Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

In my opinion, the architecture of the building is far superior to the actual collection of art. Some of the individual pieces were really good but it’s curated so poorly… there’s maybe like one good art piece in a room of 45 bad pieces from famous artists who had not yet developed their skills yet. In a way, it’s fun to see that these recognizable artists had so many failed artworks that were really missing the mark before they started creating great impressive art… but in general that’s the impression I got from this museum. So many of the artworks could be filtered out to really make the handful of amazing ones stand out. The lighting in the rooms is horrendous which made it very hard to appreciate the color and strokes of the art, and the quirky arrangement of art all stacked one on top of the other was somewhat interesting at first and then became incredibly annoying because you couldn’t fully appreciate the art when it was hung up next to the door in the hall where everyone was walking or above the door higher than you can comfortably see. The museum app allows you to scan the art to get info on each piece and then they send you an email with the art you saw. I liked that. I thought it was a nice modern touch. In general, the museum is worth going to, but just not the best museum I’ve been to. Could be improved.

What an amazing and unique museum! I kind of love that nothing is really labeled, it makes you look at the wall as a whole (lots of symmetry going on) and sort of enjoy what you enjoy without other telling you how important it is. And it's not just impressionist art, though that is the bulk of the collection. There are African pieces, furniture, and lots of hardware - decorative hinges, locks, metal bits that I found fascinating. To learn more about a piece that catches your eye, there is a website you can pull up on your phone, point it at the painting, and it will give you all the info. It's set up inside like the old house the collection was originally in but the outside is very modern and concrete. I really loved the juxtaposition. Make sure to catch an introductory talk in the ground-floor classroom - it explains the history and why everything is set up like it is.