W 26th St - Home Within Home, Direct Path, Once More Once More

There are many reasons to see Do Ho Suh: Home Within Home. My favorite is the expertly rendered life-size fuse box made of embroidered sheer fabric, a small wall piece that could easily be overshadowed by the main event. That main event is Fallen Star 1/5, a massive model depicting Suh’s childhood home in Korea crashing Wizard-of-Oz style into his Providence home. The complete chaos of this collision is offset by the extreme detail with which the houses are crafted. Not to be outdone, the gallery’s back room almost glows with Home Within Home, an otherworldly melding of the two disparate homes in translucent resin. Suh invites us to explore the most intimate details of his homes, as mundane as they may be, and in doing so he shares a very personal, very special space.

 

Ronnie Landfield, who has a show up next-door at Stephen Haller Gallery, once described his process as follows: “Sometimes you completely lose yourself. Time goes by and you don’t even notice time going by. But by losing yourself you gain yourself. You become yourself. That’s when you’re alive.” Lucky for us, that life seems to have transitive properties. Landfield’s vibrant, leaping, rolling brushstrokes will make your whole day better. 

Carry that energy down the block to the very contemporary hand-drawn animation of Katie Armstrong at BravinLee. Once More Once More is a study in the power of American Pop culture. You have not truly heard the genius and melancholy of Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” until you have seen Armstrong’s cover. If you can’t make it to the gallery, you can click here to watch it on her website.  

(Side note: BravinLee is on the 2nd floor at 526 W 26th AKA Chelsea Arts Building. With over three-dozen galleries in the building, it can be an overwhelming undertaking. Peek in First Street Gallery and Andrea Meislin, which are also on the 2nd floor. If you do have a little time and the stamina to wander, let me know what other good shows you find!) 

If you’d rather use that time for a quick lunch, I’m with you! (Three galleries is kind of my max, anyway.) Head over to Trestle on Tenth for the frittata of the day. When they offer you still or sparkling bottled water on the house you’ll glance around the backyard garden and whisper, “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Manhattan anymore!” ...it’s a nice change of pace

Ingredients:

Venues: Lehmann Maupin; Stephen Haller; BravinLee

Artists: Do Ho Suh; Ronnie Landfield; Katie Armstrong

Streets: W 26th St, 10th-11th Aves

Eats: Trestle on Tenth

Map: