October 2015 (Art, Out-of-Towners, OHNY, and KC/Omaha)

I know it's been a month since I posted anything, but it has been the most gorgeous fall here. I couldn't bring myself to stay inside and write when I could be outside. So here's a synopsis of what I've been up to since I last wrote...

I promised I was going to visit the Neue Gallerie to see Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer (no photos allowed, and the Cooper Hewitt to see the Thomas Heatherwick exhibit. I have to say - I'm not really a big fan of Austrian and German art (Klimt excepted), but I really enjoyed the Cooper Hewitt. The house is gorgeous, the permanent collection is unusual, and Thomas Heatherwick is a visionary. Here's a model of Pier 55, the Diller-Von Furstenburg project coming to Chelsea in the next few years.

Every fall, there's an event called Art in Odd Places that takes over 14th Street in NYC. Ed and I took a wander to look for some of it, and I loved John Craig Freeman's installation. You had to look through your cell phone camera to find it.

Another artist (can't remember her name) posted poetic descriptions of surrounding billboards. 

My good friend, Annette, from Dallas came to visit, and introduced me to my favorite new NYC thing to do: SoFAR Sounds. (Songs From A Room). You put your name on a list (or buy a $15 ticket to guarantee yourself a spot) and get to see three up-and-coming artists perform. We knew in advance we'd be going to the Lower East Side, but didn't know the location until 3 days before and didn't know the artists until we arrived. It's BYOB, and you sit on the floor, but the music was great, and it was over by 10:30. So fun!! This is a photo of Marlon Williams, a New Zealand balladeer who was amazing. We also saw Briana Marela and Motopony.

On Friday morning, we headed to the 9/11 museum. This is one of those things that was incredible and moving and that I will never do again. They really need to have Kleenex boxes available.

The rest of her visit included watching the Royals win and the Rangers lose, 

...checking out the Archibald Motley exhibit at the Whitney with Ed's uncle and aunt and his aunt's cousin, 

...having lunch with two other college friends, 

...plus lots of eating, drinking and girl talk. Heaven!

That weekend was Open House New York, one of my favorite weekends of the whole year. OHNY arranges to have over 200 sites across the country open to the public. You can see Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK, go up in domes and bell towers, see inside of offices, churches, college campuses...And it's all free (or $5 for advanced reservation sites/tours). This year, I was a district coordinator, so I spent all of Saturday and Sunday in the north and east Bronx. My sites included the Bartow Pell Mansion, the Museum of Bronx History, Lehman College (which has amazing public art, including this sculpture of an Olmec king's head)

And gorgeous collegiate gothic buildings

The Poe Cottage

The New York Botanical Garden (these are photos from their Frida Kahlo exhibit)

And Woodlawn Cemetery, which opens a number of its mausolea for the public to wander through.

Even if you can't get into them, you can see some really amazing monuments.

The weekend after OHNY, Edward came for his second NYC visit. We'd done the normal tourist things the last time he was here, so this time we did some new ones. Discovery Center had an exhibit of costumes and props from the Hunger Games films...

The New York Historical Society is showing Superheroes in Gotham, complete with a Batmobile.

We also visited the Frick Collection and the Intrepid. And of course we had to order his special pizza (crust and bacon - no sauce, no cheese). The first time he came, I placed the online order (Domino's - there was NO WAY I was going to call a NY pizza parlor and order that!) and within 30 seconds, the phone rang. A great Brooklyn accent said, "So lady...That bacon pizza...How you want me to make that happen??" We watched the Royals and the Flash and talked and talked and talked. Yet again, he ran me ragged. :) 

Last weekend, my very dear friend got married in Omaha. So I figured, as long as I'm going to the Midwest, I may as well visit Kansas City! So I got to catch up with some friends and check out some art while I was at it. The Nelson-Atkins had a Day of the Dead installation:

And a really great Thomas Hart Benton in Hollywood exhibition (no photos allowed). I've always loved him, probably because he was a Missouri boy. I had lunch with a girlfriend at Cafe Sebastienne at the Kemper and loved the colors in this Helen Frankenthaler.

Friday, it was off to Omaha for a mini college reunion and the wedding of the century.

The bride was gorgeous, the groom was beaming, and if you wait long enough, you might just get to see video of the wedding party + me doing the Thriller dance. There was lots of dancing and drinking and fun, fun, fun!! (But not a lot of photo-taking by me, apparently. I'm going to have to raid everyone else's photo albums.)

Oh and WAY TO GO, ROYALS!!!!! :) 

Autumn in New York (2015)

I love New York City, but I really love it in the fall. The temperatures drop at night, the humidity disappears, it's bright and sunny during the day, and crisp and snuggly at night. Heaven. It's also great for exploring the city, as it's a bit quieter. So I've been really busy lately!!

One of the things I love about September is that the galleries reopen. Living in Chelsea, I'm surrounded by them. Today, I stopped by a couple to see some exhibitions that I'd read about. Taglialatelle Gallery has a Banksy exhibit on right now, and my friend Rafe is a huge fan. So I wandered in to see what they had for sale. Call me crazy, but I'm never going to pay $67,000 for street art...

But while I was there, I saw this Damien Hirst piece. I've seen his dot pieces, but I've never seen anything like this. And I fell in love.

It's a pattern made out of butterflies!

I was afraid to ask how much it cost...

After stopping by Taglialatelle, I made my way to the Yossi Milo gallery. New York magazine mentioned an photography exhibit they had that sounded interesting. And I loved it. Markus Brunetti's FACADES (on view till 10/17) consists of a series of large-scale archival pigment prints of cathedrals from all over the world. They're gorgeous, and enormous (some are 10 feet tall), and you can get an up-close view of the exteriors of the facades. The one below is from Dresden.

Chamber is a new gallery on my block. I hadn't stopped in until today, and I'm not sure I get what they're trying to do. (It's like a giant Carol Bove installation.) But I thought this was a cool collection (and not a bad photo)...

There was a Mike Kelley exhibit at Hauser and Wirth on 18th Street that had gotten some write-ups as well, so I wandered by there. If you're faint of heart, don't go into the last room which is showing an S&M video that was apparently filmed on-site, but some of the other pieces, I thought, were pretty cool. You enter through this...

And then proceed through a bunch of dark rooms with glowing cities...

Into the room where the video was filmed and is being shown...

So come to Chelsea and explore!!


Last week, I went to the New York Historical Society to check out the Magna Carta, which was in NYC for a one-week visit. I have no idea how it was possible for them to write such tiny characters! It was kind of overwhelming to be in the presence of an 800-year-old document that had such a formative impact on the world. (The one in the photo is actually from 1217, not 1215.)

I hadn't been to the museum for awhile, but I only had about 45 minutes to explore this time. The next time our Spain-loving niece, Mary Elizabeth, comes for a visit, however, I'm definitely taking her back as they have a Goya, an El Greco and a Velasquez.

And of course, there's the Picasso...

If you are in NY and you have kids, visit the Sea Glass Carousel. I hadn't heard anything about it, but I wandered by one night when they were testing it, thought it was beautiful, and swore I'd ride it at some point.

So this week, I did. It's pretty cool, though I'd recommend riding it at or after dusk. (Sorry the pictures are kind of weird...)

I have a lot of plays on my to-do list, so today, I braved Times Square to hit up TKTS for a Broadway show. I saw Something Rotten!, which I'd considered dragging Ed to at one point since, though he's not a musical fan, he does love Shakespeare. Thank goodness I didn't. While Will is a (very flamboyant, egomaniacal, rockstar of a) character in the play, this show is custom made for people who love musicals. I couldn't believe how many homages there were in this show!! I caught a lot of the references, but I bet I missed as many as I caught. Brian D'Arcy James was terrific, but I was sad to have missed Christian Borle in the role of Shakespeare.

Later this week, the Neue Gallerie (Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer, aka, The Woman in Gold) and the Pixar and Thomas Heatherwick exhibits at the Cooper Hewitt...Stay tuned!

China Through the Looking Glass

If you find yourself in New York before September 7, run, do not walk, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their current installation, China Through the Looking Glass, is beyond my ability to describe. It includes 'eastern influence on western fashion', as well as Chinese religion, art, film (including one with Fred Astaire!), music...I was completely overwhelmed by what I saw. My photos aren't going to do it justice, but here's a small sample of what you'll see...

Plan to spend a couple of hours. Enjoy.