A Trip to the Guggenheim Museum

   On October 24th of 2025, my peers and I took a trip to the Guggenheim Museum. The Guggenheim Museum is located in Upper East Side of Manhattan, on fifth Avenue. The museum opened on October 21, 1959. Solomon R. Guggenheim began collecting art in the 1930s once he had retired as a mining tycoon. A German artist named Hilla Rebay helped Solomon display his collection in 1939. In 1943, Hilla contracted the architect Frank Lloyd Wright to create a museum. The design of the museum was asked to not just be a museum, but a place where people can experience art in a new way. In the article "Guggenheim Museum opens in New York City" on the website "History.com", it quotes Rebay asking Frank to build a "temple of spirit". Frank Llloyd developed the Guggenheim for the following 16 years, until he passed away, six months before the museum opening. The exterior of the Guggenheim is bowl shaped, featuring a spiraled ramp on the inside, creating one continuous floor surface. The glass ceiling is shaped like a dome, spotlighting right in the center of the museum. Floyd found inspiration in the architecture through his love of nature, the structure almost resembling a seashell. With each room connecting to one another, the fluidity of the museum mimics a fluidity in nature. 

Sketch of the interior of the museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

    When researching the Guggenheim Museum, it was to my surprise that the building drew just as much criticism as admiration. While many find the architecture of the building mesmerizing, plenty found it to be disruptive to the artwork displayed inside. The lay out of the Guggenheim rebelled against a traditional museum with separate floors and rooms. The spiral coerces visitors to experience the art in a journey, commencing from the beginning of the spiral to the end. The Guggenheim paved a new space for modern art. 

  On this visit, the artist Rashid Johnson's installation called "A Poem for Deep Thinkers" was being exhibited. Rashid Johnson was born in 1977, in Illinois. He studied at the Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This is his first time exhibiting in the Guggenheim museum and marks his largest exhibition to date. "A Poem for Deep Thinkers" exhibits works through all of Rashid Johnsons works from the past three decades. Rashid says it feels like a family reunion, "and every family reunion is fairly complicated." He uses a variety of materials and different mediums, including mirrors, shea butter, ceramics, black soap, etc. His work reflects upon presence, identity, culture, and anxiety.

    Rashids larger scaled works have a common theme of repetition. The specific work that caught my eye was the painting "Anxious Audience". His sporadic marks and sketching embodies the overwhelming feeling of panic and anxiety. Rashids works in this collection were all larger scaled and grand, creating what felt like an invitation for the viewer to step into his world of inner turmoil. 

   Rashids wide range in materials is impressive and furthers the interest in each piece. He uses clay as a medium in many of his works. Through the ceramic tiles he created gigantic wall pieces with, to the clay pots that he seemed to have hand painted all himself, his human touches to every aspect of his installations are intimate. 

       Overall, this trip to the Guggenheim left me very pleased. Learning about the history of the Guggenheim leaves me respecting much more than just the visual aspects of the architecture. I believe each work that is spotlighted in this museum is a grand celebration for the artist, and Rashids Johnsons idea and execution to this collection was well done. I plan on continuing to follow his artistic creations.