Yes. 7.
8.
N..something like that. You told me the same story later when …
The Fisher King story.
I think I shouted. NO. Screamed something at you. Screamed because you had left and …!!!!!............I thought I knew everything. No. Not really. But I wanted to know everything but …F IT I couldn’t. I could've but I couldn't! I just wanted to hit you and hit you and hit you....and
Asia Week is for the most part full of some of our greatest anonymous sculptors/carpenters/ceramicists of all time. It so easily could be taken for granted in our publicity driven age. No names to interview. No stories, as such. Just utter awe.
When there are names they are to be reckoned with. Perhaps that is what Asian Art makes special. The yin and the yang. The warrior and the peacemaker. The loner, the peasant, the official. The adviser, concubine, empress. Outcast. I longed to know when Qi Baishi painted his Sunrise? Did it matter. Yes and no. We debated in front. Is it REAL? Does it matter, we are not talking money. Boring. ! Of course it matters. But or reasons ...only for the soul. And that has no price. We are talking something much more ...special: 智. The catalogue stated 1919. It is the equal of Monet. Anyone wanting to buy that for my collection is ay will to do so. But there is also life for $750,000!
Photo ©2017 Andrew Lucre- you can steal it but there is a Tang horse after you ridden by Teddy Roosevelt, no less;) ! Don't mess...the music of the night................the sculpture is © Lee Ufan. All the mermaids happy...;) no: I know ...but just pretend....it's all just a bit of earth at the end of the day.
Mr Lee U. is alive and well, available for interviews to process his mind;) ! One must give credit for Sèvres (who...just one of the greatest porcelain manufacturers of all long past time for taking interest in not so passed young talent.)
Is this 'guy' a guardian lion, a bulldog, a seal....any thoughts on him/her tonight. Just because she wears a mane doesn't mean he doesn't wear killer Gucci heels, ok..a little far but ...TRUE;) ! J.J. Lally & Co. Everything there is to die for ...welll.....it is a very small gallery space but nothing not perfectly formed....ok- disclosure: I got myself draped around the guardian lion at mine own risk. And no photo disclosure. I am now dreaming Jesuits. Who could that be right?! The spirits have a knack of.....I guess i need some more Vodka! Good excuse Marty...
Ja, ja.
love to Sèvres....
Ask Yourself Why...
this is totally tbc and unfinished...but I always fulfill my contracts..;) so here's a play-off that could never be called anything but the title credit. (How much vodka can one drink without without telling the beauty and the damned...) How are you N. K. ...TMI... my website! l Love!!!!
I have to say something. I have to say something: in this age of carelessness at 2.37pm in the morning. I wish I had written Peter Allen's lyrics. His songs. He spoke to to the entire world. Not just to an elite... He spoke from the heart. The soul. That is a rare if not impossible gift to find these days...
may that we that are young and feel so old wake up to that Aurora/Sophie/Johann/....how many do u really want arund a .....
Skin ! - ( a few more crucial final lyrics were omitted thanks to ...growin; up'!)
Wish we could all play alto-sax like THIS
Asia Week: so pleased today at Christie's' talks hearing someone with an opinion that was worth hearing. Not elitist talk: so many opinions and bleatings and grrings in NY and America, but really. How many are that worth listening to? A lot of noise and fury signifying...? I know: everyone deserves a voice. But deserving and capturing an audience are two very different things. Not just capturing but empowering an audience. Usefully criticizing the people who could make your life difficult is brave-even when an old man. Museum curators, museum trustees.
That someone had trudged from 90 degree Los Angeles' temps to freezing NY. Dr Pratapaditya Pal.
He praised America for its globalism in Asian art. Bemoaned (euphemism) America's spoken but technically non-legal un-written law of importing Asian art after 1970 (apart from ivory- a different issue). He lamented that the great museum donors throughout the decades wooed, thence unheralded, forgotten when they and their money/collections were finally prised away from them. Floating finally with all the other fishes. Denman Waldo Ross was one great Asian art donor in Boston. Dr Pal found an oil portrait relegated to a museum basement-John Singer Sergeant no less-a charcoal here. He discovered a lot lot more.
It's not an old world view. I chatted with a collector in front of a de-accessioned Bass Museum bronze at Christies tonight- that Miami museum has been deaccessioning great works of every era for the past year or so. Was that such a one to keep? Perhaps not. Dr Pal had the sound bite of the decade today, though, when he spoke of museum trustees and curators who didn't show interest and loyalty in their predecessors. Don't sell off museum assets that you will never get the chance again to buy at that price: "find your own money". Of course, then again, people make mistakes and, and, and- deaccessioning is not entirely bad. But who makes those decisions? And are they made with the greatest expertise? Scholarship rather than asset management.
Provocative Dr. Pal. Would that we so old and lived so young.
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun
Is that true of the 2017 Whitney Biennial?
The thing about Whitney nowadays is they are not afraid to fail. They aren't quite prepared to take a leap over a giant puddle of mud and get splattered but they are very close to that it seems. Irony that their chief sponsor (Presenter) this year Tiffany & Co. had no idea or influence on the show's content (I guess they have a soft spot for Truman Capote after all). (I guess that means that if the wrong envelope is opened for best Biennial 'Oscar' the support of Sotheby's and J. P. Morgan are to blame) :)
The Whitney's mission is now really to preserve art of the future (though their holdings of the past are awesome (correct use of the English language;) And they are very genuine in that belief. One can argue to the cows come home whether a great space overlooking the terrace should be devoted to trees and not cows. I can hear those voices in the wilderness: I could have been a tree! A mole! A contender! I don't think for a moment that even the edible blooms of the Eastern Redbud would blush and be embarrassed. They would simply sigh a little for your artistic predicament and then whisper in the dead of night: do you know how lucky I am to be alive? Lucky to even flower? Who screwed up Planet Earth?! One tree was injured (almost died?) and has the sap scars to prove it all Spring long. [My one big criticism of this work is that trees communicate through their roots in the soil. That is how they whisper. Not through the air. And my fear is that though the trees seem happy they will be rather lonely and 'manipulated' in their plastic containers surrounded by -'yikes' wood planters: there but for the grace of, went i-until planted in Vermont soil after the Biennial.] Arboretum irony or paradox? That's not a metaphor for an artist's life, now surely. And truth be told these are saplings not trees, talk about traumatized youth. (I guess the cheque for your press release tree artists is in the post;) sorry- couldn't resist. Oh: I got fired before even being hired. Story of....
There is no 'wow' to the biennial. Perhaps best, as every art work/installation quietly gets on with what is it doing. One feels loathe to be a critic and single out individuals in the show. Suffice: I did not come across anything that did not get my attention in some way. That's not arse-licking that's the truth. I may have moved on a little more quickly from one artist than another. But never any groans-only those arising from the hour 10am shot through with caffeine and not 8pm at night with a beverage!
There are one or two pieces whilst not breaking any new ground nonetheless stop one's tracks. You will see/find them. Honestly: you need at least 4 hours to even properly view the Biennial. Preferably not the same day. I had 2hours of art without human interaction per se. And/or beyond that the mind starts overheating. But with friends alike, maybe 3-4 is possible!
Whether you agree/whatever with the Biennial curators choices, they clearly have thought long and hard, very, over their choice of artist and their relationships in the two large floor spaces. And the virtual reality work- you must must line up-where you must line up, don goggles/headphones and grip a railing. Is again not ground-breaking yet packs an unbelievable quiet punch even though we think we see this every week in the movies, everyday on TV. The lack of a great stand alone sound/audio artwork in the exhibition was notable.
What the artists of the Whitney Biennial ask collectively of you is that you must never become complacent. Never get lazy eyes. Never let go of a human vision. You lose that and we are left with a computed generated world that we generated and now will control us. Will watch us without humanity.
tbc...as always;). Possibly. ...more than 7 floors
Some other shows in town worth mentioning (and honestly I don't get around much any more (like I used to), relatively speaking). Spaking (no 'n';) of trees. Hirschl & Adler has someone who sat on a bench one day and imagined what birch trees would 'sound like'. Follow that thought here. Piano rolls out of birch bark. Who Coltrane would have thought! Only thru March 18. Last week.
An acclaimed photographer Abelardo Morell (Edwynn Houk Gallery) creates kinda 3D images (well not quite but going for depth of field) by imaging most of his image in camera not digitally. One could argue the opposite that he manipulates, say, 30 photos in the computer. Well yes and no. The image really grows out of that event. That real 3D structure in front. Like us: the photos are nothing like us but the nub of flesh.
Finally: perhaps not. Luxembourg & Dayan exhibit a fantastically curated collage show across two cities. Part 2 (London) was enthusiastically reviewed in the FT. I once wrote for the FT, alas, before the internet so no-one knew I existed. Well: I wrote for anyone who showed a modicum of interest. Now…nobody can even still show a breast....therein lies the irony. Perhaps of the collage show as well. Cause: I had fascinating conversations with show's curator Yuval Etgar about dislocation etc etc. We agreed. There is a dictionary definition of collage. THAT is not what his curatorship is/was about. It is about creating a debate about the past/present/future idea 'trope' of collage. A 'trope' even?.....un petit truc? There is a specially commissioned photograph by Louise Lawler in the NY Part 1 begging the question: isn't all the greatest art collage in some way shape or form? Isn't what intrigues you the juxtaposition and dislocation of material, shape, form throughout the centuries? Is homogeneity the death of 'awe'? Is Hercules Segers a collage artist creating prints of what he saw but for the most part imbibing that with what he had never seen?
tbc when I find my notes and if not 'bon collage' ..:)
oops: I forgot someone: Beatrice Mandelman And The Sixties - like many, many other artists she fell by the mainstream sidewalk (after NY success). Her only crime, moving out of New York. A University (if I remember) approached gallerist Marianne Rosenberg asking of her interest in Mandelman's estate. Rosenberg was just too busy. However, when she visited Taos and the collection, artistically bowled over, she couldn't say no. There is so much boundless energy in these collages. But energy never springs from the haphazard. Or does it? Wish that we could make the same mistake all over agin.
A late edition☺ - Perle Fine at Berry Campbell (a gallery always worth a visit for the great art they unearth-much having seen light in its day but none since now). All of Fine's oil canvases were found rolled up in an attic- ever since 50s-70s NY gallerist doyen Betty Parsons displayed them in the 50’s. They pre-date her collage work. But in some there is seen almost the deliberate need to cut the impasto from the canvas. Others are, well, rather questioning. 'There is something in this that I am seeing and yet not seeing'. Talking to a relative of the artist tonight that is exactly what was going on. She said that Pearl was an intellectual. She tried to solve an equation of paint on canvas. Nothing ‘haphazard’ about the works on view. Yet there is nothing intense nor desperate. The opposite in fact: calm. They were collage before she started making ripples. There is one work in the Grey Gallery’s current show.
time for another song. Or another drink. Or both:) ummmmmm......
doesn't this just need a special song for the night (if only that)...like the DJ with endless rhymes until it comes to yours...and that just makes or breaks everything.... I can't promise anything...but i feel there should be more s'thing....i have no idea...trust me!
me gives a new definition of 'sharing': but HAL is going through his (well mine i created him) memory banks searching for a song. It is all a bit embarrassing for a 'humanoid'. This puritan thought that computers...algorithms ...could thunk again. I hear a song....say goodbye....
ok...Jerry Herman..was tryin' to thin Tom Wanks...Pet Clarke, Andy Friutfly....Bette Medales (y u the girl from Chorus Line...) ....if a legend such as Tony Bennett can 'date' Lady Gaga (whilst happily married-he adds;) there THERE is definitely hope for the world: i wish my 'date' was more exponentially inspired but i had millions to wake up Eos.
And I chose . You. Keep hitting me . PLEASE. Keep htting me.
