That you would want in a museum retrospective. Devoted to Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan and at the Guggenheim Museum, Nov. 4-Jan. 22, All is shocking, shameless, shameful, thought-provoking, funny, lewd, imaginative, iconoclastic, irreverent, blasphemous, mordant, critical, bemused, optimistic and unforgettable. Cattelan’s a mass of contradictions. So’s the show. So’s the world he depicts in a hyperealism that embraces taxidermy and wax figures. Not since Matthew Barney blew the roof off the Gugg a few years back has there been such an audacious, amusing, thoroughly enjoyable show. I mean, Cattelan literally gives us the finger. Check out the site-specific installation, too: the entire show hangs, drips, falls from the museum’s oculus, leaving the ramp denuded of art. JFK lies in his coffin; Picasso strikes a pose in a Roy Lichtenstein bedroom; Hitler is brought to his knees; dogs sleep; donkeys bray; Pinocchio flies; a woman skulks in a refrigerator. Cattelan’s hung out his life’s work out to dry or maybe he’s put it all on the gallows. The retrospective is, after all, a death knell: The artist, born in 1960, is retiring/resigning from the art world following this show. For us, that may not be such great news, though. We need Cattelan, if only because art means never having to say, “Isn’t that pretty?”
On Your Phone
Access our site while on the go via this iPhone-friendly interface.
innewyork.com/mobile- MVP/NY Publishers of:
- In New York Magazine
- Where® Magazine New York
- Where Guestbook® New York
- QG: NYC's Official Quickguide
- In New York Map
Street Fair Finds
June 29th, 2010 by annebausoLast week, our executive editor, Bonnie Davidson, and I were discussing how art is found all over the city, and not just at museums, art galleries and cultural centers. Instead, it seems to seep from the many institutions and can be found in architecture, on the brightly colored tile mosaics on subways walls, and even on top of buildings (our office is located near the crux of Antony Gormley’s Event:Horizon installation of 31 life-size sculptures of men perched on building cornices overlooking Madison Square Park). With this in mind, I decided to both enjoy the beautiful weather and explore the city for free, outdoor art. Luckily, this weekend was the Smith Street festival in Brooklyn, about a ten-block strip of live performers, international food and artisans peddling various wares. Local artists, artisans, street performers and food vendors are out and about throughout the year, but especially now that the weather is warm.
This was a wonderful opportunity to check out free art, and in addition to sampling a veggie samosa, Nutella crepe and a local amber ale, I saw a lot of really beautiful things. Below, the top ten local artists whose work was just as lovely as anything I could have paid to see in a museum:
1. Species By The Thousands: Brooklyn-based jeweler Erica Bradbury uses reclaimed metals and recycled textiles to form delicate pieces designed with the natural world in mind, such as fox face rings and horn pendants.
2. Kataplin: This family-run company makes clothes for kids and grown-ups with screen-printed fancy-free and totally adorable drawings and patterns. I totally would have rocked the pink “llama love” racer-back dress if it came in big-girl sizes!
3. Argentinian Victoria Bekerman’s bold yet minimalist jewelry is based on organic, sinuous shaped found in nature, such as calla lily gold filled earrings on French earwires, a gold vermeil “bubbles” ring, composed of interlocking circles, and a ruby-studded chain with a graceful leaf pendant.
4. Brooklyn Craft: sock stuffed animals, burger bibs and dino onesies and other adorable items for tots are joined by merchandise geared for adults, including wallets and wine bottle totes made from recycled billboard vinyl and tongue-in-cheek cross-stitching.
5. Martine’s Dream: Designer and former fashion stylist Debbie Martine’s line of floaty, tribal-print scarves and dresses in vibrant colors are perfect for the hot weather. I found myself really wishing I could swap my old sundress for one of her light creations.
6. Sindia Designs: Sindia Fernandez crafts contemporary earrings and necklaces that are beguiling yet simple enough to be worn daily. My favorite of her offerings was a pair of “Victorian wine” earrings, mini-chandeliers dripping with deep purple rubies. Her stuff also seems like it would make fantastic gifts.
7. Linn Designs: A former metalsmither at Tiffany’s, Masumi Hayashi now shapes necklaces and bracelets cascading with semiprecious stones, diaphanous rings and earrings and home accessories carved from poplar, Douglas fir, walnut and cherry wood.
8. Bullfrog Creatives, LLC: Jewelry with curvilinear shapes have a funky vibe, especially the sterling silver “squiggle shape” bracelet, based on designer Becca’s high school notebook doodlings, and the “snow with crosscut stalactite” necklace, a one-of-a-kind snow casting combines with paisley stone.
9. Lola Bean: A line of handbags made from shredded leather were what caught my eye, but this graphic designer, who cites Alice Tully Hall, Aimee Mann and mid-century Modernism among her inspirations, also crafts darling stationery, letterpress gift tags and a full line of jewelry.
10. Viva Zapata!: Made from vinyl that once covered Buenos Aires buses, these brightly colored vegan bags are both fun, functional and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. My favorite was the “Bandolera Rectangular,” which was a pouch a little larger than a wallet with contrast piping and a pull-tab zipper that ran halfway along the strap.
Two Sides of the Female Experience, on view at the Brooklyn Museum
June 14th, 2010 by annebausoMy trip today to the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn’s mini-Metropolitan, involved skipping floors one through three (plus a long, longing look at the closed doors with the signs “Warhol Exhibition Installation in Progress,” a teaser for the Andy Warhol: The Last Decade exhibit opening next week) as I traipsed up to the fourth floor, home of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Contemporary Art and Decorative Arts, which includes the rebuilt Jan Martense Schenck House, built out in the rural boonies of Brooklyn in 1626, plus period rooms from plantation homes from the Carolinas, the exotic and lush “Moorish Room,” donated to the Museum by John J. Rockefeller, Jr., as well as the two current exhibitions, and the catalyst of my trip today: Kiki Smith: Sojourn and American High Style: Fashioning a National Identity.
Smith is a New York (East Village) legend, and daughter of Tony Smith, the abstract sculptor whose minimalist aesthetic informed much for her work. Using non-traditional mediums, her works often look at women, fairy tales, myths, bodies, the domestic sphere, life, death and belief systems. Sojourn is a quiet, other-worldly series of galleries, filled with papier-mache sculptures, color prints, ink and graphite drawings on crinkly Nepal paper, painted flowers on antique mirrors, seemingly melting, biomorphic furniture that you wouldn’t trust to sit on and blunt, simple, stacked coffins. The faint palette is enforced mostly with the cream-colored crinkly paper, on which women—sisters, expectant mothers, teenagers, dreamy alter egos—have been flatly, yet powerfully, rendered (their lack of naturalism in no way reduces their presence; their smooth gazes pulsate with a strong, profound richness). The women seem ordinary, dressed in jeans and casual clothing, pretty or conventional features, but none striking. They are drawn seated dreamily by windows, (the compositions are oriented by tile or hardwood floors) or staring bluntly out at their audience, primed to speak, engage or scream. Domestic preoccupations seem to stifle the creativity that these women are desperate to unleash: light bulbs and birds are images seen throughout, the former aglow with mica and glitter, yet trapped behind heavy birdcages, and ardent songs escape from sparrows, yet nothing can be heard. Not only do their songs seem ready to soar, but the birds do too, though, image after image, the birds are trapped, grounded, contained. Similarly, the screams of many of the women seem seconds from the surface, but remain bottled within.
In the next room, American High Style, is mainly two large galleries of fantastic sartorial creations, documenting trends in women’s fashions from the mid-1800s to the 1980s, and reveals a very different side of the female experience. A Halston tie-dye caftan, cut from a single length of fabric, a Matisse leaf print cutout-inspired blue and cream tank dress, George Braques’ Cubist works-inspired dinner dresses by Gilbert Adrian, Lauren Bacall’s 1955 black sequin party dress, designed by Norman Norell, and many, many more, do their best to dilute the pain of the female experience realized in Smith’s exhibit, and instead celebrate the glitz and glamour associated with being a woman. The collection is largely comprised from donations made by the fabulous Austine Hearst, a high society lady whose audacious personal style definitely seemed to pull off the avant-garde beauties. Her blue and silver sequin 1959 Marguery Bolhagen ballgown, worn to JFK’s inaugural ball, is proudly on display, and is a breath-taking highlight of the exhibition.
Other alluring highlights are the long-sleeved, high-neck cotton and cellophane Valentina evening gown, similar to the one that the designer made for Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story; a smart, sophisticated navy and white Madama Eta Hentz rayon dress with a dramatic interlocking wing motif shooting vertically down the side and a 1938 Elsa Schiaparelli (my personal favorite who won by eternal devotion when I first saw her work at the Cooper-Hewitt Fashion in Colors exhibit in 2006) black velvet evening dress with a sunburst patterned from silk and gold lame, pearlescent and intricate sequin and bead embroidery. A hunting jacket-inspired coat of Elsa Schiaparelli’s cheekily uses recycled bullet casings as buttons, and a simple summer dress has polychrome seed jacket appliqués and a exposed zipper down the back (a huge trend since fall 2008). A way-pre-DVF wraparound dress is made from two half dresses, ingeniously tied together to make a whole, reversible ensemble. (Speaking of current trends, also on display is a 1920 blue velvet and ivory satin with silk floss Chihuahua dog coat and leash.)
From Schiaparelli’s contemporary, J. Suzanne Talbot, comes a sari-esque rust silk crepe sheath with a well-balanced daisy pattern, a look that perfectly blends exoticism, athleticism and feminism. A striking display of traditional Castilian folk costume, updated by one Mister Cristobal Balenciaga, is a tiered black lace and white silk organza confection, worthy of a Penelope Cruz Oscar speech. An Yves Saint Laurent piece, from his first year at the helm of Christian Dior’s house, is a memorable, black, ruffly party dress in the exact style that Diane Kruger wears to nearly every red carpet event. Next to it, a cocktail dress is designed with looser lines, a turning point from Dior’s famous “New Look” and a look toward the budding athletic trend.
Several displays are dedicated to the designs of Charles James, America’s “first couturier,” including a dramatic mermaid dress made of ivory silk, beige faille and black silk velvet.
The Four-Leaf Clover dress, one of Austine Hearst’s gorgeous frocks.
Fusion Street Fair
June 1st, 2010 by annebausoThis Sunday (June 6), The Museum at Eldridge Street (12 Eldridge St., btw Division & Canal sts., 212.209.0903) will be hosting its 10th annual “Egg Rolls Egg Creams Festival,” from noon to 4 p.m. The free, cross-cultural festival celebrates the customs, languages, art forms and traditions of the Jewish and Chinese population in the museum’s neighborhood (Lower East Side). In addition to the namesake food and drink, the NYC staple black-and-white cookies and pickles will be available, plus traditional music performances (from Chinese opera to Eastern European Jewish folk dance melodies), dance and acrobatics, Yiddish and Chinese language tutorials, synagogue tours and more. A definite fan of both egg rolls and egg creams (though not sure the two in my belly in tandem), I can’t wait to check out this dynamic festival, and recommend any one in the area do the same.
Storm Clouds Ahead
May 14th, 2010 by annebauso
As its title suggests, Julie Mehretu: Grey Area, the newest exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, is not easy to define. It is a series of six large (10 X 13 ft.) new works, each a complex creation of ink and acrylic on canvas. Combined, they are sort of the opposite of Clueless‘ Cher Horowitz’s description of “a full-on Monet…from far away it’s okay, but up close, it’s a big old mess.” From far away, Mehretu’s works seem subdued, subtle and soft, simple smudges of pretty, smoke- and earth-colored paint on canvas, like a puff of dust. Step within six feet of each piece, and an entire ant-farm microcosm world comes sharply into focus, seemingly out of nowhere: the artist has painstakingly created a complicated, grid-like network of lines on top of, within and under each smudge, spot, drip and suggestion of pastel paint. The result is like peering into another world during stormy weather, an urban planner’s sketches and blueprints gone haywire, or barely comprehensible under spilled coffee, or a city map superimposed with a seismic chart, an architect’s blueprint, a piece of Impressionist art and a child’s Etch-a-Sketch design, all at once.
In Atlantic Wall (2008-2009), muted colors, but beautiful ones, barely conceal a frantic composition of lines, lines, lines, with patches and splatters and shapes of dark paint evoking mountains, cliffs, clouds and man-made buildings (I later learned that they are meant to render WWII German bunkers). A peaceful, natural quality is born from the soothing colors and sinuous shapes, but there is an unsettling sense of underlying chaos. The painting seems to reveal a man-made history with all of its products: buildings, streets, order, government, war, a tidy world that destroyed itself and that nature is slowly taking over.
Other works impart this same idea with their compositions frenzied yet controlled. Believer’s Palace (2008-2009) at first reminded me of a Japanese woodblock depicting a sailor in a storm. Minute, meticulous detail is interrupted, overtaken, smeared by large, sweeping strokes, the two intertwined like calligraphy and forming a moody atmosphere. Subjects, such as Anasazi subterranean chambers carved directly into the earth or an electrician’s tangle of wires, came to me, but as I looked on, I couldn’t tell if I was imagining images or if they were real. As if I was examining a landscape through some sort of scientific lens that can penetrate its verdant surface, what I saw kept changing, shifting and breathing.
The most representational of the six paintings is the dizzyingly stunning Berliner’s Plätze (2008-2009), a mesmerizing, fragmented study of late-19th-century Wilhelminian architecture. A constellation of militantly straight lines forms dormer windows, balconies, grand arches and cornices, at once eerily focused and vague and heavy with the weight of German precision. The hectic yet orderly image seems to only exist when the viewer looks with intent, then the subject—the clutter of thousands of precise lines that start to shape an orderly composition but never quite do—collapses into itself with the power of a physical structure itself, vanishes from the viewer’s eye, like a dream.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is located on Fifth Ave., btw 88th & 89th sts. Sun-Wed, Fri 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m., Sat a.m.-7:45 p.m.
$18 adults, $15 seniors/students, children under 12 free. Sat after 5:45 p.m. pay what you wish. Admission includes an audio tour.
Fri, Jun. 4 & Aug. 13 at 2 p.m.: Curator Joan Young leads tours of Julie Mehretu: Grey Area. (Free with admission.)
Discovery Times Square’s Latest Exhibition
April 26th, 2010 by annebauso
King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is the third large-scale exhibition, following Da Vinci’s Workshop and Titanic, to be installed in the 30,000-sq.-ft. Discovery Times Square space. Like its predecessors, King Tut holds a weird, magical power over the minds of many; people today remained oddly fascinated, maybe disproportionately so, by this one particular historical moment. All of the pharaohs, their queens, their gods and goddesses, seem pretty fabulous to me, not just this particular boy one. But for whatever reason, his particular intrigue is the one that endures, resulting in this National Geographic-sponsored, 8-city tour that has already attracted seven million visitors lured in by the promise of sparkly, shiny, ancient gold and maybe a mummy or two. I suppose all the gold is fortified by a good old-fashioned mystery: to this day, the cause of Tut’s death at 19 is still a mystery.
The educational exhibition is a series of dark, chilly galleries (perhaps they want the viewer to feel as if they themselves are deep in a tomb? Or that is the responsible temperature for 3,400-year-old objects), each one showcasing splendidly beautiful reminders of the ancient Egyptian culture. Mud from the nearby Nile River and minerals from quarries in the desert provided material for the Egyptians to construct some pretty wonderful things: There are life-size, finely polished granite sculptures, royal composite statues made of obsidian, quartzite and volcanic glass, vessels of ivory, steatite, calcite, green serpentine. There are wood objects brilliantly painted and inlaid with gold and ivory, leonine goddesses carved from wood and bitumen, statuary of greywacke, funerary figurines made from wood, gesso and copper. And there are the most exquisite faience—a bright blue still so vivid it is difficult to imagine how it appeared originally—vases, vessels and several representations of the ankh, the hieroglyphic symbol for eternal life.
Of the 130-plus objects—jewelry, daggers, sheaths—seen in these rooms, 50 were discovered in the boy king’s tomb, by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1923. Of the 63 tombs so far found in the Valley of the Kings, Tut’s has been the most spectacularly fruitful (or, the least messed with my robbers over the centuries).
The ancient Egyptian belief in the universe being dictated by order and balance is reflected in the easy, timeless grace of each item. Their rightful authenticity, however, is a bit undermined by the vast, commercial space. Oversized photographs and dramatically displayed quotes by Carter from the tomb’s discovery are repeated throughout the exhibits, seemingly as mere sensational filler. It seems that the partners behind the exhibition, including National Geographic and Dr. Zahi Hawass, the loony, lovable Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, are trying to sell the legitimacy of the endeavor, when the beauty of each thing seen sells itself. Maybe the backers of the show are assuming that, for $27.50, visitors want to be a bit sensationalized. But with 50% of admission costs going to the preservation of Egyptian antiquities and into the economy of Egypt, well, that alone is pretty grand.
King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs will be exhibited at Discovery Times Square Exposition (226 West 44th St., btw Seventh & Eighth aves., 888.988.8692) through January 2, 2011.
Falling Fruit
March 29th, 2010 by annebausoIt takes an awful lot to shock New Yorkers. It takes something like Jeff Koons, a controversial megastar artist known for brazen, bright and giant sculptures, to curate an exhibition at the New Museum, an institution known for its contemporary, often conceptual works from international artists, resulting in Skin Fruit, a show that will be on display in the über-modern space through June 6. The new show has received a fair bit of flack since it was even announced, mostly on account of the fact that the five floors of flashy artwork that comprise the exhibition are all from the personal contemporary collection of one of the museum’s own trustees, Greek billionaire Dakis Joannou. Joannou has not gifted the museum the collection once the show ends (not that there is a permanent collection to gift it to), as is customary for most museums. (For example, New York’s Whitney and MoMA will only install a single-collector exhibit if the works are promised to the museum.)
This gossipy background information is likely only interesting to those more ensconced in the art world than myself: as someone who simply wanted to check out some radical art (and to experience that somewhat-forgotten sensation of shock), I can certainly say that, despite all of the art world purist hoop-la, the exhibition delivered. The show is turbulent, distasteful, sensational, disturbing, a helter-skelter smorgasbord of loud, bawdy sculptures and paintings, each dying to steal the viewer’s attention from the neighboring pieces. There is an awful lot to absorb, each part fascinating in its own rite, though sometimes fascinating in that terrible, morbid way that we’d rather not experience. (As a side note, I wouldn’t recommend seeing the show on a first date or with a parent-type, but that’s just me.)
The reputation of its host museum aside, Skin Fruit is a collection of mostly larger-than-life, often threatening and always-compelling works. Two giant “twin towers,” by Chinese punk-artist Terence Koh, who I saw perform to techno music in the lobby of the Brooklyn Museum last fall, resemble fat, melty, mammoth candles, and are made from white chocolate icing, white being the color of death in China and the color associated with Asian funerary rituals. These two matching sculptures, in a room with other giant sculptures by giant artists such as Urs Fischer, Kiki Smith, Charles Ray and Roberto Cuoghi, contribute to the sensory overload of the gallery with their chocolate scent. 
Other massive figures include Ray’s Fall ‘91, an enormous Barbie-esque blonde in a courtroom-worthy blue business suit, Cuoghi’s Pazuzu, a twenty-foot-tall steel casting of a vicious, ancient winged demon and Liza Lou’s Super Sister, a remarkably beaded sculpture of an African-American woman sporting Daisy Dukes, a bikini top, defined muscles and a gun. She is looking at Robert Gober’s Surrealist installation of a dressed male leg supporting the grotesque anchor-shaped limbs of an unnaturally hairy child, which is directly across from a series of five Kara Walker gouache drawings depicting female American slaves, which is behind a giant trunk of fragmented mirrors. Like I said, it is a lot to take in.
But that doesn’t mean that the works shouldn’t be taken in—many of the works truly are stars. The museum is free on Thursdays from 6-9 p.m., so there is no excuse not to check out the dazzling, off-putting, shocking show, or, at the very least, see what may ultimately discredit one of the city’s institutions. New Museum, 235 Bowery, btw Prince & Stanton sts., 212.219.1222. Wed noon-6 p.m., Thurs-Fri noon-9 p.m., Sat & Sun noon-6 p.m. Admission: $12 adults, $10 seniors, $8 students, children up to 18 free.
Hi There!
March 29th, 2010 by annebauso
The thing I like about museums is that you really don’t have to do much. You just have to look. Our four other senses (for the most part) can take a break, and we can simply do our eyes do the work, letting them guide us often from room to room, from gallery to gallery, from masterpiece to masterpiece or from hallway to something mind-blowing, life-changing, knocks-your-breath-out: whether it is a world-famous 20th-century painting or a thin gold bracelet from a nearly-forgotten civilization from a distant speck of human history. Museums house treasure, images, artifacts, sculptures; and we merely look at them. Their power or significance or beauty (or lack thereof) can be absorbed right then, or it can come much later. That part doesn’t really matter, though. Looking is all we do, and that is the important part.
Museums also offer us the chance to shush. In a city where the scream of traffic is always present or the shriek of chatter is surrounding, museums can act as shelters safe from the manic elements. Here, we no longer must respond, react, think, act, do, prepare, prevent…we just get to look.
Whether as magnificent and holy as a Roman cathedral, or a dusty corner of a non-descript office building, New York City contains a museum for just about any and every field of interest: a millennia-old silver Islamic coin is one of 175,000 on view at the American Numismatic Society, a destination for anyone interested in coins, the history of money and economy or design. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum reenacts the turn-of-the-century life for thousands of immigrants, providing visitors with an insight so virtual that the current world temporarily does not exist. The museums of this city can even provide hardened city dwellers or tired visitors the opportunity to escape the concrete jungle: the Queens County Farm Museum offers green grounds on which to relax, farm animals to feed, and even a hay-ride for those in need of total rustic-inspired recreation.
With all of that said, welcome to my blog, Cultured Pearls! I am by no means a history, art history, social history and natural history buff—I have an art history/museum studies minor, and that’s about as qualified as I get.
I am just someone who enjoys seeing things, learning things, and appreciates the opportunity to, for once, be quiet while I am doing so. Any and all feedback, expertise, insight or suggestions will be more than welcome on this journey.
Coming Soon…
January 6th, 2010 by annebausoStay tuned for news about museum and exhibits around Manhattan!
BANNER PHOTO CREDIT: CANADAGOOD / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
View Website Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement of IN NEW YORK, LLC. Users of this site agree to be bound by the terms of the IN NEW YORK, LLC Website Terms and Conditions.
Copyright © 2009 IN NEW YORK, LLC. All Rights Reserved.