Art Escape

Baseballs by Lutz Bacher @ The Whitney Biennial.

After reading the New York Times review of the Whitney Biennial I began to plot plan a trip to the city to see the show. This quickly evolved into a "how many galleries can I possibly see in one trip" sort of exercise. It was at that moment DH opted to abstain from the experience or "36 hours of art" as I conceived of it. Stepping off the train with the prospect of nothing but art, dinner and drinks with friends, and whatever else I could fit in for almost two whole days was awesome.

Note: I've waited so long to post this that the Biennial is now closed, but I had such a fun time I'm posting it anyway. Sorry.

Excellent meals with lovely friends and family were had at the Beacon Kitchen Counter and Maze by Gordon Ramsay at the London. Two delicious midtown finds that I can take no credit for tracking down. Thanks SH. Celebrating my delightful cousin's college graduation over dinner and drinks was great fun, made me feel very old, and I am very proud of her.

Great shows were seen at MAD,  including Swept Away. Yes, that is what you think it is and yes, I do think it's art. It had this lovely quiet quality about it and reminded me of a great presentation the conservation department at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art did a few years back about dust vs. dirt on a Deborah Butterfield piece. Fascinating.

The Biennial itself was interesting, but I fear I either missed out on the most life altering of the installation pieces, or I would have benefited from the curator's insight. That being said there were three artists I really enjoyed. Lutz Bacher, Elaine Reichek, and Nick Mauss. Baseballs by Bacher was strangely captivating. Perhaps it was the audio loop that crackled in the background combined with the dusty lighting, but the purposeful abandonment of the installation was intriguing nonetheless.

The multiple works by Reichek exploring Ariadne's thread made my inner mythology geek totally smile and the use of thread to explore a thread, well, I thought it was well done. Mauss's piece Concern, Crush, Desire, 2011 held the most interest for me over his other work. It may have been more about how it manipulated the space and created multiple viewpoints into the exhibition itself, but interesting all the same.

Mark Tansey, The Innocent Eye Test.

Muse in the Ancient Galleries.

Rain kept me from seeing Tom Saraceno's Cloud City installation on the roof at the Met, but I lingered in the Ancient galleries among the marble statutes I have always loved; enjoyed Oceanic galleries for the first time; backtracked out of the mob scene that was the Schiaparelli and Prada show (OMG); wandered through the modern galleries and then slipped out to go see the Neue Gallery.

An old colleague gave me a peak of the Guggenheim (which is closed on such a random day of the week), and the little bit of the John Chamberlain sculpture show I saw (mid deinstallation) was really interesting and reminded me how much broader his body of work is. There are several prints by him in the Kogod collection, so I had a slightly geek-out moment when I saw the same prints for sale as posters in the gift shop.

The last stop was to see the Cindy Sherman show at MoMA. I completely agree with a friend's assessment that I wish there had a been a broader representation of her work, but all in all a very worthwhile show. Because how can you not enjoy a whole installation of her portraits.

I can't wait to go back this Fall, the list has already started. Sorry DH.

Urban Gardening (Sounds Way More Sophisticated Than Reality)

Something something complete. Yes, after finishing potting the window boxes on our balcony, my first though was a Family Guy, Star Wars reference. This is a sure sign a more significant portion of my brain has been corrupted by the company I've been keeping for the past 13+ years than I am generally willing to admit. Looking at you DH.

Since we moved in we've been wanting to turn the balcony into outdoor living space with plants. Having a tiny patch of access to the outdoors was an imperative for us when we moved and while it may be small, we'll be damned if we won't use every inch of it.

The World Market pillows make the herbs happy.

So this past weekend we discovered Gingko Gardens on the Hill (which is awesome) and stocked up on the hardware, plants and soil we would need to have a microscopic size "garden". It had never occurred to me to use different soil for the herbs/veggies that we eat vs. the flowers that we grow. But, the friendly gardener pointed out that if we use Miracle Grow soil to plant our herbs we'd be ingesting fertilizer through the plants. So of course I bought fancy organic soil-- because I am a total yuppie that can be convinced of just about anything I have little knowledge of will kill me or damage the environment-- and also regular MG soil for the petunias.

Of course, now I have enough soil in my garage to plant at least two other balcony gardens, so give a shout if you need some local dirt.

Squint and you can see the petunias.

Now basking in the gentle rain of this week (a sure sign mother nature agrees with our planting efforts) are:

-Herb box of cilantro, rosemary, thyme, basil and mint

-Box of mesclun lettuce (bought on total impulse, not sure why I need to grow my own)

-Two boxes of lantana, petunias and sweet potato vine (which are way over planted and will likely need to be broken into a third at some point)

-One potted hosta

 Not quite the Marigold Festival Gardens of yore, but here's hoping we can keep it alive and at least enjoy a few appetizers and drinks from our labors. So stop by and enjoy the flowers and a drink while lounging on an IKEA bench or vintage chair we've jigsawed into our little outdoor space.

Making Space for Art

Stepping off the metro at L'Enfant Plaza the moving curvature catches your eye before the sound reaches your ears. From two blocks away I was captivated. This was something special.

Late Saturday night (after the Nationals rallied, but still took a beating from the O's) I drug DH to go see Doug Aitken's Song 1 at the Hirshhorn before it closed.  I had seen the work in passing a few times, but I had not yet been able to sit and just watch.

Doug Aitken's Song 1 viewed from Seventh St at the Hirshhorn.

The installation piece envelopes the entire circular exterior of the Smithsonian museum perfectly. The technical is flawless. My inner museum geek simultaneously pondered how hard the installation staff worked on getting the width of the projection just right and the sound levels just so, while taking in the full visual effect of the piece.

This was a happening. Truly. People were casual strewn about the grassy bits and low walls of seventh street. Some in their finest attire, others partaking in full picnics they brought out for the occasion. Seventh Street gave way to slow rolling bicyclists ambling past.

On Jefferson Dr. we perched on the Sculpture Garden wall, dark shadows cloaking the bronze figures several feet below us. The ethereal music of Al Dubin and Harry Warren's "I Only Have Eyes for You" washed over the landscape in a seductive, yet meditative fashion. The layered and shifting loop of sound is by definition repetitive. The same lyrics reworked reached your ears again and again. And yet, the piece never tires.

Fleeting in nature, the installation thrusts both the museum and the Mall into an urgent context that otherwise would pass their evenings quietly and undisturbed by more than ambling tourists trekking between monuments. Yet, the strength of the work is deeper than the novelty of it's limited airing. It literally transforms the concrete 1974 structure from a shrine to modern and contemporary art to a canvas for art. This seems more meaningful than being simply a backdrop for the work. The work and the location become inseparable. Sure you could install it again somewhere else, but it would be a different work, in a different place.

This pushes the boundaries in a way distinct and yet similar to what Quixotic has done in Kansas City with both the Kauffman Center opening and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  Interacting with architecture to make art. But instead of a single performance, there is the opportunity with Song 1 to return again to change your vantage point of the piece.

Creating relevance for the visual arts in a society that is becoming conditioned to consume work quickly and without consideration is an evolving challenge for museums. Developing inspired installations like this are certainly a critical step into bringing new and old audiences to the steps of the museum to be inspired. For people to find out for themselves why art matters.

Walking home from the Mall, I kept turning to catch a glimpse of the piece from across the expanse until it eventually receded and the city noises once again took over.

Stumbling into Running, Again

Wandering through the adjacent fancy-pants neighborhood to ours with the dog is a brilliant way to:

a) be a total voyeur looking in all of the ridiculous embassy houses (where no one actually seems to live)

Iris at one of my favorite new parks.

b) discover some amazing gardens and parks that are tucked in to tiny corners and the roses smell amazing right now

c) scope out future delusional real estate purchases

d) ease from walking back into running

By bringing the dog along, I just seem less creepy (at least I think I do...) doing all of the above and I can blame my super awkward running stride on the dog. He's a total fall guy in this situation.

At any rate, a huge thank you to all my friends near and far who continue to post about their own running exploits, because it continues to inspire me to choose my running shoes over my flip flops and to drag myself out of bed far earlier that I would every normally consider doing (particularly on a Saturday).

So this past weekend when I managed to actually run (let's pretend it's running and not the slow slumped jog it really is) just shy of ten miles, in a row, and didn't die; I realized... why yes, I can be ready to run to the Army 10 Miler this fall and yes, I will be able to have my mile time be fast enough to not get swept. 

Here's hoping I get a bib this week when registration opens up for the rest of us. And now that I've written this I'll try and force myself not to wimp out.

And Then There Was Light

It's amazing how a little more light and a better looking fixture can transform a space. When we moved in the sad little light that was hanging over the dining room table needed to go. It is really the only major source of light on the first floor and it was not cutting it.

Nine whole light bulbs, it's crazy bright!

Why would you put an entry light
in your dining room?

After searching high and low for a new light, including the Paris Flea Markets where we fell hard for a 19th Century Baccarat Crystal fixture (and then realized that um, we aren't "those people") it was replaced with this new light I found on One Kings Lane. It is absolutely not what I started out looking for. I had even found this crazy, oversized rough wood piece at the Luckett's Design House that I was sure would be awesome for the space and then after we painted, I realized it would be too much of a statement for the place. I fully planned to go vintage, some great piece I would have to have rewired, but then voila.

It turns out getting all those random emails and glancing at them from time to time is worthwhile and for the record One Kings Lane really did have killer good pricing. So very excited and now we can actually (for better or worse) see each other and the food on the table.

Curatorial Endeavor

Creating demand and driving interest in visual art exhibitions is something that I love to do. The process of understanding why a curator picked a certain artist, theme, perspective is an endeavor I treasure to be a part of over and over again. So, this spring when I decided to take advantage of a little university perk and take a class to feed my brain, it was a bit of leap to select Curatorial Practice as my course of study.

Actually being a curator is a path that I considered and actively abandoned years ago, but I thought this effort might improve my understanding of what makes a curator tick and improve my capacity to support them and tell their stories. To that end, I thought I would share a little about why I selected Joseph Lappie as the artist in the class developed show Like. Comment. Share opening this Saturday, April 28 at American University.

Joseph Lappie is incredibly talented artist based in Davenport, Iowa and currently a professor at St. Ambrose University. But my appreciation for Joseph's talent began long before he garnered global accolades as a printmaker. It began (I think) in the back of Mrs. Walrath's eighth grade class at Broadmoor Junior High School. I have vague recollections of Joseph drawing dinosaurs and other figures while we were in class. We went on to high school and Joseph expanded his talent exponentially as an artist, always having a talent to entertain both on paper and in person. We lost touch as he went onto earn his BFA and MFA, but then images of his MFA Thesis exhibition crossed my path. That was 2008.

For four years, I've recalled the work from time to time as an important departure from the traditional approach to printmaking. The scale, the figures, the sculptural evolution of the print blocks, all represent truly original thinking in printmaking. Stretching the boundary between printmaker and sculptor, the work commands consideration both as a technical achievement and artistic representation.

There is a depth of sadness and inward reflection in many of the figures Lappie illustrates. In his piece There Is Always More Than One When There Is Always Only One (2008) the stature of the figures-- shoulders slumped, faces tightly drawn, conveys a heaviness, a burden that feels isolating even when among a group. The carved surfaces appear deeply marked and worn with life. Lappie speaks of this series as being pieces of himself. An external display of an internal examination of his motives as a human and a man.

Courtesy of the Artist. All rights reserved.

Layered with information, the figures' emotional forms take shape as shadows that shift between changing shapes and text. Lappie seeks to create comfort with discomfort. The more the viewer is willing to interact with the piece the more they will see of the work and perhaps of themselves.


Most compelling is that Lappie's point of view as an artist is as powerful in full scale at over six feet, as it is in a few precious inches in a handmade and bound book or print.

For the installation at American University, there are four of the matrix figures from the piece There is Always More Than One When There is Always Only One, Determination, Predatory, and Fear and Dependence in full sculptural form and three as full size relief prints, Love, Doubt, and Sexuality. Select artist books will also be on view.

There is far more to say, but perhaps it is best to let the work speak for itself. I understand now how a curator can consider and work towards an exhibition idea for years and never grown tired.

Exhibition: Like. Comment. Share.
Location: American University Museum at Katzen
Dates: April 28- May 20, 2012
Hours: Free Daily, Tuesday-Sunday
Exhibition Website: http://www.lcsartshow.com
Twitter: @LCSArtShow
Hashtag: #likeart
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/curatorialpractices

Proper List of Excuses

After feigning no knowledge of the fact that I even have a blog for years, DH casually shamed me the other day by pointing out that he finally figured out how to subscribe to this rambling mess--but I hadn't written in ages. So here is a quick, totally lame list of excuses as to why I haven't been writing:

View of the river at Salt Water Cowboys in FL.

1. Mornings- We're still not friends, but I've been getting up way closer to 6 or 6:30 voluntarily that I ever thought possible to make it to (gasp) the gym or yoga. As a result, my evenings are getting cut shorter and shorter because apparently you have to go to bed early to get up early. Who knew?

2. Class- No I haven't lost my mind and decided grad school would be fun to do, again. I'm taking Curatorial Practice merely for the fun of it and you should totally come this Saturday to the exhibition opening and see the amazing work by the artist I selected Joseph Lappie.

3. Neighborhood- I'm having a total love affair with our new neighborhood and the dog is the main beneficiary. He's getting way more walks than he used to and I think being a city dog agrees with him. Well, at least he's tolerant of the slow pace I take to gawk at all of the embassy houses on the other side of Connecticut. What's brilliant, is the sidewalks are huge and no one actually walks there, so it's me, the dog and the secret service patrols. Btw, if any wants to purchase and gift a townhouse on Wyoming to me, feel free.

Beach in St. Augustine.

4.Decorating- Turns out that trying to decorate your house like a grown up takes time. Well, the good news is, I'm totally out of budget for now, so this project will be on temporary hiatus.

5.Travel- Both taking it and the lack of- meaning I've been lucky enough to see friends and their brilliant babes in Illinois, Missouri and Connecticut in the last few months and also escape to Florida for a nice long weekend with friends. And, DH has been home more this winter/spring than anytime I can recently recall. That's even with a trip to the middle of the Indian Ocean. So, I actually get to see him and do stuff. Crazy, I know.

So sorry, all three people who read this (4 with DH), I know your reading schedule has been just totally throw into havoc as a result. Let's just move on and instead think about how awesome Society Fair is in Old Town (total new favorite spot), the fantastic Doug Aitken: SONG 1 installation at the Hirshhorn, and tastiness that is this blueberry pie.