It's another NYVF! Episode #5

It's been rainy recently in NYC, so let's step inside the Met(Metropolitian Museum of Art) and view the the exhibition of John Baldessari's work, "Pure Beauty." This video by James Kalm* also includes the artist responding to questions from the interested crowd.

In 1970, he burned all his paintings created between 1953 and 1966. He baked the ashes into cookies.

"If I saw the art around me that I liked, then I wouldn’t do art." - John Baldessari

 

*James Kalm is a working artist living in Brooklyn New York. He has been an active critic for over twelve years writing for the controversial Brooklyn Rail http://brooklynrail.org/. For higher resolution videos, writings by James Kalm and views of the paintings of Loren Munk visit http://www.lorenmunk.com/.

Gormley and Gaudens

Since March, the Madison Square Park Conservancy has presented Antony Gormley's EVENT HORIZON, wherein thirty-one life-size sculptural self-portraits stand throughout the park and on the tops of local buildings, including the Flatiron and the New York Life Insurance Company.  One of my groups couldn't get past the fact that "you can see the man's doo-dah."

That reminded me that this isn't the first time visitors to Madison Square have craned their necks to gaze upon a human figure floating above the park.  New York City made national headlines in the 1890's when a sensational and scandalous nude by Augustus Saint Gaudens was unveiled as a weather vane for Stanford White's Madison Square Garden. 

What was the name of that statue?

Kalliopi Lemos at the Olympic Tower

During the tour season, one of my favorite places to sit and read near Fifth is in the atrium of the Olympic Tower.

It's a peaceful spot with the hushed sounds of a waterfall and features a coffee bar, accessible bathrooms and one of the city's most powerful hand dryers.  

Original plaster castings of marbles from the Parthenon also line the walls, and there's a small gallery for Hellenic art in the basement, a lounge to watch the World Cup every four years, and other temporary art displays.

This installation is entitled Perpetual Transitions and opened in July.  It was created by Kalliopi Lemos, a Greek artist living and working in London, who began making these beautiful boats in reed and plaster earlier in the decade. 

 

Update on Central Park Storm Damage

More than 200 trees were felled in that brief Tuesday storm. 

The Central Park Conservancy, already operating on a reduced budget, needs your help.

Storm Damage Update

 

"The staggering cost of clean-up is estimated at several hundred thousand dollars, but it is impossible to attach a monetary figure to some of the losses. "We had a wonderful chestnut tree at 100th Street and Central Park West," said Neil Calvanese, VP of Operations for the Central Park Conservancy. "Records indicate the tree was planted by the Park's designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, more than 150 years ago." The tree was devastated by the storm and will be removed."

To remind yourself how terrific the park is:

Teeny tidbyte from stormin' Cayce

Monday is a great day for a Saint(-Gaudens)!

In honor of the magnificent exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, we bring you a little history and some inspiration. Here's a lovely video from PBS to give a taste of Augustus Saint Gaudens:

For more info:

A New Yorker review of the Met Show

Thanks Justin Ferate (http://www.justinsnewyork.com) for these links!

Hold on,there's more:  to see the FIRST Saint-Gaudens in New York (and it's NOT in a museum) watch this:

A Sculptural tidbyte from statuesque Cayce, Bon Appetit!!

Roxy Paine on the Roof

I took groups to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on six different days in May and June.  On five of these days, the Roof Garden was closed because of rain.  (The torrential spring of 2009 will go down in infamy.)  On the sixth trip, however, the weather was gorgeous and since I was one of the first people inside the museum, the roof was all mine for about thirty minutes.

The sculpture built for this particular rooftop is entitled Maelstrom by Roxy Paine whose work you might remember in Madison Square two years ago. 

 

 

 

Maelstrom will be on the roof until October 25th.

Another Friend Climbs to the Top of St. John the Divine!!

Why do I always miss this opportunity?!?  This was my second invitation and again I had to decline.  Both times I was busy writing and couldn't spare the morning.

But I do envy my friends who have taken this exclusive tour.  Here are some pictures from Doug Nervik's fancy new phone:

 

The nave as seen during the climb up.  To give you a sense of proportion, those red squares in the middle in the middle of the photo are chairs.

 

A close-up of one of the recently cleaned stained glass windows.

 

A shot between the buttresses.

 

This last shot was taken in the attic, above the vaulted Guastavino ceiling.  Here you can see the tiles.  From down below, it's far too dark.  This is the vault above the crossing where the Statue of Liberty could comfortably stand.  (If she ever came down off her pedestal.)

The Hogwarts Raid of the Cloisters

I'm sure the majority of people who attended Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this weekend were as disturbed as I was to find the most famous of the Unicorn tapestries hanging at Hogwarts and not in the Cloisters where it belongs!  The art direction team selected the celebrated work to hang on the wall outside the Room of Requirement.  In the book, the tapestry that hangs there is a Rowling invention wherein Barnabas the Barmy is seen rehearsing trolls for a ballet.  In the movie, we see the Unicorn in Captivity:

 

For more on the Cloisters, watch our most recent Little Byte by scrolling down to yesterday's post.

Little Bytes Recommends: The New American Wing at the Met

For me, the new American wing at the Met was even more of a surprise than the opening of the spectacular Roman galleries two years ago.  Much of the Charles Engelhard Court is now floored with yellow marble.  A sunken area was retained on the northern end that allows visitors to examine some of the collection's marble statues before stepping up through the facade of the Branch Bank of the United States (which was first erected on Wall Street in the 1820's) to explore the newly renovated and refurbished period rooms, which look better than ever.  There's a glass elevator on the eastern side of the rooms and a brand new mezzanine-level balcony that literally adds another level of display space on the western end of the court.  One of the museum's better cafes still remains, tucked away obscurely below the new balcony, and the Visual Storage seems more welcoming and user friendly. 

If you can, visit this weekend.  I can also vouch for the amazing (beautifully disturbing) Francis Bacon retrospective.

Sadly, I can't vouch for the Roxy Paine installation on the roof, since the roof has been closed due to rain each of the last FOUR times I've been there.

Pictured:  Judy Krauss imitating Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. 

HOPE Is Coming to Times Square

No, people will still be sitting in lawn chairs, but starting tomorrow until next Wednesday, Robert Indiana's sculpture, HOPE, will be displayed at 44th and Broadway.  Read more about it and see a photo at the Gothamist. 

The picture here was taken three years ago with one of my groups from Brunswick, Georgia, in front of Indiana's LOVE sculpture on Sixth Avenue.

If You Missed the de Montebello Show, Take a Virtual Tour

 The fantastic show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Phillippe de Montebello Years:  Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions, closed this Sunday.  I visited several times, most recently on Friday, and was always entranced by something new.  The tribute, which was arranged in one of the larger exhibit spaces, was unique in the variety of objects on display.  There was no theme, no cultural or materialistic criteria to hold the items together.  These were simply objects acquired in the last thirty years from all eighteen departments of the museum, which meant that each room was almost cluttered with a mind blowing array of loot not likely to occupy the same room again.  One room, for example, held a Hauser guitar donated by Andres Segovia; a large Rothko painting; a bronze cast of Diana; the beautiful writing desk commissioned for Louis XIV; a marble bust of Robert Fulton; a flintlock gun from 1735; and a seven hundred-year-old silk tapestry from China depicting a Cosmological Mandala...just to name seven. 

Below are a few of the featured items.  For further information and to see many more of what came to the Met these last thirty years, visit their online catalog.

The only existing set (I believe) of medieval playing cards.

The teensy-weensy, o-how-did-those-Byzantines-make-their-art-without-going-blind pointer tip.

 

The AMAZING Autograph Quilt created by Adeline Harris Sears, a young woman from Rhode Island, who sent pieces of white silk to important world figures and asked for them to inscribe their names.  The autographs then went into her quilt.  Among those who obliged were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and seven presidents, including Abraham Lincoln.

The Striding Horned Demon, which the Met only acquired in 2007, and which dates back to the beginning of cities...in ancient Sumer around 3000 BC!!

The Duccio--arguably de Montebello's most publicized acquisition--dubbed the Mona Lisa of the Met.

This ridiculously elaborate French armoire I never liked. 

And this I either loved or hated depending on the day.

 

But I could never get enough of the van Gogh that hung to its left...it helped keep me warm this frigid winter.