Philadelphia Museum of Art

The amount of impressive artworks this museum has is overwhelming! I was thrilled to see a couple of works I learned about in my humanities class in college like Brancusi's "Bird in space".

I was also pleasantly surprised to see several of Duchamp's works on exhibit- including "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even" or more commonly known as "The Large Glass". This artwork is a classic case of the challenging task of transporting contemporary art. The funny thing though is that when the glass broke, Duchamp didn't want to fix it and he said that the cracks are part of the work!

It seemed to me that the exhibitions strongly geared towards adults. Although they do have Self-Guided Family Tours and Children's Audio Tours, so I know that they keep children in mind. But I think that a children's exploration area would really be an excellent addition. It's an enormous building- I'm sure they can find space for it!

I should mention that the front steps of the museum are known as the Rocky Steps. Yes, Rocky the movie of Sylvester Stallone! Remember the scene where he runs up the steps and did the now famous Rocky Pose after successfully climbing the steps? Well, turns out a lot of people do that- sort of like a testament of their personal success. There's a published a book called "Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America's Most Famous Steps" written by two journalists from the Philadelphia Inquirer who spent a year interviewing people who ran the steps. No, I did not do the Rocky Pose - perhaps next time :)