Monthly Archives: September 2017

Enjoy & benefit Ukraine’s color filled art

30 Saturday Sep 2017

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We all regret and are outraged at Russia’s rape of the Crimea. What better action, what sweeter revenge than to acquire a piece of Ukraine’s unmistakable art, a vibrantly colorful pleine aire rendition of its Carpathian majesty. By doing so you will benefit that wondrous temple of art,  the Ukraine Institute, located in one of Fifth Avenue’s remaining mansions at 79th Street. And reward this artist, Roman Luchuk for his paintings of the Carpathian Mountain Landscape, an artist  who has dedicated his life to passing on his skills and his vision to generations of Ukrainian artistis to come. Come, enjoy the joyful celebration of this splendid land through realistic yet imaginative and unmistakable color –  and ensure in some little way that it endures and survives the terror and rape of its majesty yet one more time in history by having it brighten your home.
You will be enchanted by the joyful and colorful swaths of color depicting the essence of the Carpathian landscape and its unique homes. I call Roman’s style expressionist impressionism – for he captures the essence of each feature of what’s depicted translating it with color. There is no doubt as to what’s depicted – and to its spirit, its true nature.
The Institute’s writeup sums it up: “Each of Roman Luchuk’s canvases evokes the splendor and energy of his native Carpathian Mountains in seductive compositions that exude a lifelong love for the mysteries of the Hutsul landscape. His iconic images express instinctive emotional experiences rather than impressions of the physical world. He does this through an extravagant use of paint and color. Expansive stillness and silence of the pastoral are interrupted by sudden outbursts of life and vitality changing from one mood to another.”

One third of the revenues for these paintings goes to maintaining this last of Fifth Avenue’s previous wonders – and the remaining amount goes to Roman’s work with Ukrainian art students to whom he has devoted his life. Ukraine is in peril and so is this 63 year old bastion of Ukrainian art. Do your part to at least save its art. That for me is a no-brainer: do well by doing good.

Delirium at the Breuer – in more ways than one

25 Monday Sep 2017

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  Being managed well is now among the primordial values in art and in museums. Meanwhile we have forgotten that modern art used to cause us to reflect, rethink, and redirect. Somehow contemporary art in its challenges resulted in realizations of how to live well, how to be well, and how to treat our brethren well.
  Art used to be based on life’s values, questions such as why – not how. Beauty was valued for its own sake, proportion was valued for how it felt so good, and all art told a story with a point.
  Pointlessness, chaos, and the delirious were pitfalls – not pinnacles – of human achievement. This is a show from the madhouse – the madhouse of the post-war era – where minds, values, and reason were not only lost but despised, destroyed, and debased.
  Perhaps appropriate for a history museum? appropriate for a history lecture? about the abyss, the madness, and the ugliness of mankind gone mad after having lost their reason – so having done so impulsively went beyond the limits of all value and values, including reason?
  Let us not celebrate the detritus of destruction, let us not commemorate the insanity of man’s inhumanity – to man, to our environment, to our relationships to each other.
  Let us search out those gems of beauty, exquisite satisfaction, and delightful humanity. We have a choice: this vision, or that hell – in the next 10 minutes. Life is too short to spend time on where we failed, flailed, and fell.
  The show was impeccable as a managed event. But any of the possible philosophical underpinnings for this art are absent. Our primary realization is that philosophy has gone missing in the war of commerce and consumers.
  Being managed well is now among the primordial values. Certainly at the Breuer. Meanwhile we have forgotten how to live well, how to be well, and how to treat our brethren well. And now in this vacuum the Breuer celebrates whose who did art as an excuse, on a whim, as an aberration.
  The true delirium here is that the world’s greatest art repository should focus on one of the greatest threats to art in the last century, on a period where madness reigned, on people lost in wildness, wilderness, and woe.
  This is not a show worthy of the Met Museum. This is a triumph of academics, curators, and critics. There is no art here. There is only the death, disease, deterioration – and, yes, delirium – of the overeducated, the too removed, and the insanely misdirected.
  The Breuer’s shows since its inception have shown little direction, little spirit or power, and have reveled in irrelevance. The Met Breuer has indeed lost its way.

Breuer Museum photography show on an abandoned IBM complex in France

25 Monday Sep 2017

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    Two photographers, two radically different takes on the Breuer. One sees it as a piece of sculpture, as an abstraction work of art. The other sees it as raw architecture, living space for people and for art.
    The Dutch photographer, , is the one worth the trip – and if you see only one part of this fifth floor exhibition focus on the three pictures on the western wall in the room to the left on leaving the elevator. He has been experimenting with the use of rice paper to catch the detail and subtlety photographing raw architecture requires. It took him half a year with his printer to perfect the technique, the proper level of inking. And there they are, frameless, frank accurate intriguing play pens for the eye to run around in. Look at them closely. (The traditionally printed two large photographs on the opposite side of the room, look at from a goodly long distance.)
    Let’s reflect on how it is that Holland is a center of photographic innovation and technique: Amsterdam, Rotterdam – and Brabant. Brabant? How? Because that has been where Phillips has been working its magic – like Silicon Valley, like the places where Boeing, Google, Apple are headquartered. Beautiful, magic places where high-tech – highly valued – people like to live: that’s where big companies have learned to give them places to work.
    The Dutch photographer reveals the dilemma the Breuer faces – as do other massive buildings from the 60s and 70s. They were built for humanity’s purposes of their times – and those purposes change. IBM’s office complex in rural France went from 3000 to 200 people – and is now empty. And the Breuer, built for the Whitney’s classic, comfortable modern American and European art of the 60s and 70s now hosts exhibitions of photography from India, massive paintings from one of America’s longest serving black painters now exploding into the color and abstract images that nurtured him when he was starting out. The Breuer is a beast – and it demands equally large, massive, mega shaped in your face shows. Let MOMA and the new airy Whitney be guardians of the 20th century’s middle class American and European modern art. The Breuer is a beast in waiting for the big prey of Art for the Future. It is itself as this show demonstrates worthy of being itself an exhibition. Let it be a space for the modern life and art to come.

Sotheby’s conquest of contemporary art

25 Monday Sep 2017

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Whatever you had planned for tomorrow until 2pm hustle over to Sotheby’s palace of contemporary art at 72nd and York tomorrow – or if you’re lucky get an invite to the opening and closing party tonight at 7:30pm.

Either way, get your hands on the catalogue. Ignore the website which mentions every Sotheby’s shenanigan around the globe – except this one. The website often ignores what Sotheby’s does in NYC – which means a saunter to Sotheby’s weekly in season is often a smart art move.

The stars of the show? the building is packed with art – so that’s a difficult proposition. Here are the candidates:

  • The deliciously displayed ultra rare oeuvres d’art on the 10th floor? One of the desk jockeys confessed to me that working on the 10th floor collection has been the high point of her career at the big S. The petite presentation of Alexander Calder’s jewelry is enough to take your breath away. The 10th floor is big – and the art there is bigger.
  • But don’t forget the 4th floor: Albert Albee’s reaping the benefits of having three Pulitzers (only Robert Frost had four) and the creme de la creme of actors and actresses in his plays and the movies of those plays resulted in a collector’s eye rarely seen – and a collection par excellence. This may be the only time you’ll get to see what he’s given to Sotheby’s to sell for the benefit of the Albert Albee Foundation. The Man had the Eye. From the looks of the 4th floor he chose only the Very Best. I’m incredulous at his choices during times when it was very hard indeed to see what was the Very Best.
  • Lastly, the 2nd floor is crushed and crammed with what the curators at Sotheby’s have determined what defines Contemporary Art. This happens a lot at Sotheby’s – which is one reason why it’s a good idea to always work the building from the top down. (Besides, the incredible cafe on the 10th floor with a terrace just below heaven is always a great place to start.) From incredibly crafted chairs and furniture to creations that leave your jaw dropped. MoMA, the Breuer, and the Whitney should take notice – and take notes – as to what is on display here.\

For the simple truth is that sometimes the Market Knows Best. This is why the auction houses – not the museums – so often mount Contemporary Art shows that startle, amaze, and excite. What the rich and powerful bought often is a good indicator of who’s winning in the art game – not some museum curator or curatorial committee compromised by the need that the show fit in with the existing collection.

This is the best, most comprehensive show of contemporary art since Sotheby’s left our jaws dropping in its legendary show on two huge floors of Russian contemporary art. By hook or crook take this one last chance to finally figure out – and See – what contemporary art is really all about.

Governor’s Island: Cauldron of new art

07 Thursday Sep 2017

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From Sept 2 through Oct 1 weekends are the occasion for the Governor’s Island Art Fair (www.4heads.org).

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Several times a year the abandoned officer homes on Governor’s Island become homes to new art. (get a map after getting off the ferry – and turn right upon leaving the ferry) There’s one at the far end of Colonel’s Row  which is the HQ of holography – in itself worth the trip.

All the five homes give a room to each artist – and the variety of artists outdoes the variety you’d otherwise find on the Lower East Side. One shoots bodegas which are disappearing fast.

Plus the ferry  ride, which  runs on holiday weekends every half hour, is worth the entire trip. Then add on the astonishing forts – and you’re living on in a world a century old. There’s something for everyone – especially children – starting with a strident bell they love to clang.

Don’t forget Liggett Hall which at its west end has artists who work  with art, and artists who are in the process of doing their work in front of your eyes, and works you can simply look in at through their closed doors.