Post 9-11 Architecture

I am posting these pictures as another example of a recent trend in residential buildings that have gone up in Manhattan over the past 5 years. It's what I like to term "jiggly architecture"; buildings who's facades wave and undulate as they rise above the staunch straightness of the avenues and streets below them. This particular building is being piled up at the end of Greenwich Avenue and Eighth Avenue, or, to give it its more luxurious moniker, One Jackson Square. Note the undulating line of the floor-to-ceiling windows; the light of the street is reflected back in fractured sections. These jiggly facades seem to be reflecting our city's and its residents' current anxiety and post-traumatic stress; one false move and I'll collapse like a house of cards!!

If anyone can point out a building with these features that appeared in Manhattan before 9-11-01, I would appreciate you making comment on line here.

And if you haven't noticed jiggly architecture yet, just look around a bit more closely, eh?

Let Us Now Praise Great Achievements!! - Pt 2

Although the new entrance to the 1 train will now make ferry commuters have to step outside to get the train uptown (the temporary entrance was right in the ferry terminal and was a blessing on foul weathered days), the two or three steps one has to take becomes well worth it as you descend to the the mezzanine level, where Doug & Mike Starn have done an incredible installation, See It Split, See It Change. A site-specific installation commissioned by the MTA, the work encompasses the entire mezzanine level. Huge photo murals of the the silhouettes of trees in Battery Park festoon the walls behind the turnstiles, as well as a historic map of lower Manhattan and an enormous image of a leaf. The Starn brothers have been pursuing an almost mythic quest: translating the transmogrification of light to energy to thought into a visual set of key images. And having a three dimensional stage to present their ideas in works tremendously to their advantage. Not only do we get ceiling-to-floor black-and-white photo-murals of the tree branches of Battery Park, but we also have these patterns mirrored and overlaid in the metalwork of the ticketing barrier walls which creates a neural networks of thick and thin lines in grey and black.

This magnificent photo-mural hangs over the stairwell to the 1 train. The image of a desiccated leaf, from the Starn's Black Pulse Lambda series, has become part of their leitmotifs in recent years. With the delicate image fused into large glass tiles, the fragile transparency of the degraded leaf matter is increased 10 fold, the veins echoing lines of a street or subway map.

Also visible upon entrance into the terminal is a gorgeous 20-foot wide floor-to-ceiling mosaic reproducing a historical map of Manhattan. Inspired by a map commissioned by the United States Census Bureau in 1886 that integrated a topographic map drawn in 1640 with a street plan from the Battery to 155th Street, the island’s original topography emerges ghost-like behind a more familiar diagram of the modern city. It is truly stunning!

The MTA has managed to make me want to take Public Transit more knowing that this quality of art awaits me upon alighting on the Isle of Manhatta!!

Let Us Now Praise Great Achievements!! - Pt 1

I don't normally encourage tourism towards my end of New York, but as someone who has lived in NYC for over 25 years and on the Isle of Statten for over 10, I guess I am glad to have lived to see the day of the new South Ferry/Whitehall St Subway station

which just opened this week. Architecturally it is PT plebeian in its structure. However, for 1 train riders the change is significant. No more screeching train wheels pulling into and out of the station. No more 'first five car' warnings!! Imagine!! The 21st century gleams with a small bit of hope, primarily with the smart installation on the ticketing level.... TBC

R.I.P John "Rabbit" Updike

Updikes's dead.

obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28updike.html?ref=books

appraisal by M Kakutani: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28appr.html?_r=1&hp

A Toast: To the man who taught me the most about the American white heterosexual males libido. Thank you, otherwise I'd NEVER have had a clue!!!

And may God rest your soul Harry Angstrom, wherever you are!!

A BRISK STROLL THROUGH CHELSEA

Finding ourselves in the Chelsea area this sub-zero Saturday afternoon, we bundled up our mufflers, straightened our long johns and took a quick peek at a few exhibits in Chelsea. Here's what we saw:

JIM DINE "HOT DREAM (52 BOOKS)" @ PACEWILDERSTEIN - A gargantuan installation by one of the grandpa's of Pop. the gallery has been cordoned off into various shaped room which are overrun with drawings, photographs, prints, stenciled walls, audio tapes and sculptures. I was pleased to see the old man incorporate a few new images into his repertoire: Pinocchio and Santa appear in numerous guises and media (I had wished the large dark Santa in one room was chocolate and not clay, but.....). In fact the little wooden boy is ubiquitous. There is a notable large sculpture to your left when u enter that is a butch, manly piece featuring the artist's famed heart hanging from a Di Suvero-like framework of beams with wires and equipment dangling from it. An awful lot of stuff from one of our better known American artists.

NANCY SPERO 'UN COUP DE DENT' @ GALERIE LELONG - This large group of paintings and drawings date from 1954 to 1965 and show this artist in a period leading up to well-known later works. Done in Paris and exhibited there as The Black Paintings, these primal figurative works often deal with lovers and families. They also share a raw savage quality that is similar to that of her now-deceased life partner Leon Golub. Certainly smoother and more 'painterly' than most of his 'Giganticism' and political portraits, they share that power of deep gesture used for figurative purposes. WORTH A LOOK!!

Also seen:
DON BACHARDY: CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD, LAST DRAWINGS @ CHEIM & READ - A gripping and grueling series of portraits of the writer drawn by his life partner. Many of the later portraits, particularly those that focus of the head have the power of a Kollwitz or a Daumier. INTENSE BUT WORTHWHILE.

CHRISTOPHER MINER @ MITCHELL-INNES & NASH - new videos and a photograph from this satirist of proper, pious South. Definitely check out the "Via Delarosa" and "Closing Credits" videos. MADE US CHUCKLE ON A GRIM COLD DAY.

CHRISTOPH GIELEN @ DANIEL COONEY GALLERY: large color photographs of mankind at its finest, highways and housing. Taken around the world, they document a kind of corporate matrix has infiltrated the world; only the sign with Chinese writing is the only clue that the hi-rise we are studying is there and not Las Vegas or Dubai. Curving row of roads and houses taken recently in Texas look remarkably like original pictures from Levittown. If only they were computer-generated!!

"EVERY REVOLUTION IS A ROLL OF THE DICE" @ PAULA COOPER - A group show organized for the gallery by Bob Nickas of twelve artists. I didn't quite get the entire zeitgeist of the show but standouts include Barry X Ball's elongated Buddha head, Huma Bhabha's brancusi-esque sculpture and Carol Bove's peacock carpet. Note to gallery: As I remember the piece, the Louise Lawler by the front desk should have a pink wall or area of wall around it. We know Pratt & Lambert are out of business but its not impossible to match a paint chip!! Tsk tsk tsk!!

A Monday Night in October, Time Square Subway Station, NYC

GILBERT & GEORGE IN TIME SQUARE

Thank you again Creative Time for helping us find this unexpected pleasure on a resent visit to Times Square on a Monday Night.

A Portrait of the Artists As Young Men, 1970; The Nature of Our Looking, 1972

October 3–November 14, 2008

These videos are running in conjunction with the last stop of their monumental retrospective on view at the Brooklyn Museum. We caught this show last year at the Tate Modern. Massive in its scope, gird your loins and take the plunge. There are some splendid rewards, especially in many of their mid-career stain-glass window homages to street boys.

FAILURE HITS THE UES - William Pope.L @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash

As the financial and house markets seemed to be coming down around our ears, we journeyed up to that bastion of gracious living and expense accounts, Madison Avenue and 79th Street to pop in to the opening of William Pope.L's first show with his new gallery, Mitchell-Innes & Nash. And what a pleasant surprise! What should we find covering four walls of one of the two main gallery areas but hundreds upon hundreds of "Failure" drawings. These small intimate drawings where all done on available paper while traveling, so we get a wide range of sizes; coasters, hotel stationery, notepads, small photos, etc). Beautifully installed!!

In the second gallery, are two larger pieces, plus a small wall sculpture consisting of two drinnking glasses with water. The large wooden coffin for the US flag is raised off the ground and emits the soft sound of a flag flapping in the wind.

Screw the NY Times! A great little debut show! ENCORE!!!

Lost Serra

Encountered this large Cor-Ten slab at the corner of 12th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan today, Looks like a Richard Serra piece that fell off a truck, eh what?

We believe it is a small "prop" piece from early in Mr. Serra's career and was obviously abandoned by its captors once they realized how heavy and cumbersome the damn thing was.

Any leads to it owner and proper return will be appreciated.

The Management of JTLR

Memento Mori

Richard Wright
David Foster Wallace
Oded Schramm

You Shall All Be Missed!!