Target First Saturdays @Brooklyn Museum

Every month, Target sponsors First Saturdays at the Brooklyn Museum. To start, visitors are greeted warmly in the sculpture garden by music that demands acknowledgement. Even if you're only comfortable swaying or tapping your foot, be assured: the music will move you. Literally.

Target First Saturdays offer a variety of quality programming, all for the price of standing in line at the Visitor's Center. (The suggested price of admission for the museum is $8, so contribute what you can to support the museum.) In June, planned First Saturday activities include artist discussions, Balinese music & dance, organic jewelry-making, and a showing of the movie, Singapore Dreaming. And, of course, the day closes in the parking lot with a First Saturday tradition: the dance party.

If you've time and mind to explore the permanent collections, know that the Brooklyn Museum collection has unimaginable breadth, from the Sackler Center for Feminist Art, to...well, who can describe the museum best but the museum itself:

"...the permanent collections include world-famous objects of ancient Egyptian art; notable ancient Middle Eastern material; important European paintings and sculpture; one of the most comprehensive collections anywhere of American paintings; representative drawings, prints, and photographs; contemporary art; decorative arts, including twenty-six period rooms; wide-ranging Asian works embracing the arts of China, Korean, Japan, and South and Southeast Asia; a remarkable concentration of Islamic art; enormous holdings of the indigenous arts of North, Central, and South America; major objects from the Pacific Islands; and one of the largest and finest collections of African art in the United States."

The museum's website is quite impressive, and I am most intrigued by their 360-degree webtour of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party:

"an important icon of 1970s feminist art and a milestone in twentieth-century art, is presented as the centerpiece around which the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is organized...comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history."

You can also search a database for information about works found in the Luce Center for American Art's visible storage area. Not to mention the rather detailed summaries of other parts of the museum found here. And art students & fashion lovers take note: the Takashi Murakami exhibit will be at the Brooklyn Museum until July 13, 2008. Enjoy!