The Spread of Gallery Hopping

It's snowing outside in Manhattan, which makes one want to curl up with a hot cup of tea rather than trudge outside to galleries. Sure, all I have to do is take the subway, but sometimes that seems like a lot of effort. Nowadays, I don't have to go far though. Galleries have been mushrooming outside my apartment almost as much as trendy boutiques. The explosion of galleries has been pleasant to watch as a sign of a strong market, yet counter-intuitively it doesn't mesh with a favorite activity of mine: gallery hopping.

I don't live in Chelsea, already saturated with galleries, or even some hipster corner of Brooklyn. I live below the Lower East Side and its crazy nightlife, surrounded by Chinese immigrant on one side and Hasidic Jews on the other. I haven't been able to understand what the Chinese are saying about the galleries popping up with their big installations taking up the entire tiny storefront and the crowds they draw on random nights. I find it...odd.

You'd think I'd be delighted, and I am, but who goes to see these out of the way galleries? The far west 20s of Chelsea still packs galleries like sardines in a can, but the scene has been decentralizing for so long that gallery-hopping in Chelsea is no longer so cool as it once was. Even so, for gallery hopping, Chelsea can't be beat. I suppose serious art collectors or people who are already fans of the artist would travel to a different area of town, but personally I need some incentive.

Let me explain the premise of gallery hopping: you hook up with a friend or two, you hop from gallery to gallery (thus the necessity of a centralized location), you look at art while drinking free wine and looking at the people. A good time is had by all, even if you don't see works that you care for. Chelsea still holds major galleries like the Gagosians and Zwirner, but they are more established. For cutting edge galleries, you'll likely tempted out to Brooklyn. Of course, the quality of art is uneven, but the scene is much better. So Chelsea and Brooklyn for gallery hopping, but my neighborhood? Only recently has it joined the ranks.

The recent proliferation of galleries strikes me as very much a by-product of a inflated art market, a market that is not around to support the tiny art spaces in 2009. On an individual level, this is unfortunate, but on a larger scale seems like a long overdue correction. For my gallery hopping purposes, Chelsea and Brooklyn aren't going anywhere.

Feast or famine?

What would you guess is the answer to that question was, based on the image below?


Apparently, the answer is famine. I'm not sure if the WSJ puts forth the most compelling visual argument with this photograph for an article on American farming, Farming's Sudden Feasts and Famines .

Not so arts-related a post, but certainly a valid question of visual literacy for you.

Moomins!

Among my Christmas gifts, I received a copy of Tove Jansson's Finn Family Moomintroll. My Swedish mother had always made sure I was caught up on Pippi Longstockings and Linnea in Monet's Garden, but she was very excited about finding an English translation of these children's books. I have never heard of a Moomin before, but let me assure you that they grow on you. Yay for delightful childrens books! (All my pickled brain is capable of enjoying at the moment. New Years isn't likely to help either.)

This is Moominpappa, trying on the hobgoblin's tophat. Moominmamma, who always sleeps with her handbag under her head, has to explain to him that some people look more dignified without hats.





The Moomins have wonderful adventures with their friends in Moomin valley. For more on Moomins, see here.

Curious Cases

" 'He seems to grow younger every year,' they would remark. And if old Roger Button, now sixty-five years old, had failed at first to give a proper welcome to his son he atoned at last by bestowing on him what amounted to adulation.

And here we come to an unpleasant subject which it will be well to pass over as quickly as possible. There was only one thing that worried Benjamin Button; his wife had ceased to attract him. At that time Hildegarde was a woman of thirty-five, with a son, Roscoe, fourteen years old. In the early days of their marriage Benjamin had worshipped her. But, as the years passed, her honey-coloured hair became an unexciting brown, the blue enamel of her eyes assumed the aspect of cheap crockery-moreover, and, most of all, she had become too settled in her ways, too placid, too content, too anaemic in her excitements, and too sober in her taste. As a bride it been she who had "dragged" Benjamin to dances and dinners--now conditions were reversed."

F. Scott Fitzgerald is, as a rule, charming, and the short story from which this excerpt is taken is only a slight exception. There's something intriguing and yet tedious about following a character whose life runs backward both in story and new movie. Perhaps it's because of the inevitability of the premise?

The movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is based off of Fitzgerald's 1921 short story that follows Benjamin through his life from birth as an old man as he lives, falls in love, and dies as a child. The movie differs in mostly every other respect. The acting of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett is, of course, accomplshed, and the aging process is a testament to the marvels of technological advancement. It was well made, but nearly 3 hours with no plot development is slow going.The short story is worthwhile; it's up to you to decide if the movie is worth 3 hours of your time. An hour and a half, certainly. For 3 hours, I require action.

It's a great premise for a story, and a great fantasy to play in your head, but it doesn't make for intriguing cinema. What is the crux of the plot? Benjamin grows young. And what happens? Benjamin grows young. There is no great struggle, just the unnatural process of unaging.

Both short story and movie are curious cases in themselves. A great premise for both, and on one hand a great writer, and the other excellent actors. Yet they fall short, at least in my estimation. We will see if the film becomes curiously popular. Stranger things have happened.

Matthew Barney and Bjork, and Facebook?

Matthew Barney, artist, and Bjork, musician, are a glam, hip celebrity couple. A tidbit on Art Fag City rumoured that Barney 'Facebooked divorced' Bjork. While it is amazing in that these cool adults update their relationship status like tweens across the world, it is probably completely untrue. Delicious bit of gossip though.

Barney is perhaps best known for his Cremaster cycle, and Bjork for her swan dress, erm vocal abilities. I've always been struck by how these unsteriotypical people, who seem very much outside of society's narrow perscriptums, fulfill gender stereotypes.

Matthew Barney had a strong background in science and works rationally, methodically and precisely. The Cremaster cycle takes the cremaster muscle as the start of a biologically-based exploration of creation through a series of videos. Bjork, like her much of her singing, is emotionally-driven,intuitive, and wild. The New York Times captured this in a 2006 article:

"In person, they are sometimes strikingly different. Mr. Barney, 38, is friendly but detached and analytical, exuding a conceptual coolness that is reflected in his films...By contrast, Bjork, 40, who arrived alone for the interview in white rubber rain boots and a sweater with a knitted owl across the front, was animated and introspective. She said her music was always grounded in her life and her emotions...That often made collaboration with Mr. Barney a disorienting experience."

For the record, I always liked the dress.

How do you get your books?

Not 'how do you choose your books?' but, how do you physically get books into your hands? People love Amazon's prices and delivery to the door, and for many nothing beats the browsing through stacks at your favorite bookstore, whether it includes a Starbucks coffee while you browse brightly-lit Barnes & Nobles' bestsellers or squeezing between dusty stacks of a locally-owned used bookshop. Neither of these options can compare to the public library.

The most prominent advantage is that the public library has no price tags. Worries over whether a book is worth 25 dollars aren't a factor when the offensive item is free and returnable. You can check out and return many books at once, and browse them at your leisure. True, the library charges late fees, so eventually you have to give them back.

However, not owning books is an unappreciated advantage in itself. Most people only read a book once. A library of classics you return to is a great resource, but on the other hand, you can always check a book out again. Bookshelves are useless, inefficient storage spaces put on display in a way you would never show trunks of old clothing or holiday decorations. Once you buy a book, you are stuck with it; no amount of reasoning makes it seem ethical to simply throw it away, and books are often hard to give away.

As a space, a library offers distinct benefits, such as being undisturbed in public. They don't play music and talking is discouraged. You can read or study in quiet, comfortable environment. Often, the library offers that hot commodity: free wireless Internet. You won't find that in your typical bookstore where the cafe Internet is pay as you go.

Because of space, a public library is the best browsing. With typically more shelf space than a bookstore, you can pick up, flip through, and put down books for hours. Libraries carry older books than most bookstores, and have started carrying DVDs and magazines as well. Many libraries try to engage patrons in civic programs. They offer lectures as well as computer classes or book groups. Plus, a library is a great spot to drop off children, if only for story hour.

Manhattan's New York Public Library (NYPL) system has changed the way I get books. The large research branches are housed in gorgeous public structures, and offer exhibitions as well as the civic programs of smaller libraries. The small branch libraries don't always have that extensive browsing quality, but they offer another feature that makes life so easy: delivery. Not to your home, but to the library of your choosing. On the NYPL website, you can search their collection and order books and DVDs, and they will let you know when they are available for pick up via email. NYPL's online service enables you to renew online and view due dates and late fee as do many libraries, but you can also keep a list of books that you would like to read at some point. The collection includes DVDs of smaller or older films that the local video store simple doesn't have. With libraries in every neighborhood, books have never been easier to come by.

A Scrinch Lurks Deep Inside

This is a Scrinch. It combines a Scrooge and a Grinch. A Scrooge is miserly and a Grinch is miserable; both are the opposite of the Christmas spirit infusing the web and the world currently.
What does every other website have up right now? Holiday cheer, from photos to kitchen tips. What does this website have up? A Scrinch--his name is Ratter.

With the exception on one highly amusing Christmas party footage on this blog, I have not yet given it over to photos of snow angels. It's because a little Scrinch lives in the cold cockles of my blog, doling out seriousness and stress rather than merriment. He's the little voice crying, "Too much to do, must keep working." He does not yet have the Christmas spirit.

So I hugged the little Scrinch and tried to squeeze him into the Christmas spirit. He cried 'bah humbug' and bit my nose. So I stuffed him with fruitcake, but he only burped on me. I rubbed him with mistletoe, and the little bugger sneezed on me with evil glee. 'Hah!', Ratter cried.

But it's a precarious thing for a Scrinch, however unmerry, to live in a blog. I couldn't get rid of Ratter, and I couldn't make him feel the Christmas spirit. But I could dress him up and surround him with hearts and elves! Ratter's been very quiet every since I gave him a present. Gifts soften the meanest little quibbles...

Happy holidays to Ratter and to all a merry Christmas Eve!

Obituaries: don't make them a dead end

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure.
-- Clarence Darrow

Obituaries ought to be pleasurable reading, and too often people are literally buried with a perfunctory paragraph. Of the many forms of writing, obituaries hardly get prominence, much less taught in classes, but a lively obit can be as great as any other kind of writing.

People, probably in books more than life, sometimes imagine what will be written about them after they pass away. However, obituaries are rarely written for the dead person they commemorate and as writing they often receive as much attention and care as advertisements for old cars. The typical obit puts together the facts of someone's life, birth location and time, death location and time, vocation in between the two, and a note about whom they leave behind. It serves as a community notice and has a sentimental significance to those noted ones left behind.

Newspaper writers rarely aspire to the obituaries column, and rarely do they seem to devote much significance to it. Some come to love it and look forward to deaths with, forgive them, glee. Prominent individuals receive a longer, more carefully thought out retrospectives in papers across the world. Yet if the website Obituaries.com shows anything, it's that the vast amount of obituaries are hasty factual notices. This is why it is all the more interesting when you come across a great obituary.

A great obituary makes the person known to you as a lifelong friend, and becomes as affecting and interesting as the person was. The New York Times does a good job of suggesting why a person is historically relevant to learn about and mourn. The L.A. Times makes its obituaries a little more compelling with a little more kick, but by far the best obituaries being written today are in the pages of The Economist magazine.

The Economist prints one obituary, or posthumous profile, per monthly edition, and its choice of person is often surprising and always rewarding. It literally makes the dead come alive, with a verve that surprises and delights. The Economist doesn't give bylines, but its obituaries are currently written by the former editor Anne Roe. She is the co-author, with Keith Colquhoun, of The Economist Book of Obituaries. Of course, The Economist doesn't serve as a community notice with funeral details. Instead, it explains why and how the person led a fascinating life. The profiles range from that of H.M., a man without a memory, to Boris Fyodorov, a Russian reformer who is examined through his passion for English churches. This unexpected angle provides an unexpected familiarity and insight into the character of the person.

In this NPR interview, Wroe says she likes to "get to the point" right away, and "the point may not be the one we first think of." Another point in favor of Economist obituaries is that they are more than recitations of facts; they take a decided view of an individual and his achievements, which makes for better reading.

Morbid? Perhaps, yet who knew obituaries could be such great reading? Wroe says in the interview that "it seems to me like an opportunity to get into dozens of very interesting lives and I find it endlessly fascinating, not in the least morbid. In fact, we have a tradition in England of rather irreverent and interesting obituaries ...." Perhaps we Americans are too stiff about stiffs. A great and lively obituary is the best thing you could hope for after your death. As commemoration of the dead, an obit is one of the most noble projects for a writer.

(Originally published December 21, 2008 in Blogcritics Magazine.)

Burlesque Ethos

The stage was small and the lights were red, but the Victorian velvet couches were filled with people of the most average variety. After all, it was a theater, not a strip club. Between the young waitress sitting on the couch beside me to take drink order and giving her number in case we wanted reservations for later, I asked my companion, "What are the rules about nudity?" He merely looked confused at the mention of rules in such a sexy, friendly, and elegant space. Burlesque shows posses an ambiguity that shimmies a tightrope between class and camp, between striptease and vaudeville, between theater and sex.

The heart of Burlesque is sex. You can't take it out of a Burlesque performance, but it can't cross theatrical limits (legally at least). Obscenity and vulgarity are avoided, as the point is to spoof and (to a limited extent) titillate, not to offend. Think of Bettie Page's song and dance number. She has a mischievous smile as she shakes her hips and shoulders slowly and stretches her legs. It is clearly a show of the female form rather than dancing expertise. Her exaggerated slow movements are a spoof of a dance, and turning her back to the audience to shake her butt is the punch line. Burlesque airs out sex, and has from its beginning been a place to relax but not destroy society's moral standards.



Naked or Nude?
Strip clubs are legally bound that the strippers wear a certain amount of clothes, from panties and pasties, to nothing here in New York state as long as no alcohol is served. On the other hand, an unclothed person can walk across a stage in the course of a play without being arrested; that person is nude, not naked. The nude difference is when lack of clothing is aesthetic and theatrical, which Burlesque is. But anyone who has seen a Burlesque show realizes that what is being flaunted on stage is naked, pure and simple.

Burlesque performers typically wear elaborate, themed layers that are removed. This element is a recent addition to what was and is humorous theatrical entertainment. The striptease originated at the Moulin Rouge in 1890s Paris, and subsequently became a part of some Burlesque across Europe. It was only in America that Burlesque became associated with a variety show in which a strip tease is the chief attraction. Today neo-Burlesque retains the music hall atmosphere and features vaudeville acts, and the focus is still on the dancing girls. Shows often have contortionists, singers, or magicians to entertain the audience, although the latter might very well have a sexy slant.

Silly, elaborate and suggestive, a burlesque show makes for fun night on the town. But are they naked or nude? Is it camp or classy? Assuming those performers shimmy the line, it's the delicate balance that is the whole charm of Burlesque.

Lazy Books

A great article for anyone who has ever tried to write, well, anything. I am leaving you with this link to it instead of putting up a long/thoughtful/witty post.

Why? Because I too am fed up with my lazy book, which resembles this one.

That Girl With a Pearl Earring

Jan Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1662

Remember her? I know you know her, if only from that beautifully still 2003 film Girl with a Pearl Earring starring the beautiful Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. Tracey Chevalier also wrote a light novel of that name. Why nobody could think up another title, I don't know.

But as my lovely avidly artsy readers are aware, both movie and book springboard off the gorgeous portrait above, whose subject is as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa despite the touching intimacy with which she is portrayed.

Most people think of her when they think of Jan Vermeer, that moderately successful Dutch provincial whose interior scenes are infused with incredible light. They think of women near windows or reading letters. Within his works exists an intangible beauty that is not rooted in the woman or her pose or the room but in the quality of the painting that makes me assume that Vermeer had a beautiful mind and painted his simple genre scenes with great love.

So imagine my surprise when I found that the Rijksmuseum listed the painting below as a Vermeer. Referred to as The Little Street, this painting from 1658 is the only outdoor scenes by Vermeer. On second thought, it looks exactly like what Vermeer would paint if he painted the outdoors. A quiet little street with women and children happily employed. His version of the everyday is full of peace and light.

Holiday Party Footage

Well, Reader, you missed a great time at the Art Ravel's annual holiday party last night. All the greats were there, from Chuckie Baudelaire to that wild Mr. Oscar Wilde. Lord Byron's lame foot hardly bothered him as he cut a rug. And then a surprise guest came, old Willie Shakespeare!

That's when the party really got started. Everybody shook their groove things! Now it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas here at Art Ravel's blog. Check out some of the amazing dance floor footage of the festivities here.

Hint: you really want to click on that link.

Little Grey Cells Tackle Agatha's Christies Perennial Popularity

Agatha Christie's murder mysteries is to crime what Romeo and Juliet is to lovers; her thrillers inspires admiration from criminals themselves. My ignorant companion of last night made some distinctly unappreciative sounds when he discovered what my 'big find' at the library yesterday was. Harrumph! was my returning noise, and so we watched The Blue Train, A&E version of the novel starring David Suchet. Soon he was chuckling at the detective Poirot's vanity over his waxed moustache and throwing out (entirely wrong) guesses as to whodunit. The perennial popularity of Agatha Christie, the best-selling author of all time at over 2 billion books, stem from the 'order and method' she uses to construct her thrillers, the same 'order and method of the little grey cells' with which Poirot solves his cases.

Order and Method
Agatha Christie's work is brilliant because its purely driven by plot. A whodunit is a suspenseful process of revealing facts, and with Poirot's 'order and method' arranging them into a solution. The order and method of my little grey cells, as opposed to Poirot's, are perhaps not so strong. In Christie's work, nothing in the plot is superfluous to arriving at this denouement. Characters gradually expose themselves in connection to it, people knew each other through it, and closed situations such as the snowed-in manor house or blue train have the advantage of keeping the suspect pool focused but large.

This is not to say I disparage her characters because they are by-products of plot. She sketches individuality in a few quick strokes. Overall, her books capture post-WWII British society with the wounds of the past and the changing mores of the Jazz Age. But her characters are plausible without the reader being tempted into their interior lives. They are shallow books of circumstance and mere fun, but mere fun is a great thing and Christie writes them to perfection.

Christie quite rightly tends to keep the viewpoint to a limited 3rd person, so that we see what Poirot sees, but not what he thinks. This engages the reader to sleuth out the mystery too. The few novels that she has done from the point of view of a character has its pitfalls, as the reader automatically side with the protagonist. It feels like a gyp when something happens that the narrator leaves out.

Of course she's popular: her whodunits perfect their type, and her detectives are delicious, whether it be the wax-moustached Belgian Hercule Poirot or the old village gossip Miss Marple.

But who is this woman?
The Queen of Crime was in many senses a steadfast, disciplined writer who produced mystery upon mystery rather than illegal activities. She remains something of an enigma herself. While the later part of her life found her happily married to an archaeologist- not Mr. Christie- and going on digs between buying new houses, there was a most curious case (more here) in her youth. The only odd incident in an interesting, but ordinary life.

She disappeared in 1926. Classically enough, without a trace. The police were at their wits end for 11 days. Then one day a reporter is in a hotel lobby in the country. He notices something odd about the woman sitting on the chair. "Mrs. Christie?" he asks. Mrs. Christie blinks, and says "Oh yes. I have no idea how I got here." To the end of her life she claimed amnesia.

Chistmas Alert: Sale at the Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is hiding away a clearance sale amidst its collection. The items from the gift shop are marked down as much as 75% percent and has everything from scarfs and ties to books and umbrellas. The Met has some beautifully done pieces for the art lover in your life. (comme moi)

Location: Across from the bathroom's in the Egyptian wing, go down the stairs on the left.

Bel Canto: Unlikely Situation Sings

To my own surprise, I have finished a good contemporary novel. I suspected it might be one, but then I was warned it got slow in the middle. I reserved judgement until I shut the covers last night. Bel Canto is an engaging and graceful read by award-winner Ann Patchett.

It concerns a birthday party featuring an opera singer held in a poor South American country, in hopes of luring the guest of honor, a Japanese business tycoon, into building factories there. As she sings, the room is invaded by terrorists who take the group hostage. The substance of the book lies between this action-packed beginning and it's similar, and inevitable, end. The group of prisoners and captors forget more and more of the outside world, as the weeks go by inside their new home. Relationships form, eventually between the captors and their prisoners as well. And then people begin falling in love!But, as they all forgot inside the house they share, the situation is a ticking bomb.

An interesting premise and a well-done story, Patchett excels at creating depth in a wealth of characters. So there we have it, a good book. It's treatment of opera (bel canto means beautiful song), and how it moves this diverse group of people is lovely. Opera in many ways dominates the characters lives, as the singer begins to practise every morning. Conterposed to child terrorists in fatigues it seems improbable, as if both could not exist in the same world.

I am still sticking to my resolve, however. Only classics from now on. Dickens and Proust. There's not enough time to read everything. If only I could have a separate self of me, just for reading. But first some Baudelaire and Jack Kerouac's On The Road.

Portraiture: the ignored step-sister of Contemporary Art

The Old Masters all did portraits in oils as their bread and butter, but that isn't the case with the big names in art today. Damien Hirst is immersed in formaldehyde, and the majority of great talents are swirling in the shapes of abstraction. Who is painting portraits today? By portrait, I mean the old-fashioned, limited definition that focuses on a human subject and depicts their likeness in oils on a canvas with a degree of verisimilitude.

The real question is, does anyone do that anymore? The photograph is many way has taken over the simpler aspect of portraiture, that is, to record a person's appearance. I was struck by the amount of portraits in the Met's exhibition Art and Love in the Renaissance Italy, and by how few I had seen by contemporary artists. That's not to say portraiture is a dead art, but it is hardly a genre that gets a large amount of attention.

There are a few artists of note, however:

Closest to Tradition
Elizabeth Peyton does small, intimate portraits of friends and cultural icons much as the Old Masters would have, that is, with an eye to documenting what the person looks like. She focuses on portraiture, a rarity these days. A successful and well known artist, she is the only one whose oeuvre consists mainly of portraits.

Figurative Painters of Erotic Tendencies
John Currin is well-known for his figurative paintings, albeit of a more erotic nature. Yet he documents people less and less as stylization's based on cartoons and old masters like Lucas Cranach, and more like individuals. For example, see this portriat of Rachel Feinstein, his wife.

Lucien Freud's work tends to be less camp and more fleshy, but he too is known for his figurative paintings. Here we have a self-portrait on the left. This works is a portraits in the sense that it represents him, but most of his figures are anonymous pieces of flesh. Certainly, Freud is a capable portrait artist though.

Like a photograph, but not
Chuck Close made his reputation on photorealism and figurative painting. While it's true the style below in this self-portrait is not one Rembrandt would have used, it doesn't comprimise the viewer's impression of what he looks like. His very large productions that recreate the pixellated effect of prints and photographs while focusing on a realistic face.

A dying style?
Obviously this is not an exhaustive survey of contemporary art. Please tell me if I'm missing something big.

Portraiture of the old style seems to be out of style. Take a look at Art Net's 300 most searched artists and try to find another living artist on the list who does portraits. That's not to say there are no longer artists for hire, should you want to commission a traditional portrait. It's just that the people on this list aren't on the top 300 of Art Nets.

I would have argued that interest in the individual was perinneal, but perhaps I'm wrong. Has traditional portraiture become irrelevant?

Artemisia Gentileschi and her violent Judiths

Judith and Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileeschi, 1612

Judith beheading Holofernes was popular subject matter in the Baroque period. Judith, a Jewess, is sent with her attendant to the invading army camp of Holofernes, the general, who she charms and inebriates before she chops of his head, thus saving her people. Charming subject matter, no?

It is often theorized that the artist of the painting above, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) depicted the subject so forcefully because she was raped. Rape no doubt had its effect on Gentileschi, but her life is remarkable for many other reasons.

This talented woman was trained by her father Orazio in the style of Caravaggio and came to be a professional artist, a rare woman among men. She was the first woman to be a member of Academia del Designo and a painter whose historical scenes (a genre thought to be beyond women) enabled her work to be featured in the houses and churches of Florence and Venice. You can see why she is a treat for contemporary feminist theorists, both for her accomplishments and her sufferings.

Her biography is often given as a series of male-dominated events. First she was her father's daughter. She was raped by a student of his. She was married to another painter to save her honor after the rape. After, her work is often difficult to tell from her fathers, and of her 34 extant paintings, some have only recently been attirbuted to her. Her non-feminist art historical reputation often refers to her as a Caravaggesti, one of the many followers of Caravaggio.

Yet just look at another treatment of the Judith and Holofernes below:

Judith and Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi, 1620

The above painting is read into as Gentileschi releasing her anger and rebelling against patriarchy by portraying a strong and vengeful female character. She was raped at 19 in 1612, and she painted the top image in 1612-3 and the one immediately above in 1620. Note how she developed her theme with a larger and more detailed treatment. The violence was not unprecedented. She was a student of Caravaggio and he too painted this subject, as it was a popular one of the period.

Judith Beheading Holofernes, Caravaggio, 1598-9

Look at Caravaggio's portrayl, painted in 1598-9, compared to Gentileschi's treatment of the subject. This Judith Beheading Holofernes depicts the same moment of beheading with blood spurting, but Gentileschi's women are more active than this Judith who leans away from the blood. Caravaggio's painting seems staid after Gentileschi's physical treatment, despite the immense skill with which Caravaggio creates the severed head's grimace.

Perhaps one shouldn't view Gentileschi's oeuvre through the lens of rape entirely, as it limits our understanding of context and the credit one can give to her accomplishments, which amount to so much more than a by-product of inflicted violence. But it can hardly help informing our perspective of her Judiths, fearlessly conquering generals. In many ways, her long and successful career can be seen as a triumph over her early rape.

Book Review: The Subway

The Subway is an intriguing quasi-fictional appropriation of reality that all New Yorkers can identify with. The Subway contains the full sweep of humanity in its passengers, as they jostle or sit at safe distances or stare into the passing faces. This panorama of society contains the myriad human interactions that make up civilization, from shoving to giving up your seat to flirting.

Minute gestures of the passengers lead one to observations of humanity. For the protagonist is like Everyman of Pilgrim's Progress. He goes about his quest to arrive at his destination, and struggles with the conflicts of finding his metro card, missing a train by a second, being crowded into a smelly homeless person; we see his personality revealed, and as people and especially as New Yorkers, we can identify with his quest.

Within The Subway, all the glories and incongruities of American democracy are present. From the homeless to the elite, at any hour of the day the vast swell of humanity is present in all its odors. All people in the hunt for seats have the equality that makes America great.

Who wrote this fascinating study of the human psyche and deployed his acute and pointed observations on human nature? Who depicted the possible scenarios that could happen among such a group of people? No one. This novel doesn't exist.

How is it possible that no one has written this book yet? I can't be the only New Yorker who on their endless commute sometimes wondered about their fellow passengers, about where they were going and why. Storytelling has its roots in such unparalleled access to people. People who are too immersed in their experiences to put up facades. The subway is humanity raw and uncensored.

Considering people's (and my own behaviors) on the subway, I'm convinced it is a minefield of character and of situation that is integral to a great story.

Musicians...

Mother with child, woman in pink, and Hasidic Jew

Nursing mother

Young lovers

Homeless man

Young pole dancers

These photos from the NYC subway make great character studies. It's seems so much like a book already written to me. But I checked on the Internet, where all things are true, and The Subway hasn't been written. Yet.

Jealousy Strikes Over Writer's Rooms

A creative space, exactly as you like it, and a routine, undisturbed, can make a day or, in the case of some people, a work of art. Balancing work and writing is something I've thought about lately, but more than that I'm curious about other people. How do they write best? So to fill that curiosity, we have creatives spaces and routines...(ahh, the wonders of the internet.)

Rooms:

The Guardian has a great page dedicated to writer's rooms...literally a series of photographic "portraits" of the rooms the writers work in by Eamonn McCabe. Coincidentally, McCabe has an exhibit that just opened that runs through January 17 at Madison Contemporary Art if you are in London.

They're gorgeous and interesting shots that give you an intimate look of the creative spaces of various authors. They tend to have a desk and a computer...but other than that, these spaces are as varied as can be. Some are bare spaces with merely a desk, but most tend toward a messy, comfortably chaotic appeal. I wish they would do a series of artist's studios next.

These are clearly all successful, middle-aged writers because they have rooms they can devote to writing. I live in New York city, and have a compact desk in my bedroom that I can devote to writing. There is just room for it between the door and the bed. It's usually crowded with papers that I once meant to look at. The chair hurts my shoulders after a while. A certain someone likes to sit at it with his computer. And so, my workspace has become wherever there is a computer. A helpful versatility, no doubt, but I envy the luxury of a room of one's own and the flourish of a quill pen, like in Jane Austen's room, right.

Routine:

It isn't mere space I pine for, but the lives that could be led in them. Similar to these room portraits, blog Daily Routines gives a brief summary of how artists, writers, and other 'interesting people' organize their day in all its intimate detail. The writer Murakami runs marathons to get into a zenlike state, much like his dreamy novels. Kafka's is bizzare. Truman Capote is a "horizontal" author.

My routine involves a lot of 'sometimes'. I go to an office sometime. Sometimes I have been up writing or reading for an hour. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I'll polish something up during the day, sometimes I'll write at night. Today, I'll cook up a nice breakfast and lay in bed typing while trying to plan the most productive possible day.

I'm still settling into a quasi-writing life, but I have dreams of what it would be like. They run along the lines Oscar Wilde's perscriptum of life as art. In which case, I have a lot of work to do. Christmas angels and huge koi decals are competing for decorative space to ill effect in this writer's rooms. Yet based on the differences I found in rooms and routines, I'd have to say to each his own.

Art of War

Balancing work and writing has been difficult lately--Eek! Not a boring article of work and writing? Hardly, gentle Reader: this is a war.

My writing and my job are at odds with each other, and lately my job has been winning. People always speak about a work/life balance, but my problem is a work/work balance. Perhaps someday I'll have an official writing job (perhaps you readers could mail me some checks...) but until then, I work a normal work week and try and squeeze in writing.

Time, in itself, is not the problem. I could work, and then have enough time to write a blog post on a normal workday. But the real difficulty with writing, besides saying things well, is having something to say. When I become consumed with my paying job, I loose the creative bit of my brain. I'm out of the loop on interesting news as well, and can't process it enough to form an opinion of my own. (Opinions being crucial in this blogging business.) Of course, right now I'm talking about working and blogging, not even working and blogging and sleeping and interacting with humans... which are getting squeezed these days.

Today as I was dealing with drudgery of the day job, I stopped what I was doing and brainstormed. Slow at first, but soon I felt all juiced up and full of ideas and happier. It's easy to forget the passions that make you happy sometimes. And then I felt inspired to write about the delicate art of balancing work and writing. I myself am not quite an artíste at this balancing act yet, but maybe someday.

Until then, Reader, I accept personal checks or cash or cookies. I am especially partial to holiday cheer in the form of sugar.

Hating Philip Roth's The Dying Animal and Sabbath's Theater

Maybe you learn more about yourself by reading a book. Apparently I find lecherous, scheming old men inexcusable, and therefore renounce Philip Roth's works. I finished The Dying Animal, about an aging professor having an affair with a young woman that drives him mad, over a year ago. I didn't enjoy this accomplished, character-driven story last year, for all its merit. I was never going to read him again. Currently, I am not enjoying Sabbath's Theater, which seems remarkably similar.

Indeed, I hate Sabbath's Theater much as I hated The Dying Animal. In Roth's hands, themes of sexuality rankle with me. Adultery is glorified as the only real type of love, where both partners are free. (Except it never really works out well for the aging buccaneer.) His emphasis on sexuality seems wishful rather than a fully formed theory about people. As is imagined sex with young girls and prostitutes and maids were some Freudian projection of his penis, and thus his self-worth. Yet he buys into conventional morality just enough to use its labels of 'bad girl' and 'satanic lust' to great effect. Interestingly, sex ultimately does not offer his characters salvation. Maybe conflating Roth and his characters is a mistake?

I do not identify with, and in fact hate, the protagonist of Sabbath's Theater, which is a problem in a character-driven novel. Hate is no light word, and I think for Roth to inspire such a reactions in me he must be doing something right. Sabbath's Theater is driven by the death of a great mistress and realization that Sabbath has nothing left. Sabbath, a puppeteer before he became an arthritic, lecherous old man, attempts to deal with this much like a mental patient.

Sabbath's (and Roth's for all I can see) merit is a brutal honesty and fluency when describing life without money or friends or hope, when all the women you love have died, and the feeble desires of a fading penis become more than solace but life itself. Despite what you might think, Sabbath needs no pity from you, dear Reader, and Roth accomplished something when he created a character so repulsive that even hearing of his brother's death and mother's tragedy doesn't redeem him somewhat. Theories on the glories of free love, love you pay for, and love with those underage fall much like self-justifications on these deaf ears.

As to recommending these books, rarely have I enjoyed reading something so little. Yet both The Dying Animal and Sabbath's Theater are capably done. The characters are rich and interesting, and the harsh, jaded take on humanity is as humorous as it is dour. Philip Roth is an accomplished writer with a great knowledge of the nuances of people; I just happen to dislike his people. Hating his novels makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me....

New York City Art Museums on the Cheap

I can claim expertise in few things, but how to view art on the cheap is something at which I excel. With the right timing and a flexible schedule, you don't need to pay oodles to see the museums of New York City.

Below are the how-tos to seeing some of the greatest works of art in the world. Whatever your taste, these eight New York City museums are easy and fun to visit on the cheap. Note that listed prices are for adults; admission for students, seniors, and children often has a discounted price.

First, let's hit the "majors," which should be part of any cultural enthusiast's outings in New York City.

1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Avenue)
The Met lists a suggested ticket price of $20 dollars. A suggestion is not a price. They accept as little as a dollar, and then you're in to see this behemoth's grand cultural offerings, ranging from Egyptian pyramids to African reed boats to European portraits. They also have constantly changing exhibitions, which are included with the price of admission.

2. The Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53 Street)
MoMA will cost you $20 as well, unless you go on Friday nights. On Fridays between 4 pm and 8 pm, Target hosts a free night at the preeminent museum of modern and contemporary art. An additional great secret: movie tickets are free with admission. I've picked up tickets for an 8:30 film, and seen everything from John Waters' Pink Flamingos to classics of German avant-garde cinema. Beware the crowds, however.

3. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1071 Fifth Avenue)
Is seeing the interior of the newly-restored Frank Lloyd Wright building worth $18? The Guggenheim certainly has great exhibitions of contemporary art right now. However, this private museum is not cheapskate-friendly. If you're going to pay, you should check their events calendar to make sure you time your trip to coincide with one of their lectures or, even better, go to their Art after Dark program where they have DJs until 1 am.

These big stars are definitely worth a visit, but the city has other outstanding art museums that are well worth your time.

4. Whitney Museum of American Art (945 Madison Avenue)
Fifteen dollars will give you access to the Whitney's collection of 20th century American art and exhibitions of American artists past and present, such as Kara Walker and William Eggleston. Like so many on this list, the Whitney also has a Friday night pay-what-you-wish program from 6 to 9 pm. The Whitney goes a step beyond the other museums by making the free night a fun event with live music and other innovative performance arts.

5. The Frick Collection (1 E. 70th St.)
Admittedly a narrow time slot, but from 11 am to 1 pm on Sundays, you can visit the Frick for free instead of for $15. Often overlooked compared to bigger museums, this little jewel of a collection has remained in the mansion of turn-of the century business tycoon Henry Frick since he bequeathed it to the public. It contains masterpieces of Western painting and sculpture.

6. New Musuem (235 Bowery)
The New Museum houses contemporary art in a brand new building downtown, making it a great stop if you're in the area. At $12, this is a relatively cheap dose of contemporary culture. However, if you're in the the area on a Thursday night, stop in between 7 and 10 pm to mingle with a young, hipster crowd and see the works of artists artists such as Elizabeth Peyton and Mary Hielman.

7. Brooklyn Museum of Art (200 Eastern Parkway)
This museum has a diverse collection and is easily accessible from Manhattan. The suggested donation price is $8. As I mentioned in regard to the Met, a suggestion means you can pay what you wish. In addition, on the first Saturday of the month, BMA hosts a free night of art and entertainment, which often includes dancing to live music in its atrium. It exhibits art from across the globe, and has an excellent center of feminist art that features Judith Chicago's Dinner Party.

8. American Folk Art Museum (45 West 53rd Street)
Admission is a reasonable $9 to see this under-visited museum's collection of paintings and textiles from America's earliest days to the present. However, if you visit on Friday evenings between 5:30 and 7:30 pm you can listen to live music in the atrium and explore the galleries for free.

If you want your culture fix cheap, New York City offers many options at its museums. In addition, galleries have openings throughout the year, where new works of an artists are shown on an intimate scale. These free openings are fun not only because you can see new works, but because of free drinks and great people-watching. Artcards is a great site to check for new openings and events. With a little forethought, you can see all the art you want on a reasonable budget.

(Originally published December 07, 2008 in Blogcritics Magazine)

When art functions as entertainment...

Can visual art such as a painting function as pure entertainment and still be art? My boyfriend argues yes.

I'm reading Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth, because said boyfriend left one of many copies at my house and I was destitute for a story. I'm withholding judgment on the tale of those lusty old adulterers for the moment.

Said boyfriend bought his third (fourth?) copy of Sabbath's Theater because the cover of appealed to him; a sailor leering over a women on a red background. It's a reproduction of German painter Otto Dix's Girl with Sailor. (Unfortunately, the image is not on the internet.) The cover shows the sailor's face on the front, and where his hand is reaching over a pale woman on the back.

We googled Dix's other works, which I've never cared for and my boyfriend found quite "fun." Many of his paintings share the same lurid quality. Especially his art deco-ish scenes, I find a flat amalgamation of colors without harmony or meaning. His darker and more straight forward critiques of Wiemar lack subtlety and imagination. We both agree it's poster art, mere decoration. But am I right to put in that "mere"? Why shouldn't art be decoration?

Artists' works are described as important, as agents of social change. That is, I've yet to walk into a gallery and been told that it held random bits of pretty fluff with which to decorate.

Art is a loaded term, so, despite my genius and discerning taste on so many levels, I won't attempt to define art here. But I'm intereseted in what you think. What do you want out of art? Casual amusement, to be moved, to be entertained, to think differently because of it? Have I elevated art to unrealistic ideals by expecting more than decoration out of it?



Poster art only?

Sam Leith defend books, I applaud

An uplifting and moral article by Sam Leith, the Literary Editor of The Daily Telegraph, a UK newspaper. In "Grand Theft Auto, Twitter and Beowulf all demonstrate that stories will never die," he defends the strength of the narrative in human culture to the delight of all writers and readers, with emphasis on the unfair attack on books by proponents of modern technology who feel books are antiquary repositories of knowledge.

Knowledge and stories come in many shapes and forms. My personal favorite form is a book, and not at all because I'm trying to write one. In anything, I'd say the book form and I have developed a healthy antagonism for just that reason. But the power of the narrative in its classic form is something I consider obvious.

I blog, but I by no means use this platform as write a long story. I use it to connect to other short pieces and to combine word with images and videos. It communicates in a different way by its medium, which is the point, I fancy, of Leith's piece, which I encourage all with old-fashioned bookish tastes to read.

In a twist on this, check out Pepys' Diary in online blog format, where each entry in the diary of Samual Pepys from the 1600s is posted daily, so you can follow his story in much the fashion it was written.