Today we fly home to Brisbane. We were able to spend a relaxing morning taking in some of the icons of New York. A nice way to wrap up our trip. Again, I am so grateful to have been given this opportunity that I will remember forever. I have some ideas on how to respond to this experience and will post its development.
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Talk about saving the best til last. This gallery was amazing. The building and the artwork. I highly recommend the trip across to this gallery if you even remotely enjoy art! The building is an old primary school converted to the exhibition spaces it is. If there was a museum I wish I could have access to all the time, this would be it. The flat side of the knife (2015?), Everyday objects, video, sounds, foam insulation board etc. Samara Golden. This room was like an Escher drawing in the real with mirrors that reflected the under-surface rooms the artist built. On the information board she mentions she described her installation as a 'sixth sense' and 'maybe we can see that this kind of door is possible, but we don't yet know how to cross its threshold'.
Spent most of the day at MoMA and this was blissful. Eyes in heaven. Seeing new ideas and clever ways of presenting them. Seeing old ideas and concepts (e.g. Yoko Ono) and how they still resonate with todays audiences. Somebody mentioned to me right before I left to go to New York, their affection for Alexander Calder's work. I could not immediately make the connection between artist and work in my mind. So on coming to New York, Calder's work seemed to be everywhere. I love it when this happens - there is always more to be learning.
Some titles I picked up at the MoMA book store and a print picked up from an artist (or conman...not sure) outside of MoMA on the street (fabrikaouch.com). Both these books are full of quotes. The sort of thing that keeps me encouraged and motivated to keep doing what I do.
I subwayed back up to the Metropolitan who holds Friday night drawing sessions in the galleries. Jessica Housten, led this group I was part of through mark making while sitting in front of a master piece. She told us to imagine ourselves in a state of our choosing. I decided to imagine my determined journey through today criss-crossing the city, so that I would not go home regretting not seeing some of the things I did. It seemed a bit frantic but it fed this drawing I did while sitting in front of a Cy Twombly. It does not get much better than this. I had planned on having a cocktail on this rooftop café at the Met, but it is just not the same without you Marty! It was nice to watch others enjoying each others company.
Seeing as I was not going to see Woman in Gold, I figured it was my time to see a spectacular view of Manhattan with the Empire State Building in the foreground. So back down to 5th Avenue between 49th and 50th Street.
Went back to New York Central Art Supply to pick up some etching inks to use when I get home. Looking forward to getting into these tins. This is where my feet started to hurt, so I used the subway from here onwards. I trained it up to the Neue Gallerie on the upper East side to see Gustav Klimt's 'Woman in Gold' only to be told it was closed to a private party for today only and I should come back tomorrow. Oh man!
There was not a chance I was coming back to New York and missing out on seeing this museum. I was fortunate enough to come here a year ago and was so moved by the exhibition then, I ended up doing an assignment on the then artists work - Pawet Althamer (whose work was at the Guggenheim posted a few days ago). This exhibition is work by German artist Albert Oehlen (b.1954) 'Home and Garden'.
Information board '...work ...oscillated between figuration and abstraction, a dynamic that Oehlen constantly renews through the creation of rules and limitations that yield unpredictable results. Through the process, he has managed to reinvigorate seemingly exhausted genres of painting like portraiture, collage, and gestural abstraction. His work encapsulates both scepticism of and faith in painting in the face of shifting critical positions and technological innovations'. This is the kind of work and working process I needed to see on this trip to New York to stimulate me into the next phase of my artistic work. Painting and printmaking is what I am most naturally drawn to, so to use paint as a critical medium in new ways is tricky to find. Old building on the corner of Bowery Street and Spring Street, layered in random marks. Walking between Eldridge Street Museum and The New Museum on Bowery Street. I saw these birds and words several times around the city....in pursuit of magic 'two female street artists on a crusade to elevate consciousness and amplify meaning in the world'. I love this.
I walked from the Whitney Museum down to this museum at 12 Eldridge Street on the Lower East side. It was great to see the landscape of the buildings change walking through the different neighbourhoods into this Asian part of the city where most shop front and advertising signage I could not read anymore. This Jewish Synagogue is tucked away in its restored beauty in its now Asian neighbourhood. It is stunning. My photo's here really do not do it justice. There was so much light streaming through the stained glass window that you will need to google it to see what it really looks like! "Every square inch of the sanctuary is covered with pattern or texture, reflecting the Victorian aesthetic of Horror Vacui, or fear of the unadorned space" - Jeffrey Greene, Evergreene Painting Studios. (This was written on one of the information panels). The patterns below where just how one of the stairwells was decorated. Again, part of what was written on an information panel. 'This double sided tzedakah box (above) was mounted on a wall dividing the entry to the men's weekday chapel and the women's area, providing opportunity for all to make a charitable donation. Each of the six slots was marked for a separate philanthropic cause, one for each day of the week when worshippers would be carrying money'.
Again, so much good artwork, how to choose my favourites.... You need to go here yourselves to soak it up. After viewing at the Whitney, the group broke up and there was free time to explore the things we were most interested in.
I started the day at the Whitney Museum with the tour group. This was a beautiful building the museum was established by female artist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney for artists in 1914 - on the wall it wrote that the studio 'was disdained by the conservative establishment....served as a social and creative hub for its artist-members', and supported by artistic director Juliana Force. Anyway, the museum has outgrown its space several times since its opening and this latest building opened at the beginning of May this year. Purpose built.
One of the tourist things I did want to do while I was here was go to the top of the Rockefeller building. First try - low visibility and they were not taking people up, second try - booked out until 10.10 p.m. tonight and I have sore feet. I wonder if I will get a third time lucky. Anyway, I have at least appreciated the grand entrance and the famous photograph of the workers sitting on a beam way up in the sky while the building was being built.
Elise warmly invited us into her home apartment/studio to have a look at how she lives and works. She is the real deal. She recently had an article published about her work in The New Yorker.
Elise showed us around some of the Chelsea Galleries. These were a few gems. |
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