bremen kunsthalle|Bremen]], paintings with thick textures started to fascinate me. Evans' Airlie Oak is almost a relief and it's beautiful.
 
-On the 4th floor, I got hit on the face by another sculpture-like painting:
+On the 4th floor, I got hit in the face by another sculpture-like painting:
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/jay-defeo-the-rose.jpg" />
-<figcaption>Jay Defeo, The Rose, 1958-66</figcaption>
+<figcaption>Jay DeFeo, The Rose, 1958-66</figcaption>
 </figure>
 
-Jay Defeo's *The Rose* might be the most impressive piece of art in all New York. Its scale, the center and the cracks on the concrete... I don't remember having a somatic reaction this intense in front of an artwork. I was getting sucked into it. I think I spent at least 10 minutes looking at it and mesmerized.
+Jay DeFeo's *The Rose* might be the most impressive piece of art in all of New York. Its scale, the center and the cracks on the concrete... I don't remember having a somatic reaction this intense in front of an artwork. I was getting sucked into it. I think I spent at least 10 minutes looking at it, mesmerized.
 
-The following are the other paintings I liked at Whitney Museum with no particular order:
+The following are the other paintings I liked at the Whitney Museum in no particular order:
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/motley_gettinreligion.jpg" />
 <figcaption>Archibald John Motley, Jr., Gettin' Religion, 1948</figcaption>
@@ -62,16 +63,16 @@
 
 ## MoMA
 
-Our next stop was The Museum of Modern Art, the famous MoMA. I knew it has a good collection of Magritte, Rothko, Pollock and Matisse. So this was the museum I was most excited about.
+Our next stop was The Museum of Modern Art, the famous MoMA. I knew it had a good collection of Magritte, Rothko, Pollock and Matisse. So this was the museum I was most excited about.
 
-I don't know what's about it but seeing The Lovers by Magritte in real life was even more impressive. This surprised me because I looked at this piece maybe dozens of times. Usually artworks I haven't known about affect me more. Some artworks move you in some way when you share the same physical space with them, like how I felt looking at Defeo's Rose at Whitney. 
+I don't know what it is about it, but seeing The Lovers by Magritte in real life was even more impressive. This surprised me because I had looked at this piece maybe dozens of times. Usually artworks I didn't know about affect me more. Some artworks move you in some way when you share the same physical space with them, like how I felt looking at DeFeo's Rose at the Whitney. 
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/magritte-the-lovers.jpg" />
 <figcaption>René Magritte, The Lovers, 1928</figcaption>
 </figure>
 
-Walking around the floor, I noticed a long line of people. They were waiting for their turn to take a photo of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Having visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and honestly not being that impressed with his paintings, I didn't care much about it before visiting the MoMA. Since I had no intention of photographing a painting that is probably photographed already a bazillion times, I started looking at the Starry Night from the side. I couldn't believe my eyes. I could swear the light around the stars and the swirls were moving, rotating, vibrating...
+Walking around the floor, I noticed a long line of people. They were waiting for their turn to take a photo of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Having visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and honestly not being that impressed with his paintings, I didn't care much about it before visiting the MoMA. Since I had no intention of photographing a painting that has probably already been photographed a bazillion times, I started looking at the Starry Night from the side. I couldn't believe my eyes. I could swear the light around the stars and the swirls were moving, rotating, vibrating...
 
 
 <figure>
@@ -79,11 +80,11 @@
 <figcaption>Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889</figcaption>
 </figure>
 
-Being fascinated by two paintings that I had digitally seen multiple times encouraged me even more to see Rothko and Pollock's works which both I'm not fond of.
+Being fascinated by two paintings that I had digitally seen multiple times encouraged me even more to see Rothko's and Pollock's works, neither of which I'm fond of.
 
-Especially about Mark Rothko, even though I never get why people make such a fuss about him, I suspended my judgement until I see one of his paintings. People were saying how his paintings affected them when they experience them with their true scale in three dimensions.
+Especially with Mark Rothko, even though I never get why people make such a fuss about him, I suspended my judgement until I saw one of his paintings. People were saying how his paintings affected them when they experienced them at their true scale in three dimensions.
 
-I saw seven of Rothko's paintings: No. 1, No. 10, No. 5/No. 22, No. 5/No. 24, No. 37/No. 19, Untitled (Black on Gray). They didn't do much for me. I'm not an art critic. I'm not well versed in art history either. So you can easily say "ege, you simply didn't understand what you saw!" and you would probably be right. However I would respond by asking why didn't the same ignorance of mine prevent me to enjoy looking at Defeo or Van Gogh?
+I saw six of Rothko's paintings: No. 1, No. 10, No. 5/No. 22, No. 5/No. 24, No. 37/No. 19, Untitled (Black on Gray). They didn't do much for me. I'm not an art critic. I'm not well versed in art history either. So you can easily say "ege, you simply didn't understand what you saw!" and you would probably be right. However, I would respond by asking why the same ignorance of mine didn't prevent me from enjoying looking at DeFeo or Van Gogh?
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/rothko-no37-19.jpg" />
@@ -92,7 +93,7 @@
 
 (I gotta admit the plum background in No. 37/No. 19 was such a pleasant color in person. In the picture above it looks like a shitty red.)
 
-I had similar thoughts about Jackson Pollock and almost had the same experience after seeing his Echo Number 25 in MoMA. But in Met, I had the chance to see the new Pollock&Krasner show in which you can see the development of both artists together from the time when they were complete strangers to each other, to marriage and breakup. That show made me appreciate Pollock and his abstract paintings more. What I'm trying to say is maybe after seeing a Rothko show that's curated with care would make me appreciate him more.
+I had similar thoughts about Jackson Pollock and almost had the same experience after seeing his Echo Number 25 at MoMA. But at the Met, I had the chance to see the new Pollock&Krasner show in which you can see the development of both artists together from the time when they were complete strangers to each other, to marriage and breakup. That show made me appreciate Pollock and his abstract paintings more. What I'm trying to say is maybe seeing a Rothko show that's curated with care would make me appreciate him more.
 
 
 <figure>
@@ -100,7 +101,7 @@
 <figcaption>Marcel Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1915</figcaption>
 </figure>
 
-It was a surprise to see one of Duchamp's readymades in MoMA. I hunted for a frame of other visitors taking a photo of the shovel. I believe this photo properly contextualizes the work because the shovel becomes art once it's put in a museum and treated as such by visitors.
+It was a surprise to see one of Duchamp's readymades at MoMA. I hunted for a frame of other visitors taking a photo of the shovel. I believe this photo properly contextualizes the work because the shovel becomes art once it's put in a museum and treated as such by visitors.
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/masson-oak-leaf.jpg" />
@@ -160,11 +161,11 @@
 
 ## The Met
 
-Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre of North America, has such a vast collection that it's humanly impossible to see everything it has to offer in a single day. We visited the Met on the day of midterm elections and spent almost the whole day there. We were thinking of picking 3-4 wings to see and skipping the rest at the beginning but each wing has an aura of its own, once you catch the glimpse of it you want more.
+The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre of North America, has such a vast collection that it's humanly impossible to see everything it has to offer in a single day. We visited the Met on the day of midterm elections and spent almost the whole day there. We were thinking of picking 3-4 wings to see and skipping the rest at the beginning, but each wing has an aura of its own; once you catch a glimpse of it, you want more.
 
-The highlight of the collection—for me—was August Rodin. Seeing Rodin at Museum d'Orsay in Paris in 2025 made me wanna be a sculptor and seeing works of the great master again was great. Some of the pieces in Met, I saw them before: the Sorrow in Museum d'Orsay and the Martyr in Prague National Gallery. Maybe these pieces were casted into multiple editions.
+The highlight of the collection—for me—was Auguste Rodin. Seeing Rodin at Musée d'Orsay in Paris in 2025 made me wanna be a sculptor and seeing works of the great master again was great. Some of the pieces at the Met I had seen before: the Sorrow at Musée d'Orsay and the Martyr in the Prague National Gallery. Maybe these pieces were cast into multiple editions.
 
-In Paris I haven't had chance to see much of his stone works though. The Met had a great collection of these:
+In Paris, I hadn't had the chance to see much of his stone works, though. The Met had a great collection of these:
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/rodin-eternal-spring.jpeg" />
@@ -187,7 +188,7 @@
 <figcaption>Auguste Rodin, The Hand of God, original model before 1895, carved ca. 1907 </figcaption>
 </figure>
 
-I really like how Rodin kept some of the stone almost raw (although probably it's more like No-Makeup Makeup than raw). First time I've noticed this was in Paris when I saw the bust of his wife which in he perfectly carved the face but kept below the shoulders uncarved.
+I really like how Rodin kept some of the stone almost raw (although probably it's more like No-Makeup Makeup than raw). The first time I noticed this was in Paris, when I saw the bust of his wife, in which he perfectly carved the face but kept below the shoulders uncarved.
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/rodin-drafts.jpeg" />
@@ -201,11 +202,11 @@
 
 ##  Guggenheim
 
-In the evening of election day, Guggenheim was offering 1.5 hours of access to their collection by paying as little as 1 dollar per person. At first I was nervous about the short duration but it turned out more than enough.
+On the evening of election day, the Guggenheim was offering 1.5 hours of access to their collection for as little as 1 dollar per person. At first I was nervous about the short duration, but it turned out to be more than enough.
 
-We started from the top floor because I heard the building, which by the way is piece of art on its own, is designed to be a descension. At the top we saw a sign pointing to Yukoi Kusoma's Infinity Room. After waiting in the line for a few minutes, we went in. It was a room with mirrors on every surface and many led balls dimly shining. Rest in peace to Kusoma, but I found it dull. Once the allocated time (~1 minute) has passed I was simply happy because we didn't waste more time with that.
+We started from the top floor because I heard the building, which by the way is a piece of art on its own, is designed to be a descension. At the top we saw a sign pointing to Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Room. After waiting in the line for a few minutes, we went in. It was a room with mirrors on every surface and many LED balls dimly shining. Rest in peace to Kusama, but I found it dull. Once the allocated time (~1 minute) had passed, I was simply happy because we didn't waste more time with that.
 
-After leaving the Infinity Room, we had the most pleasant surprise and bumped into Catellan's Comedian. I was completely unaware that it's still on display at Guggenheim. Seeing that banana perfectly placed on the wall and imagining the museum staff periodically replacing the banana as Catellan instructed made me giggle inside and appreciate the Comedian more.
+After leaving the Infinity Room, we had the most pleasant surprise and bumped into Cattelan's Comedian. I was completely unaware that it's still on display at Guggenheim. Seeing that banana perfectly placed on the wall and imagining the museum staff periodically replacing the banana as Cattelan instructed made me giggle inside and appreciate the Comedian more.
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/catellan-comedian.jpeg" />
@@ -213,9 +214,9 @@
 </figcaption>
 </figure>
 
-We descended through each rotunda displaying the museum's Pop Collection that includes art from 1960 to today. I found them not very engaging. The majority was photos and videos and some interactive games here and there. Although at this point I was still thinking we're very short on time. If I knew Tannhauser collection was that small, I'd spend more time looking at the Pop pieces. 
+We descended through each rotunda displaying the museum's Pop Collection that includes art from 1960 to today. I found them not very engaging. The majority were photos and videos and some interactive games here and there. At this point, though, I was still thinking we were very short on time. If I had known the Thannhauser collection was that small, I'd have spent more time looking at the Pop pieces. 
 
-On the second floor, we entered the Tannhauser collection. As I said, the collection is small but it has zest. Especially the paintings of Kandinsky were great to see.
+On the second floor, we entered the Thannhauser collection. As I said, the collection is small, but it has zest. Especially the paintings of Kandinsky were great to see.
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/kandinsky-blue-mountain.jpg" />
@@ -237,7 +238,7 @@
 <figcaption>Liubov Popova,  Birsk, 1916</figcaption>
 </figure>
 
-New York ignited a new appreciation of Van Gogh and Picasso in me. It started in MoMA with Van Gogh's Starry Night and Picasso's les demoiselles. However I didn't realize this until I visited the Guggenheim and seeing these:
+New York ignited a new appreciation of Van Gogh and Picasso in me. It started at MoMA with Van Gogh's Starry Night and Picasso's Les Demoiselles. However, I didn't realize this until I visited the Guggenheim and saw these:
 
 <figure>
 <img src="https://hypersubject.b-cdn.net/images/whitney/picasso-fourteenth-july.jpg" />
@@ -251,6 +252,6 @@
 
 ***
 
-The art scene of New York is much wider than its museums of course. There are many smaller galleries exhibiting shows of contemperary artists. But even working through the collections of big ones was a laborious process.
+The art scene of New York is much wider than its museums of course. There are many smaller galleries exhibiting shows of contemporary artists. But even working through the collections of the big ones was a laborious process.
 
 I was excited to see art and I feel satisfied with what I've seen.
\ No newline at end of file

AI grammar fixes

1. the art in city's museums → the art in the city's museums
2. from the 5th floor, top of the museum → from the 5th floor, the top of the museum
3. whom I've never heard before → whom I'd never heard of before
4. so I thought she's Mexican → so I thought she was Mexican
5. After walking around the floor my wife → After walking around the floor, my wife
6. got hit on the face → got hit in the face
7. in all New York → in all of New York
8. looking at it and mesmerized → looking at it, mesmerized
9. at Whitney Museum with no particular order → at the Whitney Museum in no particular order
10. I knew it has a good → I knew it had a good
11. I don't know what's about it but → I don't know what it is about it, but
12. because I looked at this piece → because I had looked at this piece
13. artworks I haven't known about → artworks I didn't know about
14. Defeo's Rose at Whitney. → Defeo's Rose at the Whitney.
15. a painting that is probably photographed already a bazillion times → a painting that has probably already been photographed a bazillion times
16. Rothko and Pollock's works which both I'm not fond of → Rothko's and Pollock's works, neither of which I'm fond of
17. Especially about Mark Rothko → Especially with Mark Rothko
18. until I see one of his paintings → until I saw one of his paintings
19. when they experience them with their true scale → when they experienced them at their true scale
20. However I would respond by asking why didn't the same ignorance of mine prevent me to enjoy looking → However, I would respond by asking why the same ignorance of mine didn't prevent me from enjoying looking
21. But in Met, → But at the Met,
22. What I'm trying to say is maybe after seeing a Rothko show → What I'm trying to say is maybe seeing a Rothko show
23. Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre → The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre
24. skipping the rest at the beginning but each wing has an aura of its own, once you catch the glimpse of it you want more → skipping the rest at the beginning, but each wing has an aura of its own; once you catch a glimpse of it, you want more
25. was August Rodin → was Auguste Rodin
26. Some of the pieces in Met, I saw them before: → Some of the pieces at the Met I had seen before:
27. the Martyr in Prague National Gallery → the Martyr in the Prague National Gallery
28. were casted into → were cast into
29. In Paris I haven't had chance to see much of his stone works though. → In Paris, I hadn't had the chance to see much of his stone works, though.
30. First time I've noticed this was in Paris when I saw the bust of his wife which in he perfectly → The first time I noticed this was in Paris, when I saw the bust of his wife, in which he perfectly
31. In the evening of election day, Guggenheim was offering → On the evening of election day, the Guggenheim was offering
32. by paying as little as → for as little as
33. short duration but it turned out more than enough → short duration, but it turned out to be more than enough
34. is piece of art on its own → is a piece of art on its own
35. Yukoi Kusoma's → Yayoi Kusama's
36. many led balls → many LED balls
37. Rest in peace to Kusoma → Rest in peace to Kusama
38. time (~1 minute) has passed I was → time (~1 minute) had passed, I was
39. bumped into Catellan's Comedian → bumped into Cattelan's Comedian
40. the banana as Catellan instructed → the banana as Cattelan instructed
41. The majority was photos → The majority were photos
42. thinking we're very short on time → thinking we were very short on time
43. If I knew Tannhauser collection was that small, I'd spend more time → If I had known the Thannhauser collection was that small, I'd have spent more time
44. we entered the Tannhauser collection → we entered the Thannhauser collection
45. the collection is small but it has zest → the collection is small, but it has zest
46. However I didn't realize this until I visited the Guggenheim and seeing these → However, I didn't realize this until I visited the Guggenheim and saw these
47. contemperary → contemporary
48. collections of big ones → collections of the big ones

AI suggestions and status

#	Suggestion	Status
1	”I saw seven of Rothko’s paintings” lists only six titles. Add the missing one or change the count.	Addressed. Changed “seven” to “six”.
2	Artist name is spelled “Defeo” in the text and captions; the artist’s name is usually written “DeFeo”.	Addressed. Changed to “DeFeo” in the caption and all three mentions in the text.
3	”Museum d’Orsay” appears twice; the museum’s name is “Musée d’Orsay” (or “the Orsay Museum”).	Addressed. Both mentions changed to “Musée d’Orsay”; “in Museum d’Orsay” also became “at Musée d’Orsay”.
4	”Picasso’s les demoiselles” could match the caption title: “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”.	Partially addressed. Capitalized to “Les Demoiselles”, but “d’Avignon” from the full title isn’t there.
5	”Although at this point I was still thinking we were very short on time.” is a sentence fragment. Consider “At this point, though, I was still thinking…“.	Addressed. Rewritten as “At this point, though, I was still thinking…“.
6	”Rest in peace to Kusama” reads as if the artist has died. If it’s meant as “no offense to Kusama”, consider rephrasing.	Not addressed
7	”designed to be a descension” — “descent” is the more common word.	Not addressed
8	Usage of “in MoMA” vs “at the Met”/“at the Whitney” varies; “at MoMA” would be consistent.	Addressed. All four “in MoMA” became “at MoMA”.
9	Line 8 sits directly above the ”## Whitney Museum” heading with no blank line; add one for consistent markdown spacing.	Addressed. Blank line added before the heading.
10	Opening paragraph: “You just gotta walk the walk… So I walked the walk, between museums.” The idiom usually means acting on your words; if the point is literal walking, the wordplay may not land for every reader.	Not addressed