May Wilson

Check out Hotel Chelsea Blog on May Wilson’s work in a group show at Pavel Zoubok. Here is an excerpt to whet your appetite.

Leaving her home, her husband, and her children in the suburbs of Maryland, May Wilson moved to New York in middle age to become an artist. She checked into the Chelsea (later living next door at the Carteret) and became a real American success story, teaching us by her heroic example that you’re never too old chuck it all and start over again; you’re never too old to live your dream.

We can now see May Wilson’s art for what it is: a radical rejection of the leave-it-to-Beaver motherhood and the manicured-lawn, two-car-garage, All American suburban nightmare. Babydolls and teddybears and toasters, knives and forks, keys and zippers: these are the objects that enslave you. And May Wilson enslaves them right back!

May Wilson was a woman ahead of her time, capturing the Zeitgeist of the present era in New York history. As the city becomes increasingly gentrified, she says to these parents and dogs owners: not everyone shares your devotion to these creatures and the way of life they represent. And for those of us who dissent from your dubious received wisdom, those of us who prefer art and books to dogs and babies, remember that New York is where we have come to escape.

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Switching to more of a personal blog here…

James made an amazing meal for me last night:

Pasta With Smoked Salmon and Yogurt accompanied by a great white wine from a valley near Verona.

The recipe came from the New York Times Magazine_, and was accompanied by an interesting article?r=1&oref=slogin on smoked salmon. Did you know that almost all of the smoked salmon sold on the East Coast, plus some other areas of the US and Puerto Rico, all comes from one place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn?

Yes, I realize I’ve linked to the New York Times quite a lot in the last 24 hours, especially for someone who regularly criticizes them. James and I increasingly enjoy the arts and feature articles more than the news. I tend to read the news more as a media critic than as a trusting consumer. I find much of the news coverage appalling.

I learn from the New York Times that the Public Art Fund is sponsoring a new work by him at Rockefeller Center.

A mirror nearly three stories tall, fashioned from polished stainless steel, will stand at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Channel Gardens in Rockefeller Center this fall.

Unlike most of the art that has adorned Rockefeller Center, it will not be placed where visitors are used to seeing the giant tree at Christmastime. “Sky Mirror,” the work of the Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, will be facing Fifth Avenue.

“Sky Mirror,” to be on view from Sept. 19 to Oct. 27, is a 23-ton circular sculpture, shaped like a satellite dish, its concave side angled upward facing 30 Rockefeller Plaza, its convex side facing Fifth Avenue, reflecting pedestrians and the cityscape. The work is Mr. Kapoor’s first public art project in New York City.

The online version doesn’t have an image, but the paper does.

Let’s hope he and Rockefeller Center manage photography a bit better than it was managed for Chicago’s Millenium Park, or they’re going to have some very angry tourists.

Ed Alcock for The New York Times
While the Orangerie museum was rebuilt around them for six years, Monet’s waterlily paintings, too large to move, had to remain in place in the oval rooms built for them in 1927.

While reading about the renovated Musée de l’Orangerie and its Monet works in the New York Times today (yes we consume the dead tree version in our household), I spotted this in an adjacent column, regarding some movie about code and a certain renaissance painter:

To limit exposure in the age of blogs and constant leaks, both Sony and Mr. Grazer’s company, Imagine Entertainment, decided to forgo test screenings, a form of market research usually considered critical to fine-tuning a picture.

In the past, Mr. Howard has said he would be loath to release a film without it. In a 1998 interview with CNN about test screenings, he said: "What I would hate to do is put the movie out there, find out that the audience is confused about something or upset about something that you could have fixed, and go, ‘God, I had no idea they’d respond that way.’ "

I find this a brilliant example of the difference between Hollywood movies and art.

[image from the New York Times website]

Judy Glantzman
Untitled, 2004
Oil on canvas
90 × 80 inches
[installation and detail views]

We visited this show a couple of weeks ago, but I just now had time to write about it. We are lucky to have two small drawings by her.

I found it interesting that the press release talks about Bosch and Picabia. When I saw this painting, particularly the faces at the bottom, I thought of the use of skulls as necklaces in the Tibetan work I’ve seen recently at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Mandala (Center and Circumference)
Chakrasamvara
Central Tibet
1600 – 1699
54.61×44.45cm (21.50×17.50in)
Ground mineral pigment on cotton

This is a detail. I don’t know if the link will work for every browser, but here is the page for it.

The New York Times article on the opening of the museum explains the symbolism of the skulls:

SKULLS AND SEVERED HEADS — Lacking soil for graves or wood for funeral pyres, Tibetans practice sky burial: bodies are left on a charnel ground for vultures. Senior monks meditate there overnight, contemplating impermanence. Skull necklaces are tokens of struggle in the war with Mara, the demon king.

Related: James on the show.

[image of Mandala from the Rubin Museum’s web site]

• L. Dennis Kozlowski, the imprisoned former Tyco International Ltd. chief executive officer, will pay $21.2 million in return for escaping prosecution on New York tax charges. Much of that stems from his avoidance of sales taxes on art by having empty crates shipped elsewhere while the works were delivered to his Manhattan apartment.
• A video screening in Kabul, Afghanistan on May 2nd looks like it was pretty interesting.
• I have written about Julian Montague’s “Stray Shopping Cart” project in the past. He has just published a book on the project.
• The national anthem was sung in Spanish at the first G.W. Bush inauguration, and was a regular feature of his first presidential campaign, according to Think Progress.

The Brooklyn College show will have a re-opening on May 24th from 6-9PM at 70 Washington Street in DUMBO. James has an update.

Note that none of the artists have been able to see their works since they were taken away by Brooklyn College without warning.

As always, visit the Plan C(ensored) blog for continuing updates.

• Speaking of Ashes on beauty and politics in art: one two – the second image makes me think of Joe Ovelman’s latest work
• New York Magazine on shoplifting in Chelsea Galleries

Here is an image of the stolen Brian Jungen piece:

Brian Jungen
Untitled, 2006
unique sculpture made from used baseballs, softballs
10 × 4-3/4 × 7-1/2”

Jennifer Coates, Creeper (detail), 2006, Acrylic on canvas, 60″ × 72″

This is my first posting of an image from my new camera.

It’s a beautiful show. I have to go back when it’s not so crowded so that I can see them under better conditions. It was quite the scene, with art bloggers and brilliant artists everywhere.

Mark Creegan
Watershed, 2004
used watercolor pans, tape on wall

ArtCat has a new artist client, and this time it’s one from Florida. My first non-NYC area artist!