The Getty

Three

It's been three years since I started blogging and documenting my life in a more public forum. The speed at which time is passing is mind blowing, and on some level this blog has become a virtual receptacle for my memories.  Adventures, dreams, phototgraphs, and life defining moments have been memorialized on these pages.  The blog reminds me to stay in the present, but it also gives me a tremendous amount of perspective when I look back.

Violet

Violet

Violet

Violet

Violet

PS Museum

Two wonderful exhibits at the PS Museum.  Rauschenberg at Gemini offers a survey of the artist’s production at the renowned Los Angeles print-publishing workshop Gemini G.E.L.  There were several works I wouldn't mind hanging on my walls at home, but if I had to choose just one, it would be DAZE from his speculations series.  This large silkscreen print produced from his photographs was part of his first series to focus solely on the medium of screenprinting.  Perhaps it's because this weekend is the unofficial start to summer, but this image conjures up lazy, sunny days.

The title of the second exhibit, Beg, Borrow and Steal, is attributed to Picasso: “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” This show from the Rubell's private collection presents artists’ attempts to build on the legacies of their predecessors as they present their own new ideas.  The canvas from this exhibit I'd gladly cart home is David Salle's Rainy Night in Rubber City.  Can't find a lot of information on this acrylic painting, but it immediately moved me when I entered the room.

Arne Svenson

“Three years ago, Arne Svenson, a photographer living in lower Manhattan, inherited a CT-501 500-mm. Nikon telephoto lens from a bird-watching friend,” writes Raffi Khatchadourian in this week’s New Yorker. “The lens was perfect for shooting faraway egrets or sanderlings, but Svenson, who favors still-lifes, knew nothing of nature photography. ‘I thought, I’ve got to try it out,’ he said the other day at his apartment. He pointed to a building across the street. ‘The logical subject was this.’ ”

The residents were surprised, and some were downright livid, when they discovered that they are now the subjects of Svenson’s new exhibit.  Some residents are considering taking legal action.  Although one could argue their privacy was invaded, the photographs are tasteful and respectful.  It would be difficult to identify the subjects in these photos which are evocative, beautiful and pay homage to one of my favorite movies, REAR WINDOW.

Christian Marclay

I've noticed more and more that conversations with friends result in subsequent Google searches.   Tonight I came home inspired from a lively dinner party discussion about video collage artist Christian Marclay's masterpiece The Clock.  Eager to know more about the award-winning artist I found this excellent article in The New Yorker, and an earlier compilation he made called Telephones.

Nine

I love this girl!  Can't believe she's about to turn nine.

Waterlilies

A rainy, bleak Sunday, ideal for roaming a museum, yet I hesitated, knowing I'd encounter throngs of umbrella toting tourists.  But how could I go to NY, and not go to the Met or the Modern?  Under a steady rain I waited on line on 53rd Street, and once inside I waited on two more.  A half hour passed and finally, I was looking at art.  I eased into the crowded flow, making my way to the fifth floor where works from the permanent collection covered the white walls.  Gauguin, Picasso, Mondrian, Matisse -- awe inspiring classics.  The last gallery in the corner took my breath away, and not just because of the stunning 40 foot triptych of Monet's waterlilies.  I tripped into a long ago experience, and an accumulation of memories planted a lifetime ago.

In high school, a poster of Monet's famed bridge and flowers at his home in Giverny hung in my English classroom.  I'm uncertain if this was my first exposure to the artist, but it was definitely the most memorable.  The pastel image, printed on poster board, became as familiar to me as my face in the bathroom mirror.  On days filled with hormones or essays, it was a calming presence.   Not willing to part with the image, my freshman dorm room was adorned with a similar poster protected under a plexiglas frame.  When I first moved to NY and discovered my office was several blocks away from several original works, I'd sneak away to MOMA at lunch and sit in the front of the tranquil canvases.  Years later, on my second trip to Paris, I made the pilgrimage to Monet's gardens.  It was surreal to walk over the bridge he painted, and gaze at waterlilies in the pond, images I have felt deeply connected to my entire life.

Modern Art

New Mu

Checked out an exhibit at The New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery.  Opened in 2007, it’s the first museum to be built below 14^th Street, and is responsible for bringing galleries and an art scene to the LES.  The exhibit, NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star is a look at “art made and exhibited in New York over the course of one year. Centering on 1993, the exhibition is conceived as a time capsule, an experiment in collective memory that attempts to capture a specific moment at the intersection of art, pop culture, and politics.”

I was particularly drawn to Janine Antoni’s Lick and Lather, fourteen casts made of herself in chocolate and soap modeled on classical busts and “re-sculpted” by the processes described in the title.  "I wanted to work with the tradition of self-portraiture but also with the classical bust...I had the idea that I would make a replica of myself in chocolate and in soap, and I would feed myself with my self, and wash myself with my self. Both the licking and the bathing are quite gentle and loving acts, but what’s interesting is that I’m slowly erasing myself through the process. So for me it’s about that conflict, that love/hate relationship we have with our physical appearance, and the problem I have with looking in the mirror and thinking, ‘Is that who I am?’"

LES

Although I don’t foresee trading my LA lifestyle for the hustle and bustle of New York City, it’s always fun to fantasize about where I’d live if I ever did return.  In the last 10 years, the Lower East Side has dramatically changed, and it appeals to me more and more with each visit.  Although it’s rich immigrant history is still evident in the discount stores along Orchard and Delancey, high end boutiques and galleries have taken up residence in the neighborhood creating a magnificent blend of cultures.  At night, beautifully curated store fronts are hidden by graffiti laden gates.  The streets are 70s grimy, drunks liter the parks at night, and yet residents pay millions for lofts. It’s also a stone’s throw from where my Sicilian grandfather lived in a tenement on Elizabeth Street, and where my mother was born on Mott Street. I can imagine my grandmother scouring for bargains on these streets, the same ones I would chose to call home if I had to do it all over again.

911 Memorial

I walked from Union Square to the  911 memorial, letting the visible cranes near One World Trade Center guide me downtown.  Architecturally I'm not a fan of the new structure, it employs a generic modernism that I find unappealing.  As I got closer to my destination, I joined throngs of tourists walking around the construction site in search of the memorial.  Vendors started to appear on street corners selling their wares, and cops ushered us in the direction of a security check point.  Although I paid a $2 booking fee online for my ticket, they asked for another "donation" when I went to retrieve it.  I was also told I needed to purchase an item in the gift store to get my ticket.  Understandably, there's been controversy over the memorial charging fees, and I felt like I had walked into a tourist trap.  There was nothing referential or sacred about the experience until I was finally able to peer over the wall etched with the victims names and see the water cascading 30 feet to a flat basin, and then another 30 feet through a smaller square hole in the center.  The scope of the fountains is impressive, it literally took my breath away, but it also lacks intimacy and evokes danger.  There will be no frolicking in the water on hot summer days.  Perhaps in time this will be a space to be enjoyed, but for now it is only a space to be observed.

In Jennie's Kitchen

Had the wonderful pleasure of meeting Jennie yesterday. I've been an avid reader of her blog which often moves me to tears, but also fills me with hope. She's an inspiration inside the kitchen and out.

On Why We Cook, Jennifer Perillo: To Seek Refuge, to Inspire & to Remember from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

 

 

 

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The Big Apple

 

Elated to be back in New York City.  I’ve been away for a very long 18 months.  Exploring on foot, I register the changes.  Downtown continues to explode with hipness and gentrification.  I walk everywhere, not wanting to miss an inch of opportunity to absorb the city’s energy into my pores.   So many friends to see, too many, in fact, to fit into a few days.  I cherish these connections.  I forgo museum and gallery visits for endless walks, and lengthy meals with friends.