Mylar and Tara Donovan

Untitled, 2009

Tara Donovan is known for taking ordinary materials, like rolls of mylar tape, and creating beauty out of what was commonplace. I saw this work, Untitled 2009, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art recently and was just as blown away by what she had created here as I was when I first saw her wall installation of mylar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008. Tis a transformation devoutly to be wished, for all our perceptions of the ordinary to expand to see the beauty in it.

Interesni Kazki's Surreal Street Art

Through a tweet of a tweet of a tweet that I lost track of somewhere, I came across some fantastic street art  from Kiev, according to the post from one of the handful of street artists in Ukraine:

"We don't see much street art coming out of Eastern Europe, but these surreal street murals by Kiev-based Interesni Kazki rank up there with some of the best in the world.

"There is no street art scene in our country, says Waone and Aec, who make up the two man group. "[The] Ukrainian street art scene is represented by less than 5 people."

"We can define our art as street art or muralism with graffiti roots. The working process by itself inspires me. The more I create, the more ideas I get," says Waone."

I love the fantastic colors and smooth style of these projects. The one below fits into its environment playfully and smoothly, becoming a refreshing surprise in an otherwise plain landscape--which is exactly what street art should be.

Whew...blog posts to date=

Now that's a lot of posts. I think I'll rest on my laurels today, and by resting on my laurels I mean work really hard to wrap things up at my old job before moving on to the new. I came across a great opportunity to do marketing for a publisher and I'm happy to say I accepted a job offer last week!  I'm very excited for some of the changes in store, but in the meantime I need to roll up my sleeves a bit.

Happy Monday!

15,145 Pages. No, I'm not talking about Dickens or Proust.

15, 145 pages. Several hundred drawings. It was hardly what the landlords of Henry Darger expected to find in their deceased tenant's room. Darger had an uneventful life of poverty and janitorial work, so his long novel and extremely detailed drawings charting the wild adventures of his favorite characters, the Vivian girls, were quite the surprise. I watched the awesome PBS documentary "In the Realms of the Unreal," which charts the biography of Henry Darger and how his life affected his writings and drawings.

Among his various works, including a biography, he is famous for the 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco- Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. Darger's work has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art. It shows the power of imagination and obsessiveness over the humblest circumstances. 

To my joy, I was walking by the American Folk Art Museum yesterday, and saw that they are currently showing an exhibition called Up Close: Henry Darger and Coloring Books. What luck!

Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures

Remember that you will die: Death across Cultures is probably one of the nicest exhibitions I've seen in a while, combing East and West, art and craft, history and culture as it does in a small but rich way. The Rubin Museum of Art is creating a top notch space for the art of the Himalayas in a way that draws connections and entices the viewer to learn more. Top skull and left skull pocket watch of European origin. Right, Lord of the Charnal Grounds mask used by dancers and below image of hellfires of Eastern origin. The different memento mori are rather more similar across cultures than one might think. All present death in terrifying aspect. The image below only solidifies the horror-- o the horror!

However, as the museum notes, "Yes, you will die. But at least you can write about it." And thus they offer a very fun essay contest that will let you take a stab at death, if only with a pen. I'm planning on entering myself. 

New and Old: Uta Barth at Tanya Bodaker

...to walk without destination and to see only to see. (Untitled 10.1)

...to walk without destination and to see only to see. (Untitled 10.2)

...to walk without destination and to see only to see. (Untitled 10.3)

...to walk without destination and to see only to see. (Untitled 10.4)

This new series of photographs by Uta Barth on view at the Tanya Bonakdar gallery is a contemplative, lovely, very contemporary body of work. I love how there is a sense of process suggested by the similar subject over time and season. Initially, I didn't connect these large, color works as the product of the same artist who created the small, black and white photos in the back room, which seemed more concerned with negative space than lyricism. Yet Barth created both, albeit 30 years apart. Do I like them both? Yes of course. If I had to choose a faovorite however, the group of small black and white photographs Every Day, below, carries the day with me...by far! Click on the image to enlarge it and get a sense of the playful capture of the everyday and the beautifully framed shots.

Every Day

All Images are courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

Linnea in Monet's Garden

Nympheas, 1907

Of course you have heard the hype and of course you like Monet, so if you haven't heeded the call to go see Monet's Late Work on view at Gagosian's 21st street location, yet let me repeat them all and say: Go now. It's cheaper than a museum (free) and shows works that museums rarely do (privately-owned). This being one of my first art excursions upon being back in New York, I was more than a little gleeful to find myself surronded by these late, great works. They are strangely wild, more so than you might give "pretty" Monet credit for. And the colors!

The colors almost beg you to paint, even if you should be someone like me: more of an enthusiast than an artist. From a distance all seems serene, giving an impression of reality. Up close, things in the pictures fall apart and you become filled with wonder at a surface that contains so many contradictions.

At least that was the joyful effect it had on me, reminding me as it did of Linnea in Monet's Garden.There are few Linneas in the US and certainly very few in Georgia where I grew up so as a child, which is why I was given a copy of this book about once a year in honor of my name. However my trips to Paris have unfortunately been when the Orangerie hosting Monet's circular water lily series was closed. Here I was finally in Monet's garden.

L'Allee de Rosiers, 1920-1922

While I have been to the real garden of Monet in Giverny, it's beauty doesn't compare with the artist's work. Somehow in the process of seeing and painting the same sights for so many years, Monet arrived a point in his later years when his paintings were so patently not about the object itself but about his experience with them, his experience with the paint, his desire for the right color, that he no more heeded his eyes than he did contemporary painting styles. He painted, as it were, from the heart, from years of experience, and with great love. It is a beautiful thing to see.

Kiki Smith at Pace Gallery

Lodestar, Kiki Smith's current show at Pace Gallery in Chelsea, features paintings on glass panels in black metal frames, arranged as a grouping that tells of the cycle of a woman's life. The images run from young to old to the encoffined, often posed alone or sitting. Images of a single tree and bare branch enhance the sense of isolation. The monochromatic palette has a milky glow and the etched and rough style creates an earthy rather than ethereal environment.


Certainly the grouping seen as a whole is more powerful than any one image. I wan't sure I liked Smith, but walking through this exhibition yesterday felt contemplative and rather touching. Perhaps this was merely because there were few people around on a Wednesday morning, but I greatly enjoyed having the run of the place and appreciated her work the better for it. Lodestar runs concurrently with Smith's exhibition Sojourn at the Brooklyn Museum, but only through June 17--so hurry if you want to catch it.

Nature's First Green is Gold

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

This poem by Robert Frost was running through my head as I was hiking and camping the Appalachian trail this weekend. Now that I am back in the city and all the greens have been replaced by grays (sky, sidewalks, buildings), the wealth of green seems all the more precious and fleeting. In my mind, they seems as glittering and varied as they do in Klimt's The Park, a riot of densely undulating color.

My New Habitat

is a bit of a strange one, or at least not what you imagine initially for someone is living in New York. At the moment I am staying with family in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, sometimes called Little Odessa, which is just down the boardwalk from Coney Island with its famous amusement park. The Cyclone is one of the last wooden rollercoasters left and it is certainly one of the most jarring.

Stepping off the train here I'm only a block from the boardwalk and beyond that is the ocean. It is immediately relaxing. The pace of life suits a suburb, which it certainly is being an hour by train from Manhattan. I've been commuting back and forth for almost a month now and I assure you it is a long ride. Between that and not having internet at home, I'm planning on packing up my suitcase again in the near future.


But for this little piece of summer, it's a fantastic place to be. Living here makes me feel that my travels are not over, for its boasts a unique, sometimes campy, bizarre mix of elements. In fact, its mix of cultures and customs it might be more typical"New York" than I realized.

Photographs via Racoles on Flickr.

Video Killed the Art Star

I have not had a TV since I moved out of my parent's house to go to college. At this point, it is a lifestyle choice, one that saves me from countless hours mindlessly flipping through channels and watching a rerun just for the sake of having something to watch. This has been a good decision for me on the whole. Add to this the ability to watch certain programs of choice via the internet, and I'm totally set. However, there are exceptions.

It began when I first realized how awesome the PBS series Art:21 is. How awesome is it? AWESOME. Then I kept hearing people mention a documentary called Herb & Dorothy, about a pair of art collectors called the Vogels (also PBS). Now, as you might have picked up from the clip above, there is a reality TV show called Work of Art, planned along the lines of Project Runway, for artists and Jerry Saltz is one of the judges. Certainly there is a movement from seriousness to frivolity in my exceptions but I would love to check it out--despite the ridiculous nature of a reality TV show based around art challenges. It airs tonight at 11 pm on Bravo. Or, for those sanctimonious fools without televisions, it is expected to be available on Hulu tomorrow.

More details on contestants here.

Keys to the City

From now until June 27, you can have the key to New York city, and unlike all the keys given to dignitaries and such, this one will actually open things. Creative Time with Paul Ramirez Jones has organized Key to the City, a public art project that has you out and about unlocking secrets with a artist-designed key. The key will unlock places across the five boroughs, including doors at the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and other exciting locations. Pick up your key at Times Square and let me know what you find!

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Portraits of the Artists

Albert Camus

Some people look exactly like you would imagine them to based on their work. With others, putting a face to a name gives you a rather different insight into who they are (or at least how they look). Cartier-Bresson's portraits of a range of artists, writers, and other creators are perceptive and honest. Each one appears to be that iconic shot you forever associate with the name.

Truman Capote

Marcel Duchamp

Henri Matisse

Alexander Calder

Colette with Her Companion Pauline

Any surprises in here? I love the photograph of Matisse, yet surrounded by birds and well-wrapped up is not at all how I imagined the artist. All photographs are from the Portrait section of Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century at MoMA through June 28. This extensive exhibition is a fantastic one to stroll through and remember yet again why Cartier-Bresson remains such a beloved and respected photographer.

I love her spiders: Louise Bourgeois

I do love her spiders and I love the personality that worked right up to all of 98 years old. May we all be inspired to keep working for so long. It had me digging through the archives for my trip to Dia:Beacon last year.

Louise Bourgeois' Spiders

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

"My work has always been a recording of my emotions. It’s not a concept that I’m after, but an emotion that I want to keep or destroy. All of my sculptures have the sense of vulnerability and fragility. Sexuality is one theme tied to those two states of being." --Bourgeois, 2006 interview

Continued here.

Seville, Spain. 1933

A favorite from Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century at MoMA.