Tag Archive "andreas-gursky"

Beautiful and not in New York

We dithered and waffled on what to see in our day trip to New York last week finally settling on shows in Chelsea and Soho that talked to our concerns about beauty in contemporary art. Beauty is back of course.  That’s nothing any observer of the scene has missed by now, with gorgeous public art by Anish Kapoor and the embrace of beauty in even the most tetchy conceptual realms (Kara Walker). But is it “beauty” or beauty? Is it something wry and ironic or a new push to aesthetic pleasure.   In a world of electronic and cyber-bombardment whose ... More » »

New York addendum

The Rapture, by Mark Shetabi, and sculpture of a gas station with a peephole beneath into a bunker. As Roberta said, it was one of four things in the show that had sold signs on them. Saturday was rainy, but I managed to see a few of the things I wanted to see. I’m going to add a comment or two on some things Roberta saw and then add a couple of things she didn’t see. My first stop was Philly artist Mark Shetabi’s work at Jeff Bailey Gallery was Mark Shetabi’s work, mostly paintings of grisaille empty, oppressive spaces ... More » »

New York out-takes

Richard Serra sculptures in the Sculpture Garden, MoMA. Note the photographer on the roof taking overhead pictures. MoMA was packed last Thursday. I said to Steve remember when we used to come visit the old MoMA, the little squishy MoMA? We would make trips to New York from Madison all the time in the late 1970s. We were always there the week between Christmas and New Years, a high tourist invasion time. Yet our trips to MoMA — in my rosy memory — were not marred by uber-crowded conditions. Crowd in front of Picasso’s Demoiselles D’Avignon, now celebrating its hundredth ... More » »