It's getting harder and harder to take the kid to the galleries. He's at the age where every conversation requires debate team experience; which I don't have. I try to reason, not debate and I'm losing. Art is a battle that can't be lost with him, it's too important to me. Give me strength!
Richard Serra Gagosian Gallery, NYC 2011
So I've started to pick gallery shows based on the appeal to a 9 year old. This past Saturday was a win, well not so fast, first we started at Lisa Yuskavage at David Zwirner gallery which is open through November 5, 2011, I've always liked Yuskavage's work, lush colors, the dreamy playfulness, but as soon as we entered the gallery I saw really large beasts on the far reaching wall, I put my hand out, "Wait here", I forgot that her work isn't appropriate for the kid. I viewed the show alone, he waited in the front of the gallery and we're already off to a bad start. He immediately expressed the desire to go home. "Wait, I promise the next show is great!"
We headed to Gagosian Gallery on 24th street to see Richard Serra's Junction / Cycle (through November 26th)
I consider space to be a material. The articulation of space has come to take precedence over other concerns. I attempt to use sculptural form to make space distinct.
– Richard Serra
We stayed for about an hour, looked at the surfaces, walked in and out of the sculptures and I left with vertigo.
We headed to the Highline, but on the way the kid spotted a show that's wasn't on the list and I oblige, this made me happy, he was showing interest. Immediately after we walked through the door we smelled pencils. It actually smelled like a pencil factory. Poppie's collages, made entirely of dissected pencils, felt very appropriate for the kid being that it's September and he's started back to school. The pencils looked so cool that the kid wanted to buy one, but the pieces started at $ 3,000.
I wrote this post a week ago, but it's been hard to find time to post these days, life is good, really good and it's about damn time, but I'm determined to keep this blog going, so bear with me.
So it was the first Thursday in September and that means openings in abundance in Chelsea, Yeah!
The kid once commented that "going to Chelsea on Thursday opening nights was like Halloween for adults, you go door to door and instead of candy there's wine, you see some cool things, people dressed up and then you go home with new ideas." Come on you cool kids it's September, it's Back to Art!
But why did I think it would be easy, huh? I wanted to take the kid. It was his first day of school, he already had homework, he really didn't smell so good from all the first day running around, he needed a shower before I would even consider sitting in a taxi with him, so we headed out late and the traffic grew by leaps and bounds as we headed west. Unfortunately, we arrive at 8pm which is usually the closing time on opening night, but Chelsea was still bustling and it appeared nothing was closing any time soon, but just in case I asked the friends we were meeting, "We have time for one show. What should we see?" No question, it's unanimous, Do Ho Suh at Lehmann maupin Gallery. And they mention Tilda Swinton was seen in the gallery, we bolt!
Do Ho Suh, fallen star 1/5 (Suh's childhood home in Korea collides with his new found home in Rhode Island where he attended RISD)
"I wanna carry my house, my home with me all the time, like a snail" Do Ho Suh
Do Ho Suh, Fallen Star 1/5 detail...(Looking in, looking out)
Do Ho Suh, Fallen Star 1/5, detail..(look at the detail in this room)
Do Ho Suh, Fallen Star 1/5 detail, cross section (Needless to say the kid is mesmerized)
"In my work, I can let other people see things differently" Do Ho Suh
Do Ho Suh, Specimen Series
Do Ho Suh, Specimen Series
Do Ho Suh, Specimen Series
Do Ho Suh, Specimen Series
I'm not going to tell you all about Do Ho Suh the artist, I'm just learning about him myself, but you can find more info at the gallery link above and you can watch this insightful interview with SUH on PBS Video Art:21 (Do Hu Suh's interview starts at 27:50 minutes)
If you're in NYC GO SEE THIS SHOW! (Home Within Home closes October 22, 2011)
Do Ho Suh, Home Within Home
PBR on the floor of the gallery (Obviously, time to leave)
The Tower's shadows reaching out to Brooklyn at Sunset 1997
I questioned myself today whether I wanted to post anything about 9/11/01 and after watching the many names read this morning, the answer was yes. 9/11 was a devastating day for all Americans, but I feel it was even more so for us New Yorkers. We could see, hear, smell and even taste it. Even if you didn't know someone missing from the Towers, as a New Yorker, you felt you had lost someone and you did, the living breathing Towers had been lost. Whether you liked the design of the Towers or not or what they stood for they were an undeniably strong symbol of this city and an anchor of the skyline. I still see them every time I cross the bridges or fly over Manhattan. I miss them terribly and I'm still shaken by the way they were taken away, the many lives lost and the loss of security we felt, even if it was felt falsely, there could be no greater loss than the loss that was felt that day.
South Tower Observation Deck
My late husband worked in building 4 World Trade Center. I didn't loose him that day, I lost him years later to Cancer, but he loved those towers. It was devastating to watch them burn that morning. He mingled down by the buildings in disbelief taking pictures just as I knew he would, so when the first tower fell as myself and the other passengers saw through the front window of a M5 bus we were riding down 5th Avenue, I thought I would never see him again. Fighter jets were now flying above us and the bus driver, with tears in his eyes, stopped the bus at 22nd street and told us he couldn't drive any further and we'd have to walk from there. There are no words to describe the fear of that walk home, from the step on to the pavement off the bus to our empty apartment and the long wait before he walked through the door pale as a ghost, glass shards in his neck with random papers that he had found blowing in the wind gripped tightly in his hands, he didn't talk for hours. And so began the obsession with 9/11/01.
My husband and his sister looking off the South Tower observation deck
Every one of us has a story of how that day unfolded and perhaps is still haunting us.
Patti Smith at the 9.11 Babelogue opening, Hunter College
"The Towers are gone and the skin of our sky is wounded", Patti Smith, Twin Death, (9.11 Babelogue)
Plane Folded Flight 11, 175 2002 Patti Smith 9.11 Babelogue
My very dear friend Michelle Yun curated this wonderful show of Patti Smith's response to 9.11, being shown for the first time in New York in it's entirety, 9.11 Babelogue will be on view at The Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery at Hunter CollegeSeptember 7th - December 3, 2011
The kid and I attended the opening and with the catalog (which is stunning by the way) from the show in hand I noticed a few people reaching out to Smith for a signature and I thought to myself I would love for her to sign my copy to my late husband. It just felt like something I had to do for him and for a keep sake for my son. After a brief conversation I asked if she would sign the book to him and she replied with "I lost my husband too and that's something I would do." It was a wonderful connection with her in that moment as a woman, mother and widow.
To Quentin
sing to me tonight, I need a song to help me sleep...
...Every lullaby needs to find it's night, and so we send our love into the night, ya never that far, ya never that far and so my lover keep you there, I'll keep you in my heart, it's not that bad, don't sleep so sad, cause it's not that bad, so don't sleep so sad...Jonathan Keevil, Baby Fin
