Sandy on Her Way

I haven't blogged lately because I've been so busy, but the impending arrival of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy seems worthy of commentary, as it was 14 months ago when I blogged about Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene heading our way. It seems a bit bizarre to me that after having lived in Florida for a number of years, I'm going through 2 hurricanes in NYC. Then again, we've also had 2 tornadoes touch down in Brooklyn in the past year, and a snowstorm in October 2011. Nah, there's no weather shift or global warming going on! Pa-lease! Anyway, I spent yesterday afternoon chilling out with AA and hundreds of other NYers in Washington Square Park just going about our business like nothing was happening, but I did my emergency supply shopping for food in the evening, as you can see below. And, yes, those are the same Santeria candles I bought last year. Hey, they worked! The MTA is planning to shut down the subway system later today, and since this is such a large, slow-moving storm, we may be feeling it for a few days. We will see how things go!

Barbra in Brooklyn Has Arrived!

It never ceases to amaze me how fast time flies. It was only five months ago in May when I announced that I had gotten tickets to see Barbra Streisand perform here in Brooklyn. That day has now arrived. And I'm still quite freaking excited! Timed with the concert is Barbra's new album, Release Me (cover image above), a collection of previously unreleased recordings from 1963 to the present. I listened to it for the first time tonight, and some of the songs have that Broadway sound, others her crooning '70s sound (which I like), but I think I need to listen to them a few more times to fully appreciate them. Included is the song "Home" from The Wiz. I have no doubt she'll be singing that at the concert. Brooklyn is, after all, her hometown. You can download the album from iTunes or Amazon.

MWA VII: Noguchi's Core

I realize I'm just barely getting this in today, the last day of September, but I want this month's MWA to be by Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), as I finally went to Long Island City on September 15 to visit for the first time the Noguchi Museum. It was just fantastic. The installations in the gardens and indoor/outdoor museum building epitomized the usually impossible feat of balancing the industrial with the organic. The monumentality of these exquisite stone sculptures was awe-inspiring to me. I realize I seem a bit overly enthusiastic, but visiting the Noguchi Museum and seeing his works reaffirmed for me two things I've discovered about myself in the study of sculpture. The first is that I have a stronger affinity for stone over metal, because of its organic quality. The Zen-like space in the sculpture seen here makes me feel the stone can breathe. The second discovery is that in circumambulating sculpture in the round I have a much greater appreciation for how it occupies space and how we and it speak to one another. The fact that his works are abstract only make this kind of interactive quality more personal and self-reflective. Of course I see the influences of Brancusi, Hepworth, and Chabo on Noguchi, but what that tells me is how they were part of a new generation of sculptors who amplified the vitality of nature by carving natural stone. This particular work by Noguchi is Core (Cored Sculpture), 1978, basalt. Here are a few other pictures I took of the installations and work currently on display at the museum.

DW: Farewell to the Ponds

Last night was the mid-season finale for Doctor Who with the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan." Most notably, this episode was the last in which the Doctor's devoted companions for the past few seasons, Amy Pond and and her faithful husband Rory Williams, ended their time with the Doctor in a rather sad, time-traveling farewell, which also happened to take place in 1930s NYC. Having chased aliens through multiple galaxies, traveled millions of years through time, meeting their child as an adult upon giving birth to her (really great episode!), and restarting the universe with a another mirror-image big bang (don't ask, you had to watch it), the Ponds have entered a new dimension of past companions in Doctor Who lore. And what better alien creature to bring into this mess but the most frightening aliens they've ever had: the Weeping Angels (aka Lonely Assassins). The Angels "kill" by sending their victims back in time just by touching them, and then feed on the potential energy created by the vanished person's life. The best part is that they freeze when you look at them--they turn into statues!--so don't blink. Yes, what makes them so freaky is that any statue around you could be a Weeping Angel, and not just a figure in stone or bronze. So don't blink! Or they may touch you and send you back in time. (You know the art historian-studying-sculpture in me LOVES the Weeping Angels concept. Check out how creepy they are below!) Alas, I can't say the episode touched me as much as I had anticipated, but then again for me this whole version of Dr. Matt Smith hasn't compared to Dr. David Tennant, as I've noted before. Still, it's sad to see the Ponds go. We await the next Christmas special and season with a new companion.

Happy 4th Birthday!

bklynbiblio turns 4 years old on Wednesday! We are now at 375 posts. Our top 3 tags still remain the same: "New York" (91), "19th-century art" (58), and "gay" (57), with "England" and "photography" just behind. Who knew we would be going this long? Thanks as always to my readers for your ongoing support these past 4 years.

MWA VI: Demuth's Ptown Tower

Any guesses why I've chosen this work as August's Monthly Work of Art? The answer will be revealed soon enough! Until then, here's what the American Wing curatorial staff have to say about the 1920 watercolor by Charles Demuth, After Sir Christopher Wren, in the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: "Demuth spent several summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, located at the tip of Cape Cod and a popular summer destination for artists and writers in the early twentieth century. He painted a number of Provincetown landmarks, including this view of the Center Methodist Episcopal Church. In this watercolor, the church's prominent steeple and spire rise above the surrounding residential architecture. Built in 1860, the church had been designed in a variant of the English Baroque style, which is often associated with the architect Christopher Wren (1632-1723). Certain elements of Demuth's composition are indebted to his knowledge of Cubism and Futurism. Repeated, diagonal "lines of force" break the area of the sky into fragments, and the houses in the foreground seem crystallized from multiple planes; however, the overall effect is legible and cohesive. In demonstrating that he could apply his Precisionist style to more traditional subjects as well as modern industrial ones, Demuth remained a painter of the American scene."

Anna Fahr Video

Some of you will recall, I'm sure, how thrilled I was to announce back in June the art video collaboration I had embarked on with painter Meera Thompson and filmmaker Anna Fahr. Well, Anna has done it again with another short video about painter Phyllis Chillingworth. Whereas I think the video collaboration we did was quite thought-provoking and placed Meera's paintings in a larger artistic, educational, and historical framework, this video about Phyllis's work is more personal and Romantic with its references to nature and her childhood. You'll love it, I'm sure. To see more work by the very talented Anna Fahr, go to her Vimeo site here.

Week-in-my-Life: Aug 2012 (Pt. 2)

THURSDAY 08/09/12

7:30am = breakfast: egg & cheddar sandwich on multi-grain toast with blackberries & coffee

8:30am = more dissertation writing, discover 15 pages written in my introduction (stunned!)

11:00am = head to Maybelle’s Cafe again for Wi-Fi and early lunch, discover it’s completely mobbed with people hoarding all the tables, suddenly disgusted that no one in my neighborhood has consideration for me, so forced to go to Starbucks instead, where I do more digital image research on Buddhist art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection (image above: Head of Buddha, ca. 4th century, Gandhara or modern-day Pakistan)

12:00pm = lunch: chicken tarragon sandwich & iced tea at Starbucks

2:00pm = home with cup of tea, falling asleep on the couch, force myself to wake up with yet another cup of tea with a snack of cherries and a chocolate pudding

3:00pm = therapy with UK (always helpful, never disappointing)

4:30pm = back to working on Buddhist art, finish another PowerPoint lecture with about 65 slides of images for a 3-hour class (huzzah!)

7:00pm = dinner: tortellini stuffed with spinach & cheese in a with a butter/olive oil-peas-tomatoes sauce; Netflix movie = finally finish watching Mirror Mirror (3 stars, and I'm being generous)

FRIDAY 08/10/12

3:55am = alarm goes off so I can do early-morning trip to gym, decide to sleep for just a few more minutes

6:30am = wake up realizing I'm not going to gym for early-morning workout; breakfast: Eggo whole grain waffles with blackberries and tea

10:00am = breakfast #2: cinnamon coffee cake & iced tea at Starbucks

10:30am = at library to use Wi-Fi to pay bills, update files, and go through library books on textiles from India and Mughal decorative arts

1:30pm = lunch: roast beef & cheddar sandwich on whole wheat roll, small bag of Doritos, & cream soda (no judging - I can gorge on bad food sometimes!)

2:00pm = begin the wait for the Time-Warner cable repair man to show up, rest on the couch watching from Netflix first 2 parts of documentary about history of India

3:15pm = first automated phone call notifying me Time-Warner is on their way, but I should confirm just in case

4:00pm = second automated phone call notifying me Time-Warner is on their way, but I should confirm just in case (note: I already received 3 of these calls earlier in the week as well)

5:15pm = another phone call (this time from a live person!) notifying me Time-Warner is on their way

5:45pm = Time-Warner finally shows up (note: appointment time was from 2-4pm), the great drama of my Internet service problems continues, and he even has to climb down the fire escape to check wires in our courtyard

6:45pm = After 2 months of nightmare problems, Internet is working! (huzzah!), begin prayers that it doesn't go out again

8:00pm = dinner: red-leaf salad with chicken tenders, tomatoes, red beans, black olives, cheddar cheese, and honey mustard dressing with water; movie: finish watching parts 2 and all of 3 of The Story of India (5 stars - very interesting, highly recommended)

SATURDAY 08/11/12

8:00am = after letting myself sleep a little later than usual, breakfast: 2 sunny-side-up eggs on multi-grain toast with strawberries and coffee

9:00am = clean bathroom and start dusting, only able to get through task by listening to Kim Sozzi, Lady Gaga, and Nicki Minaj

12:30pm = lunch: leftover tortellini eaten as pasta salad

2:00pm = at library to go through more books on Indian textiles and Mughal decorative arts

3:30pm = gym, almost full workout, 400+ calories burned

5:30pm = starving! snack: mini-cherry pie & iced coffee at Starbucks

6:45pm = meet JM & DC (with his new friend K) at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art for opening of new exhibition Pop-Up Museum of Queer History: Before We Were Queer; network with people we know, drink some free wine, then realize dying of heat stroke and claustrophobia, so rush outside into sticky humidity to breathe

8:15 = dinner: Mexican appetizers and a Corona at Papatzul in SoHo

9:45 = after-dinner glass of Pinot Grigio at Novecento in SoHo

12:00am = Zzzzzzzzz......

Week-in-my-Life: Aug 2012 (Pt. 1)

I know it’s been a while since I last blogged, so I thought I would rectify that by bringing back another one of my random weeks in my life posts, which I last did back in Feb/Mar 2011 (here, here, and here). In some ways it is timely to do this now, as I’ve had a few changes take place in my life. For starters, I’m no longer employed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (bklynbiblio readers may recall this post about one of my work-related digitization projects last Dec.) Circumstances worked out that it was the right time for me to move on to something new, and I’m thrilled to say that I’ll be teaching again starting in Sep. I will be an adjunct lecturer at City College of New York (teaching 19th-Century European Art) and Marymount Manhattan College (teaching a survey of Asian Art). I’m also actively working on my dissertation again. My friend KB and I decided we needed to motivate ourselves by being held accountable to someone, so we are writing weekly updates to one another on our progress. In the spirit of unfolding diurnal events during a random week in my life, here’s what has taken place so far (and in all fairness, I should admit that I've left out mention of the daily dips into Ghirardelli chocolates).

SUNDAY 08/05/12

AA, JM, and I take DC to the beach for his 42nd birthday, specifically Asbury Park where we soak up the sand and surf, probably have few too many cocktails but lots of fun, and wind up at tea dance at Paradise. breakfast #1: tea and cereal; breakfast #2: muffin and iced coffee at Pret a Manger. lunch: pizza and salad. dinner: 5Guys cheeseburger and fries, which we eat during a black-out from a torrential thunderstorm that oddly reminds me of Florida.

MONDAY 08/06/12

9:00am = drop off laundry, then call Time Warner because I still have no Internet service for 2 weeks now, find out I have (yet another) service appointment for Friday, would it not have been nice if someone had told me this before now??!! (begin to secretly plot how to destroy them for their arrogance).

9:30am = breakfast at Maybelle’s Café: bacon, egg & cheddar on brioche and cappuccino. stunned to find entire café filled with people who apparently are all out of work, so uncertain if it’s a good thing that I’m joining them. spend next few hours gathering digital images on early Indus Valley civilizations of Mohenjo-Daro in the Punjab for my lecture.

1:00pm = lunch: turkey & Swiss sandwich on multi-grain break with grapes and walnuts

2:00pm = continue working on same project, successfully finish first PowerPoint for one of my classes, including writing out explanations about things as diverse as the Bhagavad Gita and religious concepts like samsara (huzzah!).

6:30pm = dinner: spinach salad with salmon; Netflix movie: MidsomerMurders: Master Class (4 stars, midlands England, creepy piano teacher, fabulous students getting bumped off...what's not to loved?)

TUESDAY 08/07/12

7:30am = breakfast: pomegranate yogurt, ½ multi-grain bagel with cream cheese, and tea

9:00am = begin dissertation writing with reorganization of material, diving head-first into introduction chapter to justify to myself why I'm slaving away on this bloody thing, amazed to discover 4½ pages written.

12:00pm = lunch: turkey & Swiss sandwich (again), this time with leftover pasta salad; Netflix movie = Mirror Mirror (watch about 20 minutes; so not thrilled with Julia Roberts as a bitchy Queen Mum to Snow White)

2:00pm = off to gym, burn off about 400 calories doing machines and cardio

5:00pm = go to library and do more digital image research, this time on Buddhism and Buddhist art in India and Tibet

7:30pm = dinner: chicken & avocado salad at Pret a Manger

9:00pm = meet academic colleagues DJ and PK from London for professional networking drinks at Lyon’s in Village

WEDNESDAY 08/08/12

8:00am = breakfast: egg & cheddar with multi-grain bread and fruit, cup of coffee

9:00am = more dissertation writing; finish another 5 pages (huzzah some more!)

1:00pm = meet CS3 at the Ferrari dealership/store on Park Avenue (hence the Ferrari logo above), where he insists I show my license and prove to them that I’m actually a Ferrari and one of the distant cousins; despite this humiliation, we have delightful and engaging professional luncheon where we gossip first, then discuss at length electronic publishing, digital image rights, and the world of art books today. lunch: Cuban sandwich with plantain chips, iced tea (thanks for lunch, CS3!).

4:00pm = back to library for more digital image research on Buddhist art, suddenly becoming overwhelmed by the reality of how much work is involved in preparing a lecture to teach!

6:30pm = still at library, suddenly realize I should have left half hour earlier and now will never make it to yoga class (groan!), but then strangely bump into fellow doctoral dissertater SD and catch up for few minutes where we commiserate over the non-existent future of academic careers.

8:00pm = dinner: tomato, red bean, black olive, peas & walnuts salad with Lean Cuisine macaroni & cheese and 2 fried chicken tenders; Netflix movie: continue watching Mirror Mirror, but only get 30 minutes in before catch-up phone calls from the Uncle and SVH.

Stay tuned for more...

Conference of the Birds

Today was one of those unplanned adventures that turned out to be quite a treat. My photographer friend Gerald Mocarsky had a few pieces in a group show at Mana Contemporary, housed in a converted old warehouse in Jersey City that is now a suite of artists' studios and exhibition spaces. AA and I decided to see his show and check out the rest of the installations. One of the more fascinating group shows on the 6th floor was the exhibition "Conference of the Birds" organized by Cynthia Reeves. The show was about how artists see the intersections between birds and us, reminding us that birds are the only species to live on land, sea, and in the air. Birds are some of my favorite animals in nature, so this show was truly a wonderful treat today. There were some beautiful pieces, so I thought I would share a few of my installation views of what I liked. In order below they are:
1) Fly Over (What Lies Beneath) by Teresa Diehl, 2011, soap, resin, & monofilament
2) Riflesso de Stelle by Sibylle Pasche, 2008, white Carrara marble
3) Swirling (detail) by Cindy Kane, 2011, mixed media on luan panels
4) Dreaming of Joy by Ran Hwang, 2008, buttons, pins, wood panel, & steel cage
5) another general installation view

MWA V: Klimt's Adele

The Neue Galerie here in NYC is celebrating the 150th birthday of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, and it seems only appropriate then to share as this MWA one of his most exquisite paintings, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907 (image: Wikipedia), which the gallery owns and now proudly display as the centerpiece of its collection of Austrian and German art from the 1890s through the 1930s. The painting itself is oil and gold on canvas, and it shimmers both in person and in digital format. I can say it is definitely one of my favorite works of art in NYC, as it's both historicized and modern at the same time. Klimt had recently visited Ravenna, with its thrilling Byzantine church mosaics (the church of San Vitale will take your breath away), and decided to paint Bloch-Bauer using the jewel-like tones and effects he observed from these mosaic panels. Her portrait conveys a sense of Mannerism as well, with her attenuated limbs and facial features. At the same time, Klimt was conscious of the work of Cézanne and others in the way color could be used to create a flattened picture plane, for Bloch-Bauer clearly is sitting in a chair, but the pattern of her dress and the background meld into into another and we see a two-dimensional picture (keep in mind that Picasso and Cubism were only just beginning to get started at this time). But the story behind it this picture is just as striking as the picture itself. Adele had been the wife of the wealthy Jewish art collector Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who fled Vienna with the rise of Nazism, leaving his art collection behind. He later died in Switzerland, having bequeathed his art collection to his nieces. The picture hung for decades in the Belvedere, an Austrian museum, but through the intervention of Nazi reparation, it was given back to his heirs, his surviving niece Maria Altman. She in turn sold the painting in 2006 to Ronald Lauder (heir to the Lauder cosmetics firm) for the then record-breaking sum of $135 million, who purchased it for the Neue Galerie, which he had founded. Needless to say, Altman's action came under a lot of heat, turning what some critics saw as a moment of triumph for the proper restoration of art works to Jewish families into a money-making venture that reeks of American capitalism. Regardless, the picture is exquisite, and it should be high on anyone's list to see if whenever you're in NYC. For more on the picture and its history, you can read this book or this book, or take a look at any article about it, like this one.

Capriccio: The Video

A few weeks ago, I showcased Meera Thompson's work on bklynbiblio, coinciding with the opening of her new show at the Atlantic Gallery. I hinted in that post about a project in the works, and I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that project now has happened. I have participated in a collaborative venture with Meera Thompson and filmmaker Anna Fahr to create a video about Meera's work. I provide art commentary, positioning Meera's work in the longer trajectory of art history, while Anna did the videography and editing. We're quite proud of the end result, as I hope you'll agree. To see more of Anna's documentary work, click here or click here. If you cannot see the video below, you can see it on YouTube by going to http://youtu.be/2k24lxeZfcg?hd=1.

London, Llandudno, and Leeds

In April I announced that I was an invited guest speaker at a conference on Polychromy and Its Environments: New Perspectives on Colour and the Display of Nineteenth-Century Sculpture at the Henry Moore Institute. That time is now upon us. I'll be heading to London first, and ending in Leeds, but I must say that I'm rather excited that I'll be traveling with my cousin HA to Llandudno, Wales for 2 nights. It will be my first time to Wales, and we'll be stomping through John Gibson's birth land in and around Conwy on the north shore of the country. On the list of things to do is visit Bodelwyddan Castle (above) in Rhyl, where some of Gibson's sculptures are on display as long-term loans from the Royal Academy of Arts. I'm sure I'll be posting on Facebook and blogging as time permits. See you soon! Or, as they say in Welsh, Gweler chi cyn bo hir! I can't even begin to think how you would pronounce that.

MWA IV: Leonardo's Ginevra

Back in March, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. announced they were releasing high-resolution digital images of more than 20,000 objects from their collection in an ongoing attempt to make these public domain works more widely available for both commercial and non-commercial purposes using the highest quality museum-produced photography. This is a tremendous coup for educators and the public alike, as the removal of specific fees for publishing and other uses inevitably will draw more people's attentions to the NGA's collection in support of their open access policy. You can read more about their open access policy here. bklynbiblio readers will recall that the Yale Center for British Art previously had done something very similar last year. Other museums will follow, for sure. In celebration of the NGA's move forward, I've selected Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci, ca. 1474-78, as June's Monthly Work of Art. Rather than give my own thoughts on the beautiful portrait, here's just a small piece of what the curators at the NGA have to say about it: "She was the daughter of a wealthy Florentine banker, and her portrait—the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas—was probably commissioned about the time of her marriage at age 16. Leonardo himself was only about six years older. The portrait is among his earliest experiments with the new medium of oil paint; some wrinkling of the surface shows he was still learning to control it. Still, the careful observation of nature and subtle three–dimensionality of Ginevra's face point unmistakably to the new naturalism with which Leonardo would transform Renaissance painting. Ginevra is modeled with gradually deepening veils of smoky shadow—not by line, not by abrupt transitions of color or light." You can read more about the painting by clicking here. To search and download NGA images for your own use, click here.

Subway Shots 3

It's been a while since I've shared more of my Subway Shots, but I couldn't resist sharing these, which I took  with my iPhone tonight while riding home on the F train. We're used to seeing crazy things on the NYC subway, but I can say for a fact that this is the first time I've ever seen a walking 8-ft. tree! (She also made me think about Doctor Who, was definitely onto something with the eventual evolution of trees, most notably in the memorable heroine Jabe from the Forest of Cheem.)

Barbra in Brooklyn

Please pardon bklynbiblio for a moment while I gush about some thrilling news: I've got tickets to see Barbra Streisand at her sold-out concert here in Brooklyn this coming October!! Persistence paid off. I was convinced the concert was sold out, but I kept trying, and I got through. This is truly a life-long dream come true for me, so I'm giddy with glee. My amigo AA is going with me. He's not as big a fan as I, but he's being a great sport in joining me, and I appreciate the company very much (muchas gracias!). Besides, during the concert I may swoon and will need him to catch me. Don't laugh! We'll be in the nosebleed section, so I very well could swoon from the high altitude. The concert will be at the Barclays Center, the new stadium they're still constructing not too far away from me. It has been a controversial building project in the Brooklyn community for a while now, and I can't help but think the P.R. machines believe having someone like Barbra headline a concert there soon after it opens will help assuage some of the discontent. We'll see about that. In the meantime, I'll continue to grin and think "Hello, Gorgeous!", per her role seen here as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl (1968). To read more about the concert and Barbra's return to her roots in Brooklyn, you can click here.