Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Gauguin: Metamorphoses, shows Gauguin’s rare prints and how he developed them into his more famous paintings. Displayed were variations of his prints and sculptures. Gauguin frequently worked with other materials not just paint such as woodcarving, ceramics, monotypes and many more. The show presented his wooden sculptures, which he created…
We went down to the Bowery or maybe the Lower East Side last week. That’s the area near Orchard, Ethridge, and Chrystie streets. Our old memory of that area is dropping an inebriated drummer named Walter off at Ludlow and Stanton, a crime and drug addled corner. All changed now. New galleries, restaurants, and a…
One of our pet peeves is the reckless abuse of scale in art. A lot of artists make their work just big enough to get into the elevators on Park Avenue. On the other hand, there are a lot of artists who make their work just big enough to get into the garage doors at…
My landlord, Mr. Ed, was 99 years old. As far as anyone could tell, he subsisted entirely on cherry red LifeSavers. Most would fall between his armchair, which smelled like a dumpster, and his khakis where they would adhere in a row of sticky red globs. Children and some unkind adults would point fingers and…
“Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It’s very tiny – very tiny, content.” – Willem de Kooning We love going to MOMA. What we love best is visiting the lonely and neglected paintings. They seem to need company. Particularly, if one is a work of art that completely changed the…
We felt like we were back in the fab sixties but better! Wearing our full access backstage passes, we not only knew the band but the light show guy as well. Just how groovy is that? Downtown Woodstock people were rushing in off the street grabbing each other by their jacket lapels to hear and…
Dropping by the Richard Serra show at Gagosian brought to mind a Vanity Fair article. It compiled a list of the top Six Artists alive today. Here are the results: The Most-Voted-for Artists Gerhard Richter: 24 votes Jasper Johns: 20 votes Richard Serra: 19 votes Bruce Nauman: 17 votes Cindy Sherman: 12…
“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.” –Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) Entering the Balthus show at the Met we were rudely confronted by a sign. It warned us that this exhibition may be…
We saw a sheep installation at a Chelsea gas station but first we should mention David Ryan’s show at Galerie Richard. It was funny because the gallery typist, who turned out to be the director, started waxing on about how the artists’ work concerned layers of dreams stacked up against other layers of dreams. “Do…
“When there is a Hopper in the room, that’s what you look at.” Elise, the charismatic docent, told us so. A good one pulls us in like a magnet. You can’t turn away from one of the excellent ones. Nighthawks is a prime example, especially if you see it in person. It is electrifying. Four…
