W 24th St – Part 2 – For Now, Happy Medium, Junction, Cycle

There is simply too much going on on W 24th, so here is a second installment:

Richard Serra is having a moment. His drawings show at the Met was incredible (if you missed it, buy the book!), and he has two new massive sculptures at Gagosian. The gallery is touting Junction and Cycle as “two of [Serra’s] most complex and challenging works to date.” I don’t know about all of that, but Serra’s manipulation of space is pretty awesome. To weave your way through these colossal structures is to know their genius first hand.

Next you simply have to see For Now at Mary Boone, a super cool display of the amazing, wearable sculptures artist Nick Cave calls “Soundsuits.” The mix of resources and the construction of these inventive pieces are mind-blowing. Get excited for the show with this minute-long video. (No need for sound if you’re at the office.) Aren’t these suits inspiring in oh so many ways?!

Spend some time ogling the soundsuits (maybe even pop over to the concurrent show at Jack Shainman on 20th), but leave time to see Deborah Butterfield: New Work at Danese. Butterfield celebrates the majestic form of the horse through her masterful sculpture. She first “draws” the piece with found branches, and then casts it by burning away the wooden sculpture with molten bronze. Finally, she applies a patina to make it look deceptively like natural wood. It is simply baffling how she manages, throughout this process, to instill her subjects with such character and energy, especially using found branches! She must have quite a collection shocked up out in the old shed.

For lunch: The Red Cat. Grilled Salmon Nicoise or Barbequed Corned Beef Sandwich. You’re worth it. 

Ingredients:

Venues: Mary Boone; Danese; Gagosian

Artists: Nick Cave; Deborah Butterfield; Richard Serra

Streets: W 24th St, 10th – 11th Aves

Eats: The Red Cat

Map:

W 24th St - New! PLAYCONICS, Double Crescent, Brooklyn Bronx Queens

West 24th Street, specifically the block between 10th & 11th Aves, has a disproportionately high concentration of VIP art galleries, and C24 is the new kid on the block. This gallery's ballsy mission is to bring new energy to the New York art scene starting with this, their inaugural show. Double Crescent: Art from Istanbul and New Orleans is exactly as it sounds, a massive compilation of work by emerging and established artists from these disparate regions. The highlight for me is a mesmerizing video montage of a clerk stamping through stacks of papers by Ali Kazma. You’ve simply got to see it! Bruce Davenport Jr’s marker and pencil drawings of NoLa marching bands are also pretty incredible.

One glimpse through the massive glass windows next door at Galerie Richard will draw you right in. (Incidentally, this is also an inaugural show, marking the Paris gallery’s New York debut.) PLAYCONICS is Paul Henry Ramirez’s mischievously fun mash-up of bright geometric shapes and abstracted male and female unmentionables. His vibrant, fluid compositions are like party shots: guaranteed to put a spring in your step.

Skip on down to Lyon Wier and behold the powerful, regal women of Bronx • Brooklyn • Queens. Painter Tim Okamura celebrates the “royal” status of New York’s urban women by focusing on their expressive faces and presenting their portraits amid urban graffiti motifs. In the particularly emotional HMS he transcribes a haiku by Japanese poet Hokushi:

ashes my burnt hut

but wonderful the cherry

blooming on my

hill

There are a ton shows opening in NYC right now and this block has some real winners. As you make your way crosstown, jot down all the galleries you’d like to come back to. (Even if you don't have the time to make it back, you can at least check out their websites.) Then, head over to Co. for the Stracciatella pizza pie. Yum.  

Ingredients:

Venues: C24; Galerie Richard; Lyon Wier

Artists: Ali Kazma; Bruce Davenport Jr.; Paul Henry Ramirez; Tim Okamura

Streets: W 24th St, 10th - 11th Aves

Eats: Co.

Map:

MoMA PS1 - September 11

Sunday was hard. There is just no getting around that. While the anniversary of the September 11th attacks is a difficult, emotional, confusing topic, institutions citywide threw their hats in the ring in an effort to help you “Never Forget.” The resulting disjointed, multi-tonal chorus of personal accounts, horrifying images and formal tributes felt like a nightmare from which you cannot wake, much like the day itself. Last week, you could not buy a pack of gum from the bodega without being confronted by half a dozen 9/11-dedicated magazine covers. Today those weeklies are back to their usual grind, the media coverage assuaged, but the related gallery and museum shows remain. They offer an important opportunity to observe and reflect minus the drone of news anchors. 

What is it, exactly, that we are supposed to be remembering? For me, it is a blur of terror and confusion and sorrow (and hope?). Undeniably, everything changed that day in 2001, if in no other way than a change in perspective, and September 11 at MoMA PS1 is a smartly curated consideration of that fact. In the context of a show with this title, William Eggleston’s Untitled (Glass in Airplane) from The Los Alamos Portfolio, 1965-1974 is a haunting image, an eerie calm before the storm. Lying in front of Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Questions) from 1991, Cristo’s Red Package (1968)  seems to be clearly referencing a Red Cross gurney. Alex Katz’s 10:00AM, a reflection of trees on calm water from 1994, is like the New Yorker cover reflecting the WTC towers in the river.     

The subtle power of PS1’s show is in the way the context redefines these artworks. Perhaps you know that War Is Over! (if you want it) is a 1970’s John & Yoko response to the Vietnam War, but you’ll likely think of another war when you see it here. Spend some time pondering that shift in perception and you might come up with your own definition of what we are never to forget. 

After such a heavy show, take a head-clearing walk and seek comfort food among the freshly baked pastries and delicious coffee at Sweetleaf. Or gorge yourself on a burrito grande from The Creek and The Cave. Tonight, remember to thank your lucky stars, again...

Ingredients:

Venue: MoMA PS1

Artists: William Eggleston, Barbara Kruger, Cristo, Alex Katz, Various Artists

Streets: Jackson Ave, Long Island City, Queens

Eats: Sweetleaf, The Creek and The Cave

Map:

Orchard St – Mapping, Anxiety & If You See Something…

Last night the Lower East Side was abuzz with gallery openings, and, despite the rainy weather, hipsters were spilling out onto the streets. Curious about when the LES became the go-to ‘hood for art galleries? Loren Munk is here to educate. His Location, Location, Location, Mapping the New York Art World, at Lesley Heller, is a quirky, skillful exploration and explanation of the history of the NYC art scene. Case in point: Village of the Damned 2004-2005 (below). As an added bonus, check out Munk’s website for his virtual tour series, The James Kalm Report, which is strangely engaging in its unpredictability and breadth of information.  

Next door at Scaramouche Seher Shah’s Object Anxiety is a starkly different type of show. It is a black-and-white study of the impact of Brutalist architecture on public space. As they stand, Shah finds these angular, concrete structures overly authoritarian. She delicately deconstructs and reimagines, breaking them down into striking geometric forms.

With a more direct comment on corruption, Invisible Exports presents Lisa Kirk If You See Something… From her paintball paintings to her video installations, Kirk creates and contemplates images of war and violence. To say the mood is unsettling would be an absurd understatement. In a silent video two stoic newscasters comment on a clip of footage eerily similar to that of abused detainees at Abu Ghraib. This is likely taken from Kirk’s Backyard Adversaries, currently screening on Governers Island, for which she filmed four children “playing Abu Ghraib.” How did she find children (and their parents!) willing to participate? She posted an ad on Craigslist.

Hopefully watching kids play “terrorist torture” hasn’t ruined your appetite. It is lunch, after all, and Little Giant (on the corner of Orchard & Grand) offers a delicious, freshly made, locally sourced selection of the S’s (soups, salads, sandwiches). The asparagus soup and red quinoa salad are personal faves, though you pretty much can’t go wrong.   

Ingredients:

Venues: Lesley Heller; Scaramouche; Invisible-Exports

Artists: Loren Munk; Seher Shah; Lisa Kirk

Streets: Orchard St between Grand & Canal Sts

Eats: Little Giant

Map:

59th St – Museum of Art & Design - Otherworldly

Despite this gloomy weather, NYC is in full tilt back-to-school mode, and there are tons of exciting shows opening in the next few weeks. (I know, I’m super excited, too!) Take a second, though, to make sure you don’t miss any of those lingering summer stars. For example, have you seen Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities at MAD? It's mind-blowing! Seriously, see it, and your understanding of the word "diorama" will be forever changed. 

Otherworldly spotlights artists like Matthew Albanese (above) and Peter Feigenbaum (below) who create obsessively intricate miniatures and then photograph them. As Albanese explains, the models are simply a means to an end, where the end is a series of bewitchingly realistic images. His weeping willow scene (made of hand-dyed ostrich feathers and cooked sugar, among other things) is breathtaking, and MAD presents the diorama alongside the photographs for added wow factor. Likewise, Feigenbaum’s streetscapes are hauntingly real. His models are so thoroughly researched and expertly rendered you will swear his photos are of actual cities, you know, except for the unsettling hole in the drywall/sky… Super neat!

In a somewhat opposite progression, painter Gregory Euclide's 

held within what hung open and made to lie without escape features an expertly painted landscape in a traditional gilded frame spilling out across the gallery floor. Like a doll coming to life after hours in a toy store, this landscape leaps from the canvas and out the window across the Central Park treetops in astonishing detail. Basically every piece in Otherworldy (which is only up through Sept 18) will leave you marveling, “How did they do that?!” The detail work is awesome and the materials used are ingenious.

After your mind has been blown at MAD, you’ll need some sustenance. There is no question that the best lunch in the area is at Bouchon Bakery. I mean, their grilled cheese sandwich (served with tomato soup) was voted among Serious Eats’ “22 Sandwiches that will change your life!” If you are like me, though, and you’d rather try someplace new, check out AQ Kafé. Their chicken salad sandwich is not quite life-altering, but, with fennel, apples and cran-walnut bread, it’s pretty darn good. Which would you choose?     

Ingredients:

Venue: MAD

Artists: Matthew Albanese, Amy Bennett, James Casebere, Mat Collishaw, Bethany de Forest, Thomas Doyle, Gregory Euclide, Joe Fig, Peter Feigenbaum, Patrick Jacobs, Kim Keever, Frank Kunert, David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton, Ji Lee, Chris Levine, Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz, Didier Massard, Charles Matton, Michael McMillen, Lori Nix, David Opdyke, Liliana Porter, Jonah Samson, Charles Simonds, Michael Paul Smith, Tracey Snelling, Paolo Ventura, and Alan Wolfson, among others.

Streets: 59th St & Broadway

Eats: Bouchon Bakery; AQ Kafe

Map: