Inside the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art (東京都現代美術館) I found myself surrounded by about a dozen of Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn Monroe.” How many of these did he do anyway? I’ve also seen these at BYU and in Denmark.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo can be entered for free with the Grutt Pass.

Related posts:

1. Ueno Zoo and the Grutt Pass – Part 1
2. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
3. National Museum of Nature and Science

We could buy an all-day pass for 115 DKK each (about US$25). We could purchase one-way zone passes for 80 DKK each way. Or we could purchase tickets along with an entrance to the museum for 160 DKK round trip. I’m sure there were a dozen other options using other passes or klip variations or . . . The bottom line is that you never know how much a trip will cost, if you may get lucky and get a special that is going on that day, or if you go to a different ticket agent they may know of another less expensive way to get to your destination. It’s a crap shoot.

I prefer the Japanese system in which you always know the price and the price is much cheaper than in Denmark. For instance, to travel the distance we traveled to Louisiana from Copenhagen we’d pay no more than about US$5 in Japan. Here the price, again depending on the ticket agent of the day, ranges from about $12 to about $20.

Louisiana Modern Art Museum (Moderne Kunst in Danish) is in a beautiful setting in the town of Humlebaek (also spelled Humelbaek). I’m not a big fan of modern art; in fact, much of it does absolutely nothing for me. However, the settings for some of the pieces here really do make the works far more interesting than they would be on their own.

My kids pushed a button near the above work. Nothing happened. Then, about 10 seconds later, the bell started slamming the metal man in the head over and over again causing a huge noise that seemed totally out of place in this quiet museum. My kids freaked out. They thought security would be all over them. I’m not sure how this is art, but it did make things interesting.

You never know which of the museum’s Andy Warhol collections will be out on display. They have three. One is the “Marilyn” collection (which we’ve seen examples of in a museum at BYU). Another is “Flowers” (which we have seen examples of at the Smithsonian in DC). The third is what we saw at Louisiana, “Mao.”

I thought this last one was going to have a different title than it did. This work is called “Eyes” and is by Louise Bourgeois. There is also a very cool Bourgeois spider sculpture at Louisiana.

When my kids could take no more (actually they had a great time on the very long slide here and there is a workshop with lots of stuff for kids to do) we headed to the adjacent beach. More on that in tomorrow’s entry . . .

Related posts:

1. Gammel Strandvej
2. Open Air Museum (part 1 of 2)
3. Back to the Hakone Open-Air Museum