Musicians

Noteworthy Shows, December, 2016 (Updated)

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

William Eggleston- The Democratic Forest @ David Zwirner. It’s impossible for us to “see” Eggleston’s work now the way the way it was seen in 1976 when 69 images were presented at MoMA in the legendary show, Photographs by William Eggleston (which you can relive, here, in glorious black & white). In that black & white world, it was received as “shocking,” and widely panned (famously by The Times). If anything, today, there are “too many cameras and not enough food,” as Sting sang, and too many pictures in the world, so, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised to read a number of comments on Eggleston’s books, shows and works where commenters say they don’t see what’s special about it, or, that, as has often been said about Jackson Pollock, they could do it. Hmmm…Many, many have tried, and are still trying. What’s lost in translation in seeing Eggleston in 2016 is how many photographers have “gone to school” on his work, over the past 40 years, learned from it, and yes, copied it 1, so that much of what he is famous for is now omnipresent. Yet, it’s barely 40 years since his breakthrough at MoMA.

Depth of Field. Untitled, 1983-86, as each work here is so named and dated. Leica can’t buy advertising like this, and the rest of what is on the walls of this show. Note the endless mirror Self Portraits, that mimic all the bottles, jars and cans.

Countless professionals and amateurs shoot “the everyday,” the seemingly mundane now. Who’s to say what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s “Art?”

The road less traveled…It doesn’t exist in Manhattan.

As always? Time will. In the meantime, what about the work of William Eggleston in 2016?

On the left, a classic shot of the so-called “mundane.” On the right, possibly a color Homage to Robert Frank’s The Americans, an early influence.

William Eggleston, now 77, has been making photographs since his college days, closing in on 60 years ago. He’s often called “the father of color photography,” which puzzles me. He was not close to being the first Photographer to shoot in color, nor the first to create a substantial body of work in color. Nor was he, as has often been reported, the first Artist to have a solo show of color Photography at MoMA. Ernst Haas beat him to that honor by 14 years with Ernst Haas: Color Photography at MoMA in fall, 1962! It can be seen here. Still, it’s enough passage of time for some things to be known. For one thing, his work still seems to be gaining in popularity. For another, it still garners a lot of respect from both his fellow Photographers, and Museums, judging how widely they hold and show his work. William Eggleston Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London this fall, drew raves. Millions of dollars are being spent on his work at auction. He, and his Eggleston Artistic Trust2, left the Gagosian Gallery this past June and signed with the equally prestigious David Zwirner Gallery for representation, (this being their first show), and this century has already seen a steady stream of stunning books and huge box sets by Steidl, which have the look and feel of monuments, that sell out and some then command a thousand dollars a copy, and more, on the aftermarket.

Famous for his very vivid colors, I found the shot on the left, with it’s pastel colors, equally effective.

In October, The New York Times featured him as one of their six “Greats,” along with superstar (my term) Artist, Kerry James Marshall, and Michelle Obama. William Eggleston is big time. Ok. So, back at David Zwirner on West 20th Street, how’s the show?

The shot on the left (who’s  location is unknown to me) makes me yearn to see shots of his taken in NYC.

30-odd years after these works were created they retain a surprising freshness and resonance that’s not easy to explain. I’m not sure it’s entirely the famous(ly) bright colors that are solely responsible for this, either. They’re undoubtedly a hook, but there’s far more going on, and there are works that don’t feature “knock your eyeballs out” colors that are equally compelling. Following in the tradition of Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, he has taken their ideas someplace else. Someplace subtle, or very subtle, mundane, often easily overlooked. A place decidedly “American” (in these works), that American viewers instinctively recognize, and one that must look like Mars to the foreign eye. Heck, in a few more years, it’s going to look like Mars to ANY eyes. Yes, so many others have tread this ground since Eggleston’s work became widely seen. They shoot similar subjects, using the same camera. But, in the hands of a visionary master of the medium, the results are truly unique. Seeing 40 works together reinforces all of this, and reveals intimacies about his approach and style. Seen in isolation this sense is harder to glean. His work has a feeling of spontaneity that is, also, often copied, perhaps, increasingly. Watching him at work in documentaries, we see this spontaneity is not contrived. Frankly? I marvel at it. What is going on in his mind as he approaches his spot? As he composes and frames? Untold millions walk around with cameras, raise them and take a photo. None are these. How is this possible? Also an Artist (his book Paris featured his Art alongside his photos), as well as a musician, it should be no surprise that he has one hell of an eye for composition (which can be seen in even his earliest black and white work), and which I feel is under-appreciated given how rarely I hear anyone mention it. It may be as big a part of his impact as color. His is, also, a painter’s eye, which also sets him apart as a photographer. Perhaps it is this that gives him his eye for the “secret life” of what most overlook in the world. All of these things work together to make a composition of random “things” a personal statement, even without people present in most of his photographs, and they seemingly come together in the instant the exposure takes. With a master technician of photography who’s also an Artist behind the shutter, I think his results are going to intrigue viewers for a very long time no matter how many try to copy and imitate him.

A wall of the smaller, 20 3/4 x 28 3/4 inch, prints for comparison. The work in the center is also in the Whitney, though smaller.

Eggleston said he has over a million and a half images in his archives. They ALL can’t be classics, can they? According to the press release, the show includes 40 works, “the majority of which have not been exhibited previously.” The “Democratic” in the show’s title speaks to the camera’s ability to “render equally what is in front of the lens.” What is rendered in these 40 works includes very few people.

 

Each work here bears the same title and dating- Untitled, 1983-86. Very democratic, indeed. Not mentioned is that these works are recent prints in a larger size, somewhat controversially, (about 65 x 45 inches, though a few are 20 x 28) Digital Pigment Prints, instead of the  Dye Transfer Prints that Eggleston is renowned for, which his works in the collections of MoMA, The Met, and many other places are. For me, the larger size (the original sizes were of the order of 16 x 20 inches), seem to reach for a “painterly” impression. This struck me as soon as I walked in, not surprising, perhaps, since I have looked at mostly Painting in my life. Some succeeded larger, some didn’t. Interestingly, I found images I’ve long struggled with to be among those I am still struggling with larger.

One I’ve struggled with.

This one continues to haunt me with it’s unique blend of a photograph that “borrows” much from painting, then takes it somewhere else.

Another thing that most impresses me…no…blows my mind, is that Eggleston does it taking only a single shot. While he would, no doubt, prefer his work remind me more often of Degas (who, among many other things, was a photographer, as well as a master print maker and immortal Painter), I found myself thinking of him as being somewhere between Edward Hopper/Charles Sheeler and Ed Ruscha/Richard Estes. To study the individual photos in this show closer, check out the exhibition’s catalog. I’ve mostly opted to show the very interesting combinations in which they were hung, which I assume Mr. Eggleston, himself (who was in NYC for the opening, also making rare appearances at The Strand and at Aperture), was involved with, since those won’t be widely documented.

“Well I hope you’re happy with what you’ve made
(Puzzling evidence)
In the land of the free and the home of the brave
(Puzzling evidence)”*

William Eggleston’s worldwide reputation as an important American Artist of our times increases seemingly daily. While his Artistic Trust, which his sons are involved in, seems to have it’s own ideas about the future of his work, it seems assured that his work is going to be seen far and wide for a very long time. With that 1.5 million photos he guesstimated are in his archives, he must have taken some in NYC, as he memorably did of Paris, right? Maybe those will be in a future show called “The Democratic City.”

Francis Picabia @ MoMA- (Note- March 3, 2017. I went back to see this show, again, before it ends March 19, and so I update my Post on it, in hopes of doing it more justice.) Picabia first got me into Abstract Art as a teenager with this work-

Let’s Get Lost. Picabia’s masterpiece I See Again in Memory My Dear Udnie, 1914. Worth the price of admission by itself.

I bought the postcard of it, which I still have. It sucked me into it- almost literally, it’s grip on my mind, and my eyes, was so intense. It’s a work that looks like you could walk inside and climb around in and explore it’s unprecedented landscape. But, it was it’s title that hooked me…”I See Again in Memory My Dear Udnie.” When I finally climbed back out of it and got around to pondering the name of the work…Well? I’m still pondering it. Most of the other Abstractionists (Pollock, Rothko, Duchamp, even Kandinsky) didn’t usually title their works. This proved a vital “way in” for me. From this, and Picabia’s other works of this period, I discovered Pollock, Kandinsky, Miro, then the Surrealists, Dada, and the Abstract Expressionists. Seeing it, again, in this very well done retrospective brought all of that back to me. I was, initially, startled because I’d forgotten how large it is- over 8 feet high by 6 and a half feet wide. Talk about making a statement. It’s presence, and impact, is still every bit as strong. For me, at least, it’s a central work in his oeuvre. His early abstractions are, still, breathtaking, unique and just gorgeous.

Front row seat to genius. Ecclesiastic, left and Udnie, Young American Girl, both 1913, right. The now immortal Udnie was a dancer named Stacia Napierkowska, who’s on-ship performances Picabia was taken with on his voyage to NYC for the famous 1913 Armory show, a triumph for him. Meanwhile Stacia/Udnie was arrested by the NYPD for “indecent” performances. (Here in the NY Times.).

While Cubism was all the rage at the time (c.1914), I think it’s a shame that other Artists didn’t follow Picablia down this road. Then again? Where else was there left to take it? Perhaps this is why, Picabia, himself, turned his back on this style and adapted others. The man is one of the ultimate chameleons of his time.

It’s not “Cubism,” or “Futurism,” or “Geometric Abstraction.” So? What do you call The Spring, 1912? How about beautiful?

This is a long overdue show, and a big one. It surprised me with Picabia’s endless evolution throughout his career, much of which, post-1925 seems to be a bit in the shadows compared to his early, seemingly endless inventions.

Down in front. The Animal Trainer, 1923, (inscribed “1937”). Fear not- I’ve been assured by MoMA that no Owls were harmed in the making of this Retrospective. Actually? I’m not sure just who is being trained in this work.

It points out that there remains much to see and study in the long career of this defiantly original, prolific and continually surprising individualist. I found myself a bit lost by what came after 1925, but he called me back with his somewhat surprising evolutions during WW2.

Moving on. The Lovers (After The Rain), 1925. Picabia painted over an earlier, abstract work in creating this. I’d love to see an x-ray and see what he chose to paint over.

Good luck trying to stick Francis Picabia in a style hole. He didn’t stand still, as we see here in The Wandering Jew, interestingly, from 1941. A period that features quite a few nudes.

In the end, Picabia is, like I See Again in Memory… one of those Artists who’s work demands, and rewards, repeated viewing. His formidable technique, and endlessly creative & inventive mind gave us an Artist who wasn’t content to stay with one style for very long. When you have that kind of talent? Why would you want to? He was, as he famously said, “a monster.” A monster talent.

Portrait of the Artist, 1934, a collaboration with Bruno Eggert. A bit of Christian Schad, perhaps? Schad was 40 in 1934, though pretty obscure.

Paths To The Absolute: Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian, Newman, Pollock, Rothko and Still @ Di Donna Galleries- A small wonder. All of those big names in one gallery show. Beautifully hung, in fascinating combinations that created wonderful inner dialogues, and one that offered a nice different perspective on Rothko from that going on in the “big” show, concurrently, at Pace, Chelsea. A show I almost missed and long will be grateful I did not.

Pollock and Malevich. I don’t believe I’ve ever see them together! Why not?

Franz Kline, Malevich, Barnett Newman and Mondrian. And, that bench!

As good as that show was, one Artist was not included…

Richard Pousette-Dart: The Centennial @Pace Gallery, East 57th Street, and Altered States: The Etchings of Richard Pousette-Dart @Del Deo & Barzune. This past June 8th would have been the 100th Birthday of Richard Pousette-Dart (RP-D for short), who died in 1992 at 76. An Artist who, I feel, has not yet been fully appreciated. June 8, 2016 would slip quietly by, but it turned out his 100th had not been forgotten. Pace Gallery 57th Street, opened a Centennial Show on September 6, (with RP-D’s wife and well known son, the musician, Jon Pousette-Dart in attendance). A symposium was held at the Whitney a few weeks later, a restored public work was unveiled downtown, and a revelatory show of his etchings at Del Deo & Barzune in the Flatiron District opened on October 6.

RP-D: The Centennial @ Pace, Uptown

Phew…My fears he’d be forgotten were assuaged. RP-D has become something of a “cause” for me. The more I see of his work, the more I’m baffled that he’s not (often) spoken of with his long time compatriots Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, et al. I just don’t get it. For my money (and I have none personally invested), he’s every bit as good, and important, as any of them.

Altered States: The Etchings of RP-D @ Del Deo & Barzune

The show at Pace Uptown was nicely concise, giving a taste of the range of his stylistic development, which, for me, were a feast for the eyes. There is something wonderful about his work that allows it to work just as well in a small space (as the etchings prove), or in a large gallery at The Met’s newly rehung M&C Galleries. It’s so easy to get endlessly lost in either close study of his work, or at a distance. His compositions are among the most complex of the AbEx Artists, and his attention to detail borders on the staggering. You wonder how he ever finished one work, let alone as many as he did.

White Silence, 1974, 14 feet long, above. Hurry up and grab a seat before I sit there until they close.

Detail. “…it’s full of stars.”

Astoundingly, RP-D was, also, one of Ai Weiwei’s teachers at The Art Student’s League (on West 57th Street, down the street from where Pace is now) from 1983-86. I have yet to hear, or read, him (AWW) speak about the experience.

Installation view- Pace Gallery

Visiting the wonderful satellite show, with the prefect name, Altered States: The Etchings of Richard Pousette-Dart at Del De & Barzune in the Flatiron, the impression (sorry) is amended (as it always seems to be when one sees a work by RP-D he previously hadn’t seen), enhanced and refined. Here, his attention to detail is in just as full effect, and the results are even more (and even more sadly) unknown. The work on view is uniformly marvelous. They give the same effect as his larger painted masterpieces- ponder them from afar, or get lost in them up close. These are works you will look at for an entire lifetime and still see something new in them.  Long live Richard Pousette-Dart.

Just in time for RP-D, 100- Symphony No. 1, The Transcendental, 1942-42, now on view in the newly rehung Modern Galleries at The Met, 5th Avenue.

And, finally…a show I planned to write more about but haven’t, and just can’t let get away- Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece @ The Morgan Library. Worth the price of admission to see the figure of Judas in the 1629 painting, Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver, The Master did at age 23(!), the work that sealed his status as a “Master,” and which I haven’t as yet found an antecedent for in the prior history of Painting3

While you were waiting for a slight opening in the throng surrounding it, you were blessed with the rest of this one, large, room being chocked full of some of the greatest impressions of Rembrandt’s prints to be seen in this hemisphere.!

One half of the show.

I could think of worse ways of spending my time “waiting.” Like doing anything else, short of making love. So overwhelming were they that you were 3/4 of the way home before you realized you saw “only” one painting.

Murderer’s Row. If I could only have one work of Art for the rest of time? I’d take a Rembrandt painted Self-Portrait. So, I was floored to walk into this show and see no less than FIVE Rembrandt Self-Portrait etchings.

And then? The seas parted and lo and behold? THERE IS WAS! QUICK! SHOOT!!!

Judas Returning The 30 Pieces of Silver, 1629. Private collection. (i.e. Someone has this hanging on their wall. I felt a twinge typing that.)

Where was I? Oh yeah…”only” one painting here…That was immediately followed by the realization that with Rembrandt? The medium is not the message- The message is the message. it matters not which medium he chooses to work in. He created timeless Art in many mediums, Painting, drawing and prints, here. From what is called his “First Masterpiece,” (I didn’t say that)4, he lets it be known that he is someone that is, and will be, unprecedented in Art History, and earned the admiration of the diplomat, poet and great Art connoisseur Constantijn Huygens, who’s original diary, containing Huygens’ now immortal words about Rembrandt and “Judas,” which put the young Artist on the map, is here as well. Remarkable! Of “Judas,” Huygens writes in THIS very book(!)-

The Legend of Rembrandt begins here.

his Autobiography, written between 1629-31-

“Compare this with all Italy, indeed, with everything beautiful and admirable that has been preserved from the earliest antiquity. The singular gesture of the despairing Judas-leaving aside the many fascinating figures in this one painting-that one furious Judas, howling, praying for mercy, but devoid of hope, all traces of hope erased from his countenance, his appearance frightening, his hair torn, his garment rent, his limbs twisted, his hands clenched bloodlessly tight, fallen prostrate on his knees on a blind impulse, his whole body contorted in wretched hideousness. Such I place against all the elegance that has been produced throughout the ages.”

One of the most auspicious, calling cards in Art History…even 388 years later.

This “such” retains every bit of it’s power to awe onlookers nearly 400 years later as it did Mr. Huygens shortly after he created it, to the extent that it’s possible to see so much of what’s come after in this one figure, right up to Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

I give this show my award for the exhibition that went the furthest beyond above and beyond delivering on the advertised expectations. Any show that elicits an “Oh My God,” from it’s doorway as I first entered and it dawned on me what awaited and how undersold this show was has to be, at least, NoteWorthy, and at most, unforgettable.

As the new year begins? To any show with designs on winning that award this year, I say  “Bring It On!”

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Puzzling Evidence” by David Byrne and recorded by Talking Heads on True Stories, which was accompanied by a movie and a book of the same name. The book contained photographs by William Eggleston, among others.

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  1. Continuing the continuum. Eggleston learned from Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, among others. ↩
  2. holders of all of his copyrights ↩
  3. “Agony” seems to be something avoided in Painting. To this time, Christ on the Cross was depicted “transcending” the physical agony, and Paintings of the so-called “Agony In The Garden,” invariably show Christ lost in meditation, prayer and deep, though possibly, pained, thought. If you know of an ancestor or influencer, please let me know. ↩
  4. His early work is pretty darn stellar in my book. I’ve long had a love of this one in Boston, from 1628, one year before “Judas”, that is only 9 inches by 12 inches. Don’t be fooled by it’s apparently “simplicity.” Much is going on. ↩

Directions In Listening By Miles Davis

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A ShortList Of Recommended Miles Davis Albums

Timeless. Miles on an Apple “Think Different” Billboard, I shot in June, 1998 on West 23rd Street.

This is an Addendum to my “Riffing On Miles Davis” Post in response to a note I’ve gotten asking what specific recordings I’d recommend listeners check out to hear Miles, and/or get a fuller appreciation of his accomplishment over the 40 years he recorded albums under his own name1. Personally? Miles Davis was my biggest musical influence, as he was for many of the musicians I worked with or admired. He was a living legend to us, akin to what Picasso was to visual Artists during his lifetime, and yes, there are quite a few interesting similarities between Miles & Picasso, but that’s a different piece. Ok. So, here’s my “ShortList” of essential Miles albums- suggestions for both a listener new to Miles Davis to start with, and for where to go from there. To clarify- Miles’s earliest records are almost 65 years old now. Older albums get re-released, if they continue to be worth hearing!, all the time, often with different names. Almost all of Miles’s are still available. I’m using their original album titles here. Disclaimer- This is a “ShortList”- a place to start. If I’ve left your favorite out? I hear you. I’m leaving out some of mine, too. I think we can all agree that there is A LOT of great music in his Discography. Dip your toe in and see where the River Miles leads you. I hope we can all agree on that.

First, Kind of Blue– Yeah. What else would be first? It seems to be every critic’s #1 choice as the first Jazz album you should have. Ok, I get that. For me, it’s much more. It’s a record I’ve lived with for most of the 56 years since its been released. I’ve gone through phases with it. First, there was the “tunes” phase- listening to, and loving the songs as songs, while marveling that they were basically composed at the recording sessions, or as legend has it, by Miles in a taxi on the way to them.

The Official Soundtrack of The Night. I go to The Met to see Art. I listen to this to hear it. I wore out the Lp, then bought this, the first CD release. There's now a 50th Anniversary 2 Disc edition with outtakes- Get that.

The Official Soundtrack of The Night. I go to The Met to see Art. I listen to this to hear it. I wore out the Lp, then bought this, the first CD release. There’s now a 50th Anniversary 2 Disc edition with outtakes- Get that.

Then, there was the Miles-“So-What”-Solo-Phase, which most musicians probably go through. I’m talking about Miles’ solo on “So What,” the first solo on the record. First, you marvel at its utter perfection. Finally, you write it out, study it, and learn to play it on whatever instrument you play. Then? You realize that was easy enough, but it doesn’t come within miles (sorry) of what he did. You start to wonder why not, and you then start to become a “Musician.” Further, jazz can be taught, but Jazz can’t be taught, I believe. The intellect, the sensibility, the taste, the creativity, the feeling, and the unique essence that makes a Master Musician are either there, or they’re not. Even if they are all there? You’re still not Miles. Only Miles was Miles. If you want to know why he was so great, or hear music that is Art, in my opinion, listen to this.

In the 1990’s I was fortunate enough to know, and once work with, the multi-intrumentalist & vocalist Mark Ledford. He passed way far too soon and is probably best known for having been in Pat Metheny’s Band, and having a solo CD out on Verve called Miles 2 Go. He also played with the late, great Joe Zawinul, the co-founder of the legendary band, Weather Report. Joe composed “In A Silent Way,” now a Miles Davis classic, and performed on some of Miles’ classic albums. Mark introduced me to Mr. Zawinul, one evening at the Blue Note, NYC. I was a very long time lover of Joe Zawinul’s music going back before his days with Weather Report, to those days he spent with Miles. Yet, when I finally got to meet him, all I could ask him was, “Have you heard Led play trumpet?” I wondered if he felt about Mark’s playing the way I did. Mark Ledford uncannily sounded like Miles on trumpet. Believe me, I don’t say that lightly. The highway of Jazz is littered with “Miles-wannabees,” who never were. Like me, Mark Ledford had grown up with Miles, and unlike me, he played trumpet. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but when I first heard him play, I was like “WOW. This is uncanny.” I was lucky enough to have him play trumpet on one of my records.

Anyway, the point is that even Mark Ledford, a brilliant multi-talented musician, who could sound more like Miles than any of the millions of Miles imitators, wasn’t Miles. He would tell you that. Listening to Miles and trying to think where he was going…what would come next…was a game I still play. Then? There was that sound. As I wrote earlier, for me, his sound defines living in NYC as much as any sound I can think of. People in London, Cairo, Tokyo and Moscow probably feel the same way. Well? Sorry, but Kind of Blue was recorded here, within walking distance from where I’m writing this, so we’ll take dibs on it. Yet, Kind of Blue is as much about Miles’ sound when he plays, as it is about the sound when he didn’t play. It’s a masterpiece of silence, as much as it is of music, of “negative space,” as Artists call it, as I mentioned in my first Miles Post. When you go back and listen to earlier Miles albums you can hear it there, too. But, it’s a featured player here, and something that became integral to listening to Miles henceforth. For me, this silence is what puts Miles’ legendary coolness over the top. No other musician, in any kind of music has ever been as revered for what he played as for what he chose not to play.

Another view of the “Think Different” Billboard, June, 1998. This one shot from under what is now the High Line

Time would go by, and I’d come back to Kind of Blue, again. This time for Trane. John Coltrane is a world unto himself. He was as revolutionary a figure as Miles was, in his own way. One of the first “mainstream” jazz musicians to experiment and adopt elements of the avant garde in his work, he was a man who was on a mission. A mission that ended far too soon, when he suddenly passed in 1967, age 40! Look at his discography and you’d think he lived to be 100, almost no one was as prolific a recording Artist as John Coltrane (Thank goodness!) Like Miles, all periods of Trane’s work are important, and his period with Miles, which would end shortly, was certainly up there with any of them. While Miles was creating perfect statements with the utmost economy, John Coltrane was wailing. He often sounds like a man who knows he doesn’t have a lot of time to get it all in. Possessing one of the most formidable techniques in the long & storied history of the Tenor Sax in Jazz, he used every ounce of it, seemingly, all the time. Miles once said, no doubt referring to him, “I had seven tenor players, once.” Yet, in spite of what some critics say, I don’t ever hear him overplaying. Later, his explorations carried him much further afield than we hear him here, and that’s a different story, but on Kind of Blue, he is the perfect counterfoil for Miles (as he is one virtually all of his recordings with him.)

So, you can listen to “Kind of Blue” for the music. You can listen to it for Miles. You can listen to it for Trane.

And, you can also listen to it for the great Cannonball Adderley. Or the great Bill Evans, or for the band as a whole (Paul Chambers bass and Jimmy Cobb’s drums complete the band, with Wynton Kelly on piano on one track), a unique combination of master musicians, all at their peak, all together in one room. Thank Buddha there was recording equipment, engineers present, and someone remembered to hit the “Record” button! (I’ve been to sessions where someone actually forgot to.)

After Kind of Blue, there are many different ways you can go in exploring Miles’ recorded legacy. For me, I’d go with the music of the group that took acoustic music further than anyone has- before or since- Miles’ Quintet of 1965-67, the so-called “Second Great Quintet.”.

You’re looking at nothing less than what remains the State of The Art in small group Jazz. Available as individual records, or in this Complete Box Set, seen at Barnes & Noble, Union Square, one of the few CD Stores left in NYC this week. I never leave home without it…on my Phone.

To clarify- Miles’ “First Great Quintet” was the working group (i.e. they performed live) he had from 1955-58 that included Tenor Saxophonist John Coltrane. The group that recorded Kind of Blue is referred to as his “Sextet.” For me, everything the Second Great Quintet recorded is essential. Miles was joined by Wayne Shorter (Tenor, and later, Soprano Sax), Herbie Hancock (Piano), Ron Carter (Bass) and Tony Williams (Drums)- a group of young, and already accomplished, talents who grew to become masters on their instruments during this experience. One of their albums was titled “E.S.P.,” which perfectly summed up the previously unheard level of group intercommunication they attained as well as anything could. Therefore, the “album” I’m recommending is The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings Of The Miles Davis Quintet January 1965 To June 1968, a 6 CD set, pictured above. It’s a compilation of their albums of the period. It would be very very hard for me to pick one album. If you held a gun to my head? E.S.P., then Nefertiti, The Sorceror, Miles Smiles, but we are splitting hairs now.

E.S.P. as a single Lp/CD. While the music inside is telepathic, the cover, with then wife Cicely Tyson, makes me wonder, too. See note below about Japanese pressings.

E.S.P. as a single Lp/CD. While the music inside is telepathic, the cover, with then wife Cicely Tyson, makes me wonder, too. See note below about Japanese pressings.

This is music that features Miles at the peak of his powers, in the company of 4 young musicians (Tony Williams was 17 when he joined Miles!) who are becoming Masters, themselves, right in front of our ears. A key point in this evolution occurred when when the band was performing live early on. Miles wondered why the group played differently, more adventurously, behind Wayne’s solos than it did behind his. So he called them out on it and told them to play the same way behind his. In short order the group was matching its leader at every turn, and, by the time of their later recordings, even push him. It’s exciting, fresh, exploratory and endlessly vital music, that, in my opinion, redefined what acoustic jazz could be. Those terms are carried on in the superb Wayne Shorter Quartet of 2001 to date, one of the few bands that carries on in the spirit of the GQ2, perhaps at the behest of Miles, himself, who reputedly passed the torch to Wayne the last time they spoke. I digress.

If, like me, you get to the point where you must hear every note the GQ2 played, than by all means check out The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel, Miles In Berlin, and the Live In Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1, (a 2011 release that only scratches the surface of rare live recordings by this band that are avidly traded among collectors. These are not on the “Shortlist,” however. Many of these are in surprisingly good recording quality, having originated from Radio or TV Broadcasts- or both.)

Many Miles fans will part ways with me here, when I make my next selections, and that’s fine. It’s my personal opinion. I think we’d all agree that it’s best to hear as much of Miles’ music as one can and decide for yourself, what speaks to you. There are about 50 studio albums to choose from that Miles recorded, 36 or so live albums, but, as I said, these are augmented by hundreds of live tapes that collectors trade. This list is merely a suggested starting point to help you figure out where you’d like to go, or suggest new roads if you’ve dipped your toe in Miles’ Ocean.

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This one changed my life. Oh, and music has never been the same since, too. Perfectly titled. Perfect cover art. Perfectly Revolutionary.

I’d suggest Bitches Brew next. As I touched on previously, Miles Running The Voodoo Down. it was a revolution in a career of many innovations. It still sounds ahead of its time to me. It has that air of improvisation that Kind of Blue has, but in an entirely different way. Wayne, Keyboardists Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Larry Young, Guitarist John McLaughlin, Bass Clairnetist(!) Bennie Maupin, Bassist Dave Holland, and Drummers Lenny White, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Cobham and Percussionists Airto and Don Alias, joined Miles in brewing up a concoction that melted the borders not only between rock and jazz but between so many other kinds of music at the same time, it was like the flat earth had suddenly become round. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say it had the equivalent effect of The Beatles going psychedelic 2 years earlier with the release of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The influence of this album is everywhere I turn today- every time I see a jazz group that includes an electric instrument, there it is, or a group of some other kind of music that has jazz elements (including Prince) and an electric instrument or two.

Miles’ work with Gil Evans is also revolutionary, and much less controversial. Many consider it his most beautiful music. It extends as far back as 1949-50 and is collected on the legendary, and highly recommended, album The Complete Birth of The Cool, which is exactly what it was. Miles has been “cool” ever since. For me? He defines it. The shot below is from a radio session done the year before the record. Miles was playing Gil Evans Arrangements that featured unusual instruments for small group jazz, like the tuba and french horn. So, the band became known as “Miles’ Tuba Band.”  About 10 years later, they reconvened to created the masterpieces “Sketches of Spain” and “Porgy and Bess,” (yes, the Gershwin Opera). Add them to your list.

Pre-Birth of the Cool. Miles, NYC in 1948 with Lee Konitz on Alto, and Gerry Mulligan on Baritone Saxes, Left, John Barber on Tuba. From my collection.

Ok, it’s been hard to leave off other albums featuring John Coltrane, so I will wait no longer.

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No. He’s not posing here, or in the silhouette. Only Sinatra and Ella can “sing” standards with Miles. (Louis and Billie ain’t bad, either.)

Milestones is a classic. Along with Trane, it contains another (like on Kind of Blue) rare appearance by Cannonball Adderley, along with Red Garland (Piano), Paul Chambers (Bass), and Philly Joe Jones (Drums). This band, without Cannonball, comprised Miles “First Great Quintet.” “‘Round About Midnight,” and “Miles Ahead” would be your next stops for the studio work of this group. Two points should be made here- 1) Miles created these records for Columbia Records, who he signed with in 1955. Before that, this group recorded for Prestige. Among the Prestige titles, I love Workin’ and Steamin’, though Cookin’ and Relaxin are right up there as well.

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Workin’” but not Steamin’ “It Never Entered My Mind” is on this. One of his greatest performances for my money.

After these, head to the even earlier Blue Note recordings Miles made, that were released as Young Man With A Horn, and then Miles Davis Volume 2 and Volume 3, from 1952-54. They have been collected in a Blue Note “Complete” CD set.

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Miles Davis Volume 2 on Blue Note. One of their most iconic cover designs.

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The back cover of the above proves that Music is the universal language.

Oh. The other point, 2) is that the Miles in that as great as their studio records are, and they are among the greatest ever made by anyone, Miles and Coltrane MUST be heard together live, in my opinion, to get any kind of full appreciation of their chemistry together. As I’ve said, they were the perfect foils- Miles the genius of understatement, the inventor (to my way of thinking) of musical silence, contrasted by John Coltrane, who was at that time working on development of the final stages of what would be called his “sheets of sound” style. What might sound on paper like a musical train wreck (no pun intended), was in reality magic. Art. From there, there are, once again, bootleg recordings around, many of which belie the late 1950’s dates, with more than acceptable sound. The greatest “official” live album is Jazz At The Plaza, a somewhat unintended album (the musicians didn’t know they were being recorded), but a miraculous live document of the Miles Davis Kind Of Blue Sextet.

Ok. Still with me? Want to hear more? Good! We still many Miles to go! (Sorry.)

Before, and after, Bitches Brew was a very fertile period for Miles. In A Silent Way, and Jack Johnson are bookends in a sense- the former beautiful, subtle, crystalline, thanks in no small part to the presence of Joe Zawinul, who wrote the title track, in a band that includes 4/5 of the Second Great Quintet, along with John McLaughlin (Guitar), Dave Holland (Bass) and Chick Corea joining Hancock and Zawinul on Keyboards). Recorded in 1969, it’s the album right before Brew. “Jack Johnson” was recorded immediately after Brew in February and April, 1970. Miles Backed by “the greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard” (QUOTE) (McLaughlin, Sonny Sharrock- Guitars, Hancock & Corea- Keyboards, Benny Maupin on Bass Clarinet and Jack DeJohnette and Billy Cobham on Drums, he wasn’t lying.

You’ll notice that many of the albums pictured are the Japanese CD’s. Why? The choice of Lp or CD is up to you. I actually have both of many of these, but my CD’s were nearer to hand.) In records and CD’s there are some who think the Japanese pressings sound better than the American versions. For Miles’ albums, this was true years ago, both in the later days of vinyl Lp’s and the early days of CD’s when many were rushed into production here in the US while paying little attention to sonic quality, sometimes, not even bothering to find the correct master tapes. So, early on, I went for the Japanese CBS/Sony pressings, which are what I still have and are shown here. CBS/Sony (Japanese Columbia Records) was legendarily fastidious in their attention to sound quality.

A bigger potential issue is that Columbia, which owns most of Miles recordings up to the 1980’s undertook a reissue program that saw them scour their vaults for unreleased takes to include as part of a series of “Complete” Box Sets. You should also be aware that they remixed (and remastered) the original tapes. This is something I find potentially troublesome in some cases. There is a lot to be said for having the original mixes, when an album was orignally mixed (i.e. was recorded on multi-track equipment.) Off the top of my head, I’m not sure what the current state is of mixes one would get if buying these albums on CD’s today. They might be the original mixes, which would have been done by Miles’ legendary Columbia producer, Teo Macero, more likely, they may have been remixed. It should say somewhere on the packaging. I don’t have them, so I can’t check. The Japanese CBS/Sony pressings I show are both. Bitches Brew states that it is a “New Remix,” but there is no additional information anywhere in the package.

Really? By Who? They're not sayin

Really? By Who? They’re not saying.

I’d have to compare them side by side with the original Lp versions out now to know if they’re different. Does it make a difference? Possibly not. Miles music was acoustic up to 1969-1970 and performed in small groups. There’s really not a lot to mess up there, though anything is possible. (Note- Sony, who bought Columbia, issued a 9 CD Box set called Miles Davis: The Original Mono Recordings in 2013, of his Columbia albums through 1961, with a few extras. I haven’t heard this because I prefer Stereo, when it issued that way, along with mono.) With the later albums, there’s much more potential for difference. I’m saying all of this to make the buyer aware of it, though it’s a subject I have not as yet seen anyone mention. It applies to other artists, especially rock artists, much more than it might to jazz artists for the reasons I mention.  Still, with any classic recordings, it is something to keep an eye, and ear on. IF you really want to get to the heart of the matter? Go for the original Lp’s. Yes, you can spent a fortune on original pressings, but if you are only looking to get the original mixes, any of the issues from the Lp era will contain them (I can’t vouch for the currently available Lp reissues.) The front cover images of these Japanese CBS/Sony CD’s are the same as the original Lp’s.

Ok. back to the matter at hand. While Miles’ recording career lasted about 40 years, he took about 6 years off from about 1974 to 1980. In 1981 he suddenly returned, with a new album, and a live tour. He continued to do both until he passed in September, 1991. We miss him, still.

The return from retirement.

In 1980 Miles came back after over a decade off. He recorded a string of quite popular albums, but only two of them are going to make my “Shortlist.”

Tutu is a different type of masterpiece. Produced by the very underrated Marcus Miller, for me, it harkens back to Gil Evans while using every bit of a contemporary sound, with utmost taste. Brilliant and unexpected, it’s matched every bit by the incredible photography on the cover and in the booklet.

The Prince of Darkness looms out of the Darkness.

The “Prince of Darkness” looms out of the Darkness on the cover of. Tutu, by Irving Penn, part of what I think is the greatest photoshoot of Miles ever. The 4 foot poster of this was pictured in my prior Post.

And finally, Miles & Quincy: Live At Montreux. Recorded two and a half months before Miles’ passing, it was one of only two times Miles looked back musically, and WHAT a time! With an orchestra led by Quincy Jones, Miles actually plays the music he made famous with Gil Evans on “Porgy & Bess” and “Sketches of Spain,” 30 years earlier. Most of his fans thought he would NEVER play them again. It was the last musically revolutionary thing he did. Then, two days later in Paris, France, he, again, walked down memory lane, but this time in the company of many of the now Masters who were once his sidemen, including- Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Jackie McLean, John Scofield and Dave Holland, among others. Thankfully, Audio and Video recordings of both concerts exist.

The sun never sets on great music. June, 1998 on West 23rd Street.

A perfect conclusion to one of the most important careers in the history of recorded music.

Oh! Lest I forget to at least mention that Miles also recorded extensively with no less than Charlie “Bird” Parker, who he was obsessed to find after moving to NYC to study at Julliard, at age 18. He not only found him, Bird moved in with him, and the two played together off and on regularly during Davis’ key formative years. Many of these recordings are still available, and while they are quite good, and endlessly fascinating, I’d recommend them to fans who have become obsessed with Miles as “something else” to hear and enjoy. It turns out that Miles Davis, perhaps, knew Bird, another of the greatest and most important musicians of the 20th Century, who died at age 34, as well as anyone did. Amazing!

Ok!

So? There you have it.

Once you make your way through these, you’ll have a good idea which direction you want to go in next. Well? You’re in the right place. Miles’ late 1960’s albums are perceptively labelled-

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‘Nuff said. Now…where are my headphones?

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Someday My Prince Will Come,” from the 1937 Disney film, Snow White & The 7 Dwarfs, as recorded by Miles Davis on the album of the same name, which I did not list, but chose because it’s a classic performance of a song that was never intended to be a jazz standard and now is one, and…because it fits. All photos are items from my collection.

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  1. He took about 6 years off from about 1974 to 1980 ↩

Ai Weiwei’s Mute Witnesses

This is the second of two Posts about Ai Weiwei’s 4 recent concurrent NYC shows. Part One, about Ai Weiwei: Laundromat, at Deitch Projects, may be found here. This piece is on the other 3 shows. 

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

Show Seen: Ai Weiwei: 2016: Roots and Branches, Lisson Gallery, Chelsea

If there’s one thing I think NYC needs many more of, it’s trees. Given the extremely high rate of tree deaths here1, it’s always great when new ones show up. Even transiently. Ai Weiwei temporarily added to our tree population in 2 of his 4 shows, as only he could. Though it’s been over for nearly a month as I write this, I continue to think about this show every day, only partially due to the meditative properties of trees.

Lisson Gallery, December, 2016, nicely nestled under the High Line. Click any photo to see it full size.

Walking into the long rectangular space of Lisson Gallery on West 24th Street in Chelsea during “Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots and Branches,” you’re confronted by a “forest” of 9 massive tree parts (3 measure almost 16 feet each) situated among 4 newly exposed and equally massive columns for the High Line, which runs directly above the gallery’s ceiling. Along the seemingly endless right hand (western) wall, 16 rows of black and white graphic images fill it’s wallpaper. The other 2 walls remains stark white (the 4th wall being the doors). Natural light streams in from both sides of the long ceiling as if there really were a canopy of leaves and branches above the “trees” allowing only some sunlight in.

A “Zen Garden” of the beauty, and horror, man can create. 7 of the 9 sculptures are seen, or partially seen, along with a partial view of the wallpaper, right.

But, these tree parts show no signs of life, the ones that “stand” only do so due to placement. Or, is it dis-placement?

Though their arrangement invites walking around them and viewing them from all sides, a relevatory experience in itself…

9 views of the same piece- Iron Root, 2015. Seen larger, below-

it is viewing them from one angle in particular- directly behind, that one gains a unique perspective. Standing behind them (to their east, that is) you see them with the wallpaper behind them. The effect struck me as making them “mute witnesses” to the seemingly endless spectacle unfolding on the wall. The saga unfolding therein is about war and displacement. The displacement of countless thousands of refugees due to the war in Syria.

A view of just about all of the 200 x 25 feet (my estimate) of wallpaper.

The wallpaper is also designed to be looked at every bit as closely as the tree parts are.

A close-up. You’re not alone if you think you’re looking at real tree bark. Then again? I never get out of Manhattan. This is cast iron.

So encouraged, I returned again and again, continually seeing something “else” so often that after 15 visits, I stopped counting. The first thing that’s striking is it’s all in black and white. Looking a bit closer you note the poses, the lack of detail, and even some of the outfits call to mind the Ancient Greek Vases I’ve seen often at The Met, which is fitting since Idomeni, home of the camp in Ai Weiwei’s Laundromat, is in Greece.

About a third of the wallpaper. Each row seems to have it’s own theme.

There’s a lot to see. A detail of 12 of 16 rows in this section.

From bottom- 2 rows of the refugees in flight- by boat, by foot, by vehicle, while the third row depicts the reasons why. In the 4th row from the bottom, Ancient Greek soldiers march on the left, while their modern counterparts march to the right of the fighting animals. Directly above them in Row 5, Ai Weiwei’s iconic extended arm and middle finger looms as a repeating circular motif, which will appear again. To the left in Row 5, a backhoe picks up the clothes left by the refugees in the Idomeni Camp that would become the clothes in Ai Weiwei’s show, Laundromat.

Looking even closer, I realized that some of the motifs recur, except in the very middle! There, in what musicians call “the golden section,” some fascinating images appear. They include Michelangelo’s Vatican Pieta, and a variant of the image of Nour Al Khzam, the 24 year old Syrian woman refugee who Ai Weiwei had a piano brought to the Idomeni Camp for, (as I wrote about, and Posted a photo of, in Part 1)! We see her playing the piano, while others (including Ai Weiwei himself, seen from the back) hold up a plastic sheet to protect her from the rain that day. Yet, in the wallpaper, we don’t see rain. So? Perhaps they are protecting her from everything else that’s going on. Is this Ai Weiwei’s way of speaking about the value of protecting your creativity, no matter what’s going on around you? Or, protecting what’s most important to you? Or, does it speak to overcoming all over this and having a life after, like Ai Weiwei, himself did?

The wallpaper’s “Golden Section,” (the darkened center section) features Nour Al Khzam right smack dab in the middle of the entire 200 foot piece (rows 6 & 12). Also notice Michelangelo’s Vatican Pieta, just to the left of center in rows 3, 9 and 15. Elsewhere we see a huge explosion (rows 4, 10, 16) and a baby, perhaps abandoned, under trees (rows 1, 7 and 13).

A singular image. A close-up of the image of 24 year old Nour Al Khzam playing piano as Ai Weiwei (right) and others hold a plastic sheet over her. A photo of the event is here.

I was left to ask my friends, the trees.

If you were careful, you could stand inside the semi-circular Iron Tree Trunk, 2015. It felt like a hug.

I felt a terrible pang when this show ended on December 23, and I’ve missed it daily since.

Outside Lisson Gallery on December 26, “Iron Tree Trunk,” 2015, and a piece of the wallpaper still barely visible on the right. My tears are not shown.

Why?

Partially, it’s the beauty of these “trees.” They are contemporary sculpture at it’s finest, in my opinion. I could look at them endlessly. Partially it’s the wallpaper has sucked me in to trying to understand it’s every detail. Real trees spend their entire lives in one place. Something humans can’t imagine doing. Trees have been meditative objects for a thousand years in Zen Buddhism and elsewhere. They are that, here, as well. These “tree parts” were created from parts of dead trees brought down from the mountains of southern China and sold in the markets of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, where Ai Weiwei found them and brought them to his studio.

Maybe the show reminds me of life in NYC, where the few trees we have stand alone as all the chaos and activity of this insanely busy City happens around them. Perhaps, Ai Weiwei, who lived here for 10 years, intends this. Perhaps not. But this is no story of City life unfolding up there, with each of those 16 bands telling a different part of it simultaneously, perhaps symbolizing that these events were happening to so many people simultaneously, each making their own journey, and each with their own experiences and story. It’s a story that begins with the horrors of war and it’s various instruments (including Ai’s trademark surveillance cameras), followed by the long, treacherous journeys, of (too) many refugees, to lands unknown, their lives in the camps, a story that, unfortunately, continues for who knows how many. Here we come face to face with man- at his best, as when he is creating Art, and at his worst, when he is killing and ruining the lives of countless innocents, who have no one to turn to for help. Taken as a whole, Ai Weiwei has created one of the most unique Zen-like “Gardens” ever seen. One that offers almost as much to ponder as a “real” Zen Garden.

Ai Weiwei: 2016: Roots and Branches, Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea

The new LEGO triple self portrait, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, a LEGO version of his well-known work of the same name from 1995, is seen in the background. Better view and details below-

Ai “was so much older then, he’s younger than that now.” And, “playing” with toys. Sorry, Bob. Ai Weiwei as seen in his recent LEGO version of his work, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995

Besides Laundromat (the only show of the 4 with a different title), Ai Weiwei’s three other NYC shows, Ai Weiwei 2016: Roots and Branches, eshewed the use of his most renowned media- the internet, photography and words (seen to devastating effect in “Laundromat”) to focus on two other of his “signature” mediums- natural elements and ancient artifacts along with one newer medium- LEGO portraits, originally inspired by his son, who constantly plays with them. His LEGO works were previously seen in, perhaps, his most political show to date- Ai Weiwei: @Large, which took place at none other than the former site of one of the world’s most notorious prisons, Alcatraz. Ironically, Ai Weiwei, himself, was not able to attend that show as he was still living out the rest of his sentence following his 81 days of imprisonment, that saw him unable to travel internationally (because his passport was still held). At Alcratraz, the work, Trace, consisted of LEGO portraits of 176 people from around the world who have been imprisoned or exiled because of their beliefs or affiliations,” according to the show’s press release. This time, the LEGO Portraits on view at Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea (a few hundred feet west of the Lisson Gallery show), were confined to Self Portraits. These were juxtaposed with two works in wood- both “sculptural,” and both “puzzles” in their own way, while, again, one wall was lined with gorgeous, fascinating wallpaper, this time in gold.

Tree at Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea

In the main room, facing the LEGO triple self portrait seen above, a Tree was, again, the centerpiece, This time it’s one, monumental Tree, 25 feet tall, that is constructed of actual weathered sections of dead trees that, according to the press release, “may be seen as a comment on the strength of modern China built from many ancient ethnic groups, or a determined attempt to create something new and vital from what is irrevocably lost.” In China, dead trees are venerated as important counterparts to the dead on earth, the realm between heaven and the underworld.2 It stands in front of another monumental wallpaper piece, this one I believe titled “Golden Age,” another graphic tour de force. This work is based on images from AWW’s life- from the ever present surveillance cameras, police chains and handcuffs, to cats- all depicted in a lustrous 3-D gold. For me, it stands for overcoming oppression and turning it’s artifacts into beautiful objects that are, now, just another part of his life, like his beloved cats.

Golden Age, detail, and reflection.

Situated on center stage, here, Tree, is, seemingly, another work that speaks to modern China being a blend of many ethnic groups, like Map of China is, see further down. That the parts making it are dead, as is the whole construction, of course, is something I cannot offer a comment about. I can say that I find it a compelling idea, and object, and one that some of it’s base parts seemed to bear a resemblance to the Iron Roots seen at Lisson.

Also on view here was the amazing Treasure Box, a sculptural piece of furniture made of ancient reclaimed huali wood, which is actually an intricate puzzle box of sliding and locking components3

Ancient & Contemporary puzzles. Treasure Box, sits in front of Self-Portrait, made of LEGO bricks.

This is, surely, an aspect of Weiwei’s work that, while not by any means new, deserves more attention and study. The Mary Boone, Chelsea show struck me as being “about” things not being what they seem. Being “more,” perhaps, and being “other.” There’s still one more show left to see…

Ai Weiwei: 2016: Roots and Branches, Mary Boone Gallery, Uptown

40,000 spouts broken from antique Chinese porcelain teapots are surrounded by Finger Wallpaper.

The final show, at Mary Boone’s Uptown Gallery may be his comment on all of this.

Detail of the spouts

Finger Wallpaper, and detail-

Yes, a variant of this wallpaper, too, is available, here.

As the world has seen these past 6+ years since his “Sunflower Seeds” Show at Tate Modern, London, brought him to international renown in 2010, Ai Weiwei is a man with a strong conscience. He’s not shy to share it with the world, whenever, and wherever he sees things that bother him. While it’s tempting to say that he’s turning his attention away from China after his arrest and 81 day imprisonment in 2011, he said to the Council on Foreign Relations in November–

“When I fight human rights in China, I never think that’s human rights in China. I think that’s human rights everywhere. That’s first. And also, when I’m dealing with situation outside of China, I don’t even think that it’s not going to help China, you know? Human rights is the value which I believe is universal, it relate to everybody.”

Garbage Container, an elegy to five homeless boys who suffocated in a dumpster while trying to stay warm.

Summing up…

The meditative effect of all four shows was the common takeaway for me, vastly different from the meditative effect of Mark Rothko: Dark Palette, a few hundred feet away from Ai Weiwei’s 2 Chelsea shows. While Rothko’s meditative impact is almost otherworldly, akin to standing in a door way open to…?, Ai Weiwei has us meditate on life, presence and absence, having roots and being rootless, what it is to be human, and what it should be to be human.

Speaking of “being human,” it almost looks like a hand. Or, maybe an extended arm and extended…hmmm…

For me, the shows seemed to flow into each other from south to north, beginning with Laundromat, the southern most, in Soho, to Lisson on West 24th, to Mary Boone, Chelsea, further west on 24th, and finally up to Mary Boone uptown. I have no idea if this was the intention, or not.  The Lisson show carries pieces of Laundromat, while the Mary Boone, Chelsea, shares the “tree” motif of Lisson, and Mary Boone uptown shares Ai Weiwei’s trademark extended arm and extended middle finger motif with Mary Boone, Chelsea, though it now is the overriding motif. It’s hard, for me, not to see this as Ai Weiwei extending his middle finger (and that of 39,999 refugees), now, to the “powers that be,” that have created and largely ignored this refugee crisis, while seemingly having little solution for the crisis to come. But? Your results may differ. Everyone is free to take from it what they will, or leave without taking anything from it. In this case, that would be a shame, and might be shortsighted. If it’s not “personal” for you now, it might be one day. There…but by grace, go I.

Golden Age, Detail. You, too, can hang (a variant) of this on your wall, here.

Of course, Ai Weiwei is not the only Artist who was a refugee. The 20th Century, for instance, is full of them. Some of them, like Marc Chagall, and the great composer Bela Bartok, created works of nostalgia for their homelands, not documentary works about being exiled. Then, there is Picasso, who created “Guernica,” in 1937, about the tragic bombing of that small Spanish town in his homeland, while he was living in Paris, where he would remain throughout the Nazi occupation that began a few years later, through the end of the Second World War, and after, in continuing exile from Spain. Perhaps the greatest artistic record of exile we have was created by a “young girl,”- Annelies, better known as Anne, Frank, the brilliant young writer who’s life ended at 15 at the hands of the Nazis, but who managed to write for the ages about her exile in her own country before she was discovered, and arrested in her “Diary of a Young Girl,” which has sold 30 million copies to date. While Ai Weiwei depicts, and documents, the Syrian Refugee crisis, he has only, as yet (as far as I know), documented his own exile in words. He’s spoken about it in interviews, and written about it in Ai Weiwei’s Blog. His words are chilling, unforgettable, and impossible for me to get out of my mind when I visited these shows. About the “earthen pit” his family lived in when he was 8 years old he said –

“…when pigs would run overhead, their bottoms would fall through our roof, making us all too familiar with the sight of swine nether regions….on one occasion, because there was no light in our earthen pit, my father was descending into our home and smashed his head on a roof beam. He fell immediately to the earth on his knees with a bleeding forehead. Because of this, we dug out a shovel’s depth of dirt, an equivalent to raising our roof twenty centimeters (about 8 inches).”4

While his mediums keep expanding (LEGO portraits), others, especially his sculpture and “furniture,” continue to evolve in wonderful ways. Yet no matter what he does, or what he creates with, his heart, mind, passion, and humanity- his core values, come through loud and clear. Not being one who’s given to compare creative beings, I still find it hard to think that this decade, that still has 3 years to go, is the decade of any other Artist. This is Ai Weiwei’s decade.

Like son, like father. Ai Weiwei says he was inspired by his son’s passion for LEGO to try them himself.

As this decade has unfolded, I find he reminds me of someone else. Another man from the East, who has lived in exile for a very long time. A man with a deep knowledge of the West, a man of compassion, wisdom and humanity. The Dalai Lama. One has written a book called The Art of Happiness, the other has done more than most others to bring compassion to those suffering, through Art. I make no comparison of them. I am simply saying that one brings the other to mind. In any event, there is no doubt that Ai Weiwei has gone from being an exile to being an unknown Artist and Art Student in New York for a decade to now having the eye, and ear, of a good part of the world. In doing so, am I alone in feeling that what he espouses about human rights and freedom sounds a good deal like what passed for “traditional American values” for most of my life?

A detail of the above. LEGO refused a bulk order from Ai Weiwei last year, which resulted in a furor that led to the company reversing themselves.

Artistically, these shows raised another question for me.

Even now, very rarely do I see his work on view in the museums here. Right now, The Met lists zero works of his in their online database of over 700,000 items (about 1/3 of their total holdings)! I do recall seeing 5 works of his displayed during the Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China. Show there in 2014., including the one I photographed, below. It turns out that all five were lent to The Met. MoMA lists 12 of his works out of their 73,000 items currently online. Of those 12, 7 are photographs with his extended middle finger at various locations, 4 are books, and one is a magazine! I have to say I find it shameful that there is no major work of his in either The Met or MoMA! I would love for either, or both, to tell me why not.

Ai Weiwei at The Met! Map of China, 2006, a work that speaks to the mosaic of fragments that is China today, made from wood salvaged from destroyed temples, as seen (on loan) in the Ink Art in China Show in 2014.

While we see the results of uprooting in both it’s natural and unnatural ways, at Lisson, Ai Weiwei turns uprooting into creative acts in using the felled tree parts as the basis for his sculptures and the travails of the refugees who’s journeys he shows us in “Laundromat” into what he depicts so beautifully on Lisson’s western wall, in trying to give them a voice, and make their experiences known. During my daily visits, I, and many of my fellow visitors, stood looking at, and contemplating, the complex images that seemed to stretch out endlessly before us on that wall. Like the lines of refugees must have looked like in transit. When I was alone in the gallery, I was like the the cast iron trees before me standing as “mute witnesses” to what was going on in front of us on the wallpaper.

Now that this unique show that was equal parts horror show, and equal parts astonishingly beautiful- depicting the best, and worst of what man is capable of, is over, it’s up to all of those who saw it to not remain mute.

Since Ai Weiwei lived in New York for 10 years? In my book, he will always be a New Yorker.

Welcome home, Ai Weiwei. Come back soon.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway, Ed O’Brien and Colin Greeenwood of Radiohead, as performed on OK Computer.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to keep it up & ad-free below. Thank you!

Or-
I’M PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE I’M CURATING A SELECTION OF ART, ARTBOOKS & PHOTOBOOKS FOR SALE! All items are from my collection or specially selected in my travels through the Art world for my readers. The initial selection of over 400 items is here. Either way, all proceed go to support the site. With my thanks.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. In my 25 years of living here, I’ve come to believe this is part of the reason for so many tree deaths. Not all of it. Part. ↩
  2. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/ai-weiwei-6 ↩
  3. It can be seen opened in the Royal Academy, London’s Ai Weiwei Exhibition catalog. ↩
  4. Ai Weiwei’s Blog, P. 53 ↩

Ai Weiwei & The Value of One Refugee

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Ai Weiwei returned to show his latest work in NYC for the first time since getting his passport back, making a splash to rival his last big show here (which he could not attend), the retrospective “Ai Weiwei: According To What?” (at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014), this time with no less than FOUR concurrent shows- one in Soho, two in Chelsea and one Uptown. With so much terrain to traverse, and with so much to see, it makes sense to adapt my approach to writing about them, so I’m going to cover the 4 shows over 2 Posts, as follows-

Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea
Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Mary Boone Gallery, Uptown and
Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Lisson Gallery, Chelsea in a second Post, here.
Ai Weiwei: Laundromat @Deitch Projects, Soho will be the subject of this one.

Ai Weiwei: Laundromat–

Deitch Projects. Also seen in this site’s Banner.

Of the 4 shows, the centerpiece has to be Laundromat at Deitch Projects, an unprecedented Art show/installation, unlike anything I’ve encountered.

View just inside the front door. Click any image to see the full size photo.


Along with an upcoming documentary film, it’s part of the Artist’s response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis as experienced by the estimated 18,000 (at it’s peak) in the refugee camp at Idomeni, in Northern Greece, on the Macedonian border.



Ai Weiwei said-
“When we started filming in Idomeni, the first thing we noticed was people trying to change their clothes. These are the clothes they wore from Syria, wet and soiled from the difficult journey across the ocean, over mountains and through woods. They had no chance to wash their clothes until they were forced to stop in Idomeni. They would hand wash the clothes and throw it on the border fence to dry. There was nowhere else to hang dry their laundry. We photographed the clothes, but we did not, and could not, imagine they could later be included in an exhibition. The clothes were some of the few possessions they could take when they decided to leave their homes. There is not much else they could take. Off the coast of Lesbos, I found an abandoned boat drifting in the sea. Inside, I found a copy of the Bible and a baby’s bottle. You would also find small objects wash up on the shore. These objects were the most precious things a person could have, the last things they brought with them as they sought a new life.”

Merry Christmas

“Once the refugees were forced to evacuate to different camps from Idomeni, many of those possessions were left behind. Trucks came in and loaded these items up to take towards the landfill. I decided to see if we could buy or collect them so they would not be destroyed. Previously, my studio collected many life jackets from the local officials in Lesbos and made an installation with them at the Berlin Konzerthaus. My team negotiated with local officials who agreed to let us have the collected material. They were aware of our presence and were supportive. With a truckload of those materials, including thousands of blankets, clothes and shoes, all impossibly dirty, we transported them to my studio in Berlin. There, we carefully washed the clothes and shoes, piece by piece. Each article of clothing was washed, dried, ironed, and then recorded. Our work was the same as that of a laundromat.”1

Every item is hand tagged. These read “Baby Rompers.”

While Downtown New Yorkers are no strangers to acts of war and terrorism, catastrophic weather or blackouts2, one of the strange things about living through those events, for me, was that many people in other parts of the City, who were directly unaffected by them, lived in a certain level of oblivion about them. Many seemed completely disconnected from what was going on right in their own City. It can be easy to understand when you look at this, from the Hurricane Sandy blackout, which effected me, and all of downtown New York for 5 days to 2 weeks.  Now? At “Laundromat,” I was the “directly unaffected,” I had never heard of Idomeni, Greece, and knew little about the Syrian Civil War that’s led to 13.6 million refugees3 seeking to rebuild their lives elsewhere. That’s equal to the population of London. During my 5 visits to  it was easy to say now what others may have said about the Sandy Blackout- life gets to be so all-encompassing that few of us really know what’s going on in much of the City, let alone the rest of the world. It’s different when it’s personal.

I’m sure there are those who walked in and thought “This is Art? It looks like the Salvation Army.” I know what they mean. But? Yes, I consider this to be Art, and I consider it to be groundbreaking Art. Laundromat’s range of expression is formidable. Ai Weiwei is the master Artist of the electronic information age. Recently named “The Most Influential Photographer of the Past 10 Years” by complex.com (Cindy Sherman placed 13th, Annie Liebovitz 8th, and Sebastio Salgado didn’t place.? Yet, another reason I don’t believe in qualitatively comparing Artists.). Weiwei’s Blog was, perhaps, the first “essential” Blog of the 2000’s, before it was forcibly removed. Part of it has been translated and published and is still in print.4 Mr. Ai became the first Artist to have photographs “go viral” with his now infamous shot in the elevator with police after his arrest in 2009. Now, he has combined mediums (thousands of photographs, an excerpt from his upcoming documentary film and hundreds of internet articles and social media postings), with actual objects- the clothes and shoes left by the refugees in the camp. The clothes hang on racks. Washed, ironed and/or cleaned, they are “ready-to-wear,” tagged by hand and sorted by type, sex and age, near hundreds of shoes aligned in neat rows on the floor- about an equal number of matching pairs and singles. The shoes are of every kind imaginable, except high heels. (I saw only one pair with a very low heel.) Boots, low boots, sneakers dominate. I assume because their owner’s felt they were finished with crossing wet terrains or bodies of water. Both are present in mute witness to what they have seen and experienced.
What their wearers have experienced can never be washed away that easily. Many are, no doubt, still going through the experience of being a refugee and seeking an answer.

“Time to recharge my batteries” this shirt reads.

A Sea of Words. Hundreds of news and web postings seen in the “Newsfeed” section of the show, which fills the floor beneath visitor’s feet.

Laundromat is a deeply personal show for Ai Weiwei. On a number of levels. First, he seems to just naturally respond to humans in crisis, all over the world, be they individuals in the case of the Feminist Activist Ye Haiyan, as we saw in Brooklyn, in Ye Haiyan’s Belongings,  in 2013 (which recreated that photo verbatim, installing all of her belongings in a gallery in the Brooklyn Museum(!), something of a possibly precursor to this show), or his powerful documentary Stay Home, about the Aids activist  Liu Ximei, or by trying to put names and identity to the countless thousands lost in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, the subject of Backpack pieces Remembering, 2009, installed in Germany, and “Snake Ceiling” (seen in Brooklyn) as well as the monumental work Straight, 2008-12, which consists of 40 tons of rebar from the Sichuan quake that Ai recovered and straightened, It was powerfully displayed alongside the list-turned-wall paper, Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizen’s Investigation, 2008-11, in Brooklyn, photos of which I posted here. The amount of work he, his staff and volunteers put in to try and identify the dead children was nothing less than monumental. Laundromat is only the latest “piece” in Ai’s ongoing “work” regarding human rights. It, too, is monumental, in more ways than one.

I’m left to wonder- If he didn’t do this, who would? Would anyone?

First learning about this refugee crisis in 2015, after being freed from jail, but still unable to leave China, he dispatched two members of his staff to go see the camps and interview refugees. Once he got his passport back, he travelled to Germany, where he could get a much closer look at what was going on. Then he decided to go to Idomeni, and document it. “Laundromat” is the first result of those efforts. The documentary film, Human Flow, is next, scheduled to be released in 2017.

The second level of this being personal for Ai Weiwei is that he, himself, lived in exile for TWENTY YEARS! And? They began when he was an infant, in 1957.

He says-
“When I was born, my father (the great poet and intellectual), Ai Qing, was denounced as a ‘rightist’ and was criticized as an enemy of the party and the people. We were sent to a labour camp in a remote region far away from our home and so began 20 years in hard exile, which saw my father clean bathrooms and the family live in an earthen pit5.” This was after Ai Qing had been a friend of Chairman Mao (Ai Weiwei has spoken about handwritten letters from Mao being in their home), and had served as a representative of the Chinese government. “We carried almost nothing with us to the camp, only trying to survive. It was an extremely difficult time being seen as a foreigner in your own nation, an enemy of your own people, an enemy of those my father loved most. I know what it is like to be viewed as a pariah, as sub-human, as a threat and danger to society.”1. When the exile ended in 1976, and Ai Qing and his family returned to Beijing, many of his father’s readers had assumed he had died. Before he was all that he is today, Ai Weiwei grew up a refugee.
Now, he has turned the latest refugee crisis, coming after what the New York Times called “The Century of Refugees,” into a work of Art, giving voices to all of those who have not been heard. It’s impossible to walk through these clothes and shoes and not feel their presence- that there was a person for every single article here- especially the babies. Though cleaned, evidence of personal wear remains that is permanent, along with what is permanent, though now invisible- the experiences each of these items, and the person wearing them went through. You wonder “Did someone really make this trip wearing thong sandals?” You see many well-known famous brand names, like Adidas, famous images and icons, as well, including “Hello, Kitty,” even “Barbie.”
The clothes look like clothes you could see being sold right down the street, though many of the labels are unfamiliar (a classic way New Yorkers identify tourists), yet so much of what’s here is so common- everywhere in the commercialized world. and not all that different from the jeans t-shirt, sneakers and jacket I’m wearing standing among them. Though, of course, it’s very hard to consider the Idomeni Camp part of the “civilized world,” especially when you read accounts of it, like this one from International Women’s Rights Journalist, Jina Moore.
What are  you going to wear if your house catches fire and burns, or, you have to leave town, or state, or country…in a real emergency, or war?
A story could be told for each item here. Mr. Ai could have made a show with one item, and it would have been quite powerful, but it wouldn’t have been this show. As you walk among the clothes, or around the shoes, look at the thousands of photos on three of the 4 walls, and the hundreds of internet articles and posts on the floor beneath your feet, it is easy to become numb to the numbers, but the little bits of individuality each item retains reminds you of a more finite realm of experience. This is a group made up of people. Of individuals, like you, and me. 1+1+1+…= 18,000.


In the midst of ALL of this, the sea of humanity (not to mention the actual Seas surrounding Greece they crossed), the incredible hardships, suffering and deaths, there was one small part of this story, and this show, I found particularly interesting & revealing, though nothing about it is mentioned in the show itself! I only learned about it through doing my research. Ai Weiwei came across a 24 year old Syrian refugee named Nour Al Khzam, who’s photo I spotted (above) among the thousands on the walls, who is from Deirez Zor, Syria. She was trying to get to Germany to reunite with her husband. Before fleeing Syria she had been studying piano. Ai Weiwei arranged for a piano to be brought to the Idomei Camp so she could play it, as seen in the photos immediately above. I know he’ll be criticized for doing this, but I find it poignent because it speaks to a number of important things, including- going on with your life and realizing your creativity, even after being a refugee (which Ai Weiwei, himself did). It also speaks to something very important- What is the value of one refugee? How many great Artists, maybe an Ai Weiwei, great Scientists, or great people are among these refugees?

This image, above (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) of Ai Weiwei, right, helping to hold a plastic sheet while Ms. Al Khzam’s plays in the rain that day is of particular importance, as we shall see next time. (Note- This photo was not included in the show.)
Though Idomeni is half a world away, there was a beautiful piece of New York City included in this show. Among the materials handed out at Deitch was a sheet containing September on Jessore Road, by “New York’s Poet,” as Ai Weiwei calls his friend, Allen Ginsberg, written after Ginsberg had visited the Bangladeshi refugee camps in 1971. Allen Ginsberg had come to know Ai Qing during a trip to Beijing. And with it, AWW adds poetry to the list of mediums included in this show.
Having lived through a few events that might have made me a refugee (the Hurricane Sandy blackout left me without means of getting off of Manhattan, except on foot), the inescapable feeling of Laundromat was “There, but by grace, go I.” If anything defines the 20th Century as much as the airplane, space flight, electricity and the atomic bomb, it’s the refugee. More of them were created in one century than at any time in world history.
“I cannot give them food or tea, or money, but rather I can let their voices be heard and recognized. I can give them a platform to be acknowledged, to testify that they are human beings. During the saddest moments in our history, mankind has had to prove their worth as humans to their own kind. Unfortunately, this has proven to be the most difficult task. As an artist, this is something I would like to take on1.”
Ai Weiwei reminds us here that in this new millennium we have yet to find a way to deal with this world wide question.

There- but by grace, go I.

“He wants to see how far an individual’s power can go,” Chen Danquing, a Chinese painter and social critic said in the Nw Yorker’s profile of Ai Weiwei in 20108.  Ai Weiwei doesn’t help all of people directly, as he said, that’s not within his means. Yet he, in the way he lives his life, and in his work, stands for freedom- Artistic freedom and human rights. He, and his work, continually remind us of the primacy of human rights in ways that are unique, powerful and unforgettable. As for an “individual’s power?” The more of his work I see, the more I read his words, and the more I see of his compassion and soul, I’ve come to believe that Ai Weiwei is one of the most important human beings of our time. He has become something of the “conscience” of the Art world. If not the world, itself.

As big a statement as that is, even beyond it, no one can leave this show without remembering that here is a man who has accomplished so very much in the world after he, himself, lived in exile as a refugee in his own country for 20 years (not to mention everything else he has had to overcome). Though he wasn’t able to help them all financially, etc. I think he understated the impact he may have had on them.

Ai Weiwei at the Idomeni Camp.

As much as every item in Laundromat speaks for those with no voice, Ai Weiwei, the man, is living proof a refugee can survive, overcome, and make a lasting mark on the world. I have a feeling his mere presence in Idomeni served to remind at least some of those he encountered of that, and possibly gave them hope. How do you put a value on that? Of course he chose to avoid mention of any such thing when he commented on what he could and couldn’t do for them.

I don’t have to.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “The Unknown,” by Acrassicauda, a heavy-metal band from Baghdad, themselves exiled by the Iraqi War, and the subject of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. I had the honor to meet and hang out with Tony Aziz, their lead guitarist, in 2011, shortly after the band finally made it to the United States. Talk about overcoming, and continuing to follow your  dream…

(PS- Oh yeah…I still have THREE more Ai Weiwei shows to see…)

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to keep it up & ad-free below. Thank you!

Or-
I’M PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE I’M CURATING A SELECTION OF ART, ARTBOOKS & PHOTOBOOKS FOR SALE! All items are from my collection or specially selected in my travels through the Art world for my readers. The initial selection of over 400 items is here. Either way, all proceed go to support the site. With my thanks.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  2. Hurricane Sandy caused a partial evacuation ↩
  3. According to the UN., 6.4 million have fled the country. An additional 7.2 million are displaced within Syria. ↩
  4. It may be the most essential book on Ai Weiwei, along with the Taschen monograph, which, though published in April, 2016, is already slightly dated as his career continually evolves. Perhaps the best way to stay current with Ai Weiwei is on his Instagram page. But, be forewarned- he almost never captions his photos there, like he does not for the thousands of them in this show. ↩
  5. Ai Weiwei’s Blog, P.53 ↩
  6. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  7. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  8. May 24, 2010 ↩

Art Is The New Rock n Roll

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

Manhattan, 2016. Click to enlarge.

Among the sites not seen above are-

C.B.G.B.
The Bottom Line
The Knitting Factory (Manhattan)
Fat Tuesday
Sweetl Basil
The Angry Squire
Lush LIfe
The Lone Star Cafe
Bonds International Casino
Max’s Kansas City
The Peppermint Lounge
Danceteria
The Gaslight Cafe
The Electric Circus
The Five Spot Cafe
The Half Note Club
The Lion’s Den
Minton’s Playhouse
The Mudd Club
The Cooler
Coney Island High
Great Gildersleeves
The Ritz
Gerde’s Folk City
The Palladium
The Savoy Ballroom
Sin-e
Slug’s
Cafe au Go Go
Smalls Paradise
Tonic
The Village Gate
Wetlands Preserve

and on and on…Going back further-

The Academy of Music
The Fillmore East

Those are just some of the live music venues we’ve lost in Manhattan. Spill a little of your drink on the pavement in their memory. In spite of the title to this Post, I include Live Music Clubs as a whole. The list includes Jazz and Folk Clubs, and clubs that had a variety of types of music, along with Rock Clubs. Some intrepid places have come along in their absence, though I don’t think anyone would say they’ve “replaced” them. There are some legendary places that still remain, including the Village Vanguard, for me, the greatest music club in the world. It’s nothing short of a cultural tragedy that so many clubs have UNWILLINGLY closed, which most of the above have, mostly due to rent increases that they couldn’t afford. When I walk past their former locations, which are “sacred” in their way (and so, some I consciously avoid), and see what’s there now, I continually shake my head and remember-

A little piece of New York City, and what makes this City great, special & unique, went away every single time each one of the Clubs closed.1

City government doesn’t care. They’ve done nothing to stop it. As the clubs have closed, it’s been interesting to me to note that there has been an increase in Art venues, a few Museums, but mostly galleries. Where some of those clubs were “cheap,” they were all at least “affordable,” to the average music lover, and they made going to see and hear music regularly possible. In the mid-1990s, I was going out every night, and hearing a crazily wild range of music, often in the clubs listed above that we’ve now lost. I wrote about many of the shows I saw as part of my Artist Management website. That led to my writing for a national music magazine for 4 years.

As prices, especially real estate, have risen steadily since the mid 1990’s the clubs have faced extremely challenging business environments, with no protection from government2, that has seen their business model largely change from a “club” to more of a “concert/show” environment. Clubs like “City Winery,” founded by Knitting Factory founder Michael Dorf, have become a model for franchises all over the country. Customers can sit, eat and drink, and hear music. I’ve never been to one. It’s not my scene.

Live music in NYC is almost a museum piece “Moon Duo” outdoors, in MoMA’s Sculpture Garden, 2016

And so, this Post is my way of saying I realize that I only wrote about one live music event this year, a damn good one (Jacob Collier opening for Kamasi Washinton), and that I, unfortunately, expect this trend to continue.

As the music clubs closed, in another part of the City, Chelsea, hundreds of Art Galleries were starting up- unprecedented numbers. While most specialized in Contemporary Art, some showed the work of established Artists. Soon, it was possible to wander for endless hours and see as many Art shows as you wanted, or as your feet could take, without spending a dime, (unless you wanted to make a purchase.)

Little by little, completely unintentionally, Art began to usurp Music’s primacy in my life, even though I am someone who was a professional musician who spent 5 years on the road. This has continued to expand to the present minute, where as I sit here on New Year’s Eve, at the end of a terrible year in many ways, I sit back and realize that I’ve gone to see Art every day for the last 6 weeks, except Sunday and Mondays, when the galleries are closed, and the Museums have short hours. I’m now living the life I was living in the mid-1990’s as a live Music fan as an Art lover.

I still listen to, and love, Music. My iPhone is packed with Music to the point I have very little room left for Apps or photos, and it’s constantly being changed and updated. I am always listening to Music when I’m looking at Art. But, I so miss that spontaneous creativity of a a great live Jazz Band, or the energy of a great live Rock Band, even though my years of performing live have taken their toll on my hearing.

For me, anyways, there’s not a heck of a lot of difference between Art & Music, in many ways. If you look through the history of both, there are similar “movements” that happen in both at about the same times. You’ll find Baroque Art & Music, Romantic, Impressionistic periods in both, and 20th Centuries marked by similar explorations. Picasso and Miles Davis have been compared often, not without good reason (and I don’t mean qualitatively compared). A good number of Musicians (including Miles), are/were Artists, though very few Artists were also Musicians (as far as I know). The similarities don’t end there, but that’s the subject of another Post3.

I don’t expect the number of Art Galleries we have in Chelsea to last. When their leases are up, many will close, move, or go online only. A current list can be seen here. Their number is probably already down from the peak number, which was over 300, an astounding number for such a small area of Manhattan, and more than there has ever been in any neighborhood in the world. Back in the day, Soho experienced a “boom” in the number of Art galleries opening. Today, not many remain. It’s hard to know what the future is in Chelsea. Some galleries have moved to the Lower East Side, Brooklyn, even to Midtown (traditionally more expensive). This will, no doubt, continue. Given that I believe the Art Market has, or will very shortly, peak, a downturn in prices may well be followed by a downturn in interest/demand, which would further exacerbate things. Time will tell. The Art market has gone down, a lot, in the past and recovered. Right now, though, many of the people in the Art market today have never experienced a large downturn in prices, so who knows how they will react.

High tide. West 24th Street on Nov 6, 2012, a few days after Hurricane Sandy flooded these Chelsea Galleries. How many will now survive the tide of rising rents?

As 2017 dawns, however, I expect one of the biggest years in memory in the NYC Art World. Blockbuster shows loom in the Museums, and the galleries are going strong. Both auger well for new records being set in Art attendance. I think it’s a good thing. For me? This is the reason I continue to live in Manhattan.

Making the rounds of the galleries and Museums to see Art shows before they end now reminds me of the days when I’d make the rounds of bars and clubs to see bands while they were there. Yes, back in the day there were often so many bands playing at the same time it was hard to juggle, unless they were all playing at the same place, I’d find myself going from CBGB downtown on the Bowery far uptown to the original, classy, Iridium on the same blind date. Now, I find myself going to see a similar range of extremely wide ranging Art on the same day so often I expect it.

Having seen the rise, peak and fall of live Music in NYC, I well know that the Art gallery scene here is likely to follow the same trajectory. The unknown factor is- how much longer will it last? Somewhere, Carly is singing…

“We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway”*

Enjoy it now, while you can, Art lover, because these are “the good old days.”*

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Anticipation,” by Carly Simon. Published by BMG Rights Management US, LLC.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Feel free to let me know if I’ve left one out. I know I have. ↩
  2. like our supermarkets don’t receive now ↩
  3. I touched on in in this one. ↩

A Tribe Called Quest- From Linden Boulevard To…Forever

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written by Kenn Sava.

When Q-Tip suddenly announced there would be a new, and final, album from A Tribe Called Quest coming out on November 11, you could have knocked me over with a cotton swab. Even after reading his hand written note a few times I still couldn’t believe it.

Did ANYONE see this coming? What would it be like? Afterall, one of it’s core members, Phife Dawg, passed away on March 22, as I mourned.

But, there I was November 15th, when I was finally able to get my hands on a download, and the experience was surreal. It reminded me of seeing Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s unexpected last film, finished just before he died, on the day it opened, July 16, 1999. I was in the first row, and I’ll never forget the opening- on the huge black screen, big white letters appeared-

TOM CRUISE

then

NICOLE KIDMAN

and, finally

A Film By STANLEY KUBRICK

A chill ran up my spine. Oh My God…Another Stanley Kubrick movie, TWELVE YEARS after Full Metal Jacket in 1987! Forever my personal favorite director, I NEVER expected to see another film by him ever again, and here it was…

I’m not making any comparisons here between Stanley Kubrick and ATCQ other than to say they both occupy large places in my heart, and to say these unexpected final works had a similar shocking effect on me. What would they add to the canon they’ve already created? What new would we learn? For me, Tribe had more “Jazz” going on than any other group I’d heard that wasn’t an actual “Jazz Group,” even though Q-Tip, himself, played this down after people started calling them “Hip-Hop Jazz.” It’s in there. Yes, they had a lot of a lot of things going on, it was the way their lyrics flowed like a solo, with the same freedom, the same unexpected, thrilling turns, the interplay, and, Q-Tip’s voice has a “Jazz” edge to it. I hear bits of singers like Eddie Jefferson,  and even Billie Holiday in Q-Tip’s style. Beyond this, in terms of production, lyrical content and their approach, Tribe stood apart and alone, as far as I was concerned. While they addressed serious topics, like date rape, drug dealing on “Everything Is Fair,” and even the music biz tell-all, “Show Business,” on the sublime The Low End Theory, nothing interrupts their flow, and the music overcomes all. If there was an overriding “message” I took from A Tribe Called Quest? That was it.

From Low End Theory on, I followed each one up with seeing them live. I even drove to Asbury Park, NJ to see them in a small bar. There were so many people there, people were standing on the seats of the booths that ran along the wall. I was among the row of people standing on the narrow curved shoulder of those booths, with my head inches from the ceiling. I also saw them on New Year’s Eve at the Palladium, with Leaders of the New School and DeLa Soul. The amazing thing about that gig for me was that Tribe performed with a live band! I had always dreamed of hearing Tribe with a live band of improvisors.

“My pops used to say it reminded him of be-bop.”

Yeah. That’s it. That’s what I mean.

“I said, well daddy don’t you know that things go in cycles”1

Yeah.

Seeing their name on a new album, again? It’s on 5 previous albums that are seminal to quite a few people’s lives. Each one was an event, a cause for marathon listenings and discussions, about the lyrics, the style, the tracks, the cover…all of it.

Here it is- We got it from Here…Thank You for Your service. Available direct.

And now, EIGHTEEN YEARS after The Love Movement came out in 1998 (which isn’t considered their best album in anyone’s estimation that I know of), that same Eyes Wide Shut feeling returned. I put it on, shut my wide eyes and listened….

First up? “The Space Program.” It starts with a sample from a pretty obscure “blaxploitation” film called “Willie Dynamite,” from 1974, that says-

“I’mma deal with a bigger insult,man
It’s comin’ down hard
We’ve got to get our sh*t together”

Hmmm….Auspiciously setting the stage right away. This sure isn’t The Love Movement. Then, Q-Tip AND Phife take over-

“It’s time to go left and not right
Gotta get it together forever
Gotta get it together for brother
Gotta get it together for sisters”*

I was in shock. I didn’t realize that Phife had lived to work on this. It was downright eerie hearing him, especially singing that verse, and then solo, with the line

“Gotta get it together for dead niggas…”*

Whoa…

Yeah. But now they’re talking about ‘forever.” As in “Gotta get it together forever.” Has anyone in any form of “popular music” said that since Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song“? That’s pretty serious. Between “The Space Program,” and especially on the following, “We The People,” I’ve never heard Q-Tip sound more serious. But wait. This is just getting started. After verses by Q-Tip & Jarobi, here’s the chorus, with Q-Tip rapping the lines not in parenthesis, which are sung by a chorus-

“(Move on to the stars)
There ain’t a space program for niggas
Yeah, you stuck here, nigga
(Move on to the stars)
There ain’t a space program for niggas
Yeah, you stuck here, nigga
(Move on to the stars)
There ain’t a space program for niggas
Yeah, you stuck here, nigga
(Move on to the stars)
There ain’t a space program for niggas
Yeah, you stuck, stuck, stuck
(Move on to the stars)”*

As I said, Tribe hasn’t been heard from since 1989, though Q-Tip has on his excellent solo albums (The Renaissance is especially highly recommended.), as has Phife on his (and word came down this week that his second solo album will be released posthumously!). But someone who has been heard from during their absence was the great Gil Scott-Heron, who died on May 28, 2011, and who some call a founding father of rap. He released the amazing I’m New Here in 2010, which was remixed by Jamie xx as We’re New Here and the posthumous Nothing New, in 2014. But, back in 1970, Gil Scott released a record called Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, that included the track, “Whitey On The Moon.” This was during the Apollo moon landings that began in July, 1969. Here are it’s lyrics-

“A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey’s on the moon)
I can’t pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still.
(with Whitey on the moon)
The man jus’ upped my rent las’ night.
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
I wonder why he’s uppi’ me?
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon?)
I was already payin’ ‘im fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes takin’ my whole damn check,
Junkies makin’ me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin’ up,
An’ as if all that shit wasn’t enough”

Lyrics by Gil Scott-Heron and Published by Carlin America Inc.

It’s hard for me, anyway, not to think that Q-Tip and Tribe have heard it2, but they’ve taken the possible influence of Gil Scott’s classic into a galaxy far away. With all the talk by Elon Musk, and others, about going to Mars, Tribe have a point. A cynic would respond that those who don’t have the money to fund their trip to space will get there the same way those who didn’t in the past did- by taking the jobs those with the money don’t want to do. Still? It’s a song I can hear becoming an anthem years down the road. Along with “Whitey On The Moon,” it’s the second blues song of the space age (“Space Oddity,” “Rocket Man,” or “Subterranean Homesick Alien” notwithstanding.).

It’s also quite a “statement.” And? It isn’t the last one here. The song ends with another movie sample, this one from “Willy Wonka,” featuring the voice of the late Gene Wilder saying-

“A small step for mankind
But a giant step for us
Oompa, loompa, doopa dee doo
I’ve got another puzzle for you.”*

The “A small step…” line is of course the first line uttered by Neil Armstrong on the moon, and as for Oompa, loompa, Urban Dictionary’s #10 definition of this references Donald Trump, who has also been referred to by this name by Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert & SNL…This goes right into the second track, “We the people…,” which brings the emphasis back to earth, and right up to the moment.

“We don’t believe you ‘cause we the people
Are still here in the rear, ayo, we don’t need you.”*

And it gets more intense from there, culminating in a chorus that led the Village Voice in their cover article on Tribe to call this the “Soundtrack for the Trump-ocalypse.”

Village Voice, November 22, 2016 cover. Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, Consequence, and Jarobi clockwise from upper left

Damn.

Here’s their official music video for it, which is sitting right at 2 million views as I write this-

Along the way, right in the middle of it, don’t miss this instant classic verse from Phife, that contains respect for women that Hip Hop rarely gets credit of showing-

“”Dreaming of a world that’s equal for women with no division
Boy, I tell you that’s vision
Like Tony Romo when he hitting Witten
The Tribe be the best in they division
Shaheed Muhammad cut it with precision
Who can come back years later, still hit the shot?”*

 It’s obvious, at least to me, that Tribe weren’t happy with the way The Love Movement stood as their final work. Phife is quoted on wikipedia as saying, circa 2007, about a possible Tribe reumion-
“Man, we was only 18–19 when we first got started. [When] We broke up we were still like 28. Now we are 35–36. It’d be real different being in the studio. It would be real interesting to see where Q-Tip is. It would all be on a much higher level. But we are all into such different stuff from way back then.”

Different in almost every way it is. Whereas previously they left grand political and cultural statements to Public Enemy (“Fight The Power,” etc),  and others. Not here. They’re saying it all for the record, on a record that is going to stand alongside their other albums and show anyone who listens what they were really all about.

Forever.

Then again, there could be something else at work here. It could be “maturity,” that being 18 years older brings, as Phife said. It could be that it is, indeed, “comin’ down hard” now, perhaps as hard as it ever has. Or, it could be the influence of that other “D” word.

No. Not him.

Death.

The loss of, and respect for Phife is all over this record. On genius, Jarobi White was quoted as saying of him- “Doing this album killed him. And he was very happy to go out like that.”

What more could possibly be said?

“Lost Somebody” is one attempt to put some of it into words. Jarobi in Verse 2-

“Never thought that I would be ever writing this song.
Hold friends tight, never know when those people are gone.”*

Before the chorus comes in-

“Have you ever loved somebody?
Way befoe you got to dream?
No more crying, he’s in sunshine
He’s alright now, see his wings”*

Respect, and love, for Phife is constant and endlessly a part of this record, even when his voice isn’t heard. I’m not going to do a track by track of the whole album. We’d be here a very long time. Check it out for yourself. I will say that other highlights for me include guest spots by Andre 3000 on “Kids…,” a no pulled punches, straight up dispelling of the the imagined hip hop (or “star’s”) life, which includes the already famous line, “Kids, don’t you know how all this sh*t is fantasy?”*) is just amazing on a track that is already garnered significant buzz. Elton John, a sample of who’s “Benny & The Jets” forms the basis for “Solid Wall of Sound,” a unique, sonic marvel, which also includes Jack White’s guitar, before Elton winds it up with a new verse written for this record, and Abbey Smith on the addiction ode “Melatonin.” Like Tribe at it’s best, these tracks get under your skin and stay there.

It’s under my skin. That play count, on the right, is mounting a month in.

There are riches galore. It’s always an unexpected joy to hear Phife here, especially when paired with Q-Tip, his childhood friend, as it is to hear Busta Rhymes, who Tribe made famous. Another surprise- Q-Tip’s playing (on keyboards, bass, and/or drums!)  and fresh production carry the day throughout, pushing the production envelope the way classic Tribe did, which, as Questlove once said, we expect from Tribe.

Finally, there’s the title. We got it from Here…Thank You 4 Your service, which Phife, apparently, came up with. The band says they don’t know what he meant by it. The best guess I’ve heard so far(*) is that it’s a dedication to President Obama. Then again? The album’s release date, November 11 is, also, Veteran’s Day! Then, again? That’s one of the things I’ve missed so much these past EIGHTEEN years. Discussing every detail of this record and hearing all the different interpretations there are about it.

PostScript- On Saturday, November 19th, Phife was honored with having the intersection of Linden Blvd and 192 Street in Queens, NY named in his honor, which you can watch here.. R.I.P., Phife. Linden Boulevard, which Tribe immortalized, may never be better represent, represent-ed.

Thank YOU, A Tribe Called Quest. For YOUR Service.

*-All Lyrics, and starred insights are from “We got it from Here…Thank You 4 Your service” by A Tribe Called Quest are quoted from genius.com, with nary a publishing credit anywhere to be found.

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NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Both quotes from “Excursions” by Ali Shaheed Jones-Muhammad, Malik Izaak Taylor, Kamaal Ibn John Fareed of A Tribe Called Quest,  Lyrics Published by Universal Music Publishing Group. ↩
  2. Check out Q-Tip’s excellent vinyl collection here. I’ll bet $1. Small Talk is in it. ↩

NoteWorthy Shows- November, 2016

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

Things are reaching a fever pitch in the Galleries as the year end approaches, with nary a Black Friday Gallery sale in sight, allowing me to sleep in this year. Still, there was plenty to see and be Thankful for, along with the usual smattering of turkeys, but let’s get right to dessert, shall we? As in October, here’s my list, in no particular order, of what I found NoteWorthy in November. Once again, each one of these deserves a longer, in depth piece that I’m not going to have time to do, but I would be remiss in not mentioning them at all. November, also, marked the end of the world as we know it, so…

The world looks different…Brian Dettmer’s Western Civilizations 3, 2016. A “Book Sculpture.” More below.

Faberge from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection @ The Met- Will the artist in modern history who is a greater craftsman than Carl Faberge please stand up and make yourself known to me? Thank you. While I’m waiting on that, this is the first show of the work of Faberge in New York since 2004. As small as one of the details on his timeless (and priceless) masterpieces, this show in a hallway at The Met is easy to miss (countless thousands do just that as they wait in line for the elevator to the roof, right in front of this very show). Ms Gray began collecting Faberge in 1933, when prices for his work were cheaper than they will ever be again. Money aside, Faberge combines the equally rare gifts of ingenuity, vision, craftsmanship and delight in works that are a century old but have lost none of their grace, beauty or charm. Scheduled to end on November 27, this show has been extended until 2021, giving you plenty of time to see it.

Imperial Lillies of the Fields Basket, 1896, Yellow & green gold, silver, nephrite, pearl, rose-cut diamond. This is considered THE most important Faberge piece in the USA. It was presented to the wife of Czar Nicholas at her visit to the Pan-Russian Exposition in 1896. This is only 7 1/2  x 8 1/2 inches!

Imperial Napoleonic Egg, 1912, gold, enamel, rose-cut diamond, platinum, ivory, gouache, velvet, silk. One of the infamous “Faberge Eggs,” this was presented by the Czar to his wife for Easter, 1912. Designed to commemorate the 100th Anniv of victory over Napoleon. This is 4 5/8 inches tall! The inside is solid gold, and holds…

a six-panel screen depicting paintings of six regiments she was an honorary colonel in.

Description in next photo. Click any photo in this Blog to see it larger.

Imperial Caucasus Egg, for Easter, 1893. This is 3 1/2 inches high!

Easy to miss, this is the whole show!

Joan Mitchell: Drawing Into Painting @ Cheim Read- Yet another good sized show of an Abstract Expressionist, “second generation” this time, and the most renowned female (Lee Krasner may be gaining on her) AbEx painter, right down the street from the blockbuster Mark Rothko: Dark Passage Show, it makes the perfect before or after bookend to it. I owned a Joan Mitchell print until a few years ago, so I lived with the energy and lyricism her work is known for. Looking around, her work is in most major museums, though it’s been 12 years since an American museum gave her a show. So, it’s been left to Cheim & Read to fill the gaps, and they’ve mounted Joan Mitchell shows every two years, or so, going back to the late 1990’s. This one does make for fascinating pairing with the Rothko show- they couldn’t be more different, while sharing what the scholars call Abstract Expressionism, I’ve heard some of the Artists, including Philip Guston, say they prefer the term “New York School.”

UNTITLED, 1958, oil on canvas

LA GRANDE VALLEE XVI POUR IVA, 1983, oil on canvas

UNTITLED, 1982. oil on canvas

Man Ray: Continued and Noticed @ Francis Naumann- It’s been too long between Man Ray shows. Readers already know my fondness for Man Ray. Francis Naumann Gallery opened 15 years ago with a Man Ray show, so they revisited him for this anniversary show and they did it in style. Man Ray was so prolific, and so prolifically diverse he can be hard to “sum up” in a gallery show, but this one was an out and out winner, a must see, especially for anyone who thinks of Ray as “only” a ground breaking photographer. While featuring a wonderful selection of his photos, portraits and “Ray-o-grams,” it also included his drawing, painting, sculpture, writing, and even no less than 2 Ray designed chess sets.

Paletteable, 1969

The great Man (Ray). Self-Portrait, 1948. A card under speaks of his concerns in his early work- “1) a defiance of artistic convention replaced by steadfast commitment to absolute freedom in the arts.” That says it all.

…and seen again. Autoportrait, 1917/70, Screen print on plexiglass. Really? Hmmm…

…and again. Self Portrait, 1914

Yes, that’s one of the chess sets Man Ray designed to the left of the chair.

Lampshade, center, surrounded by an astounding range of creativity.

Philip Guston: Laughter in the Dark, Drawings from 1971  & 1975 @ Hauser & Wirth- There was no more auspiciously timed show than this one which not only brings us the 73 drawings Philip Guston selected for his Poor Richard series but 100 additional drawings that didn’t make the cut and 3 wonderful paintings that are related or have relevance to them. Opening exactly 4 months after Hauser’s last Guston show, it would be very very hard to find work more different than those in seen in Philip Guston Painter, 1957-67, which I wrote about here, perhaps the “darkest” of his career, in many ways. Though the show’s title refers to the presence of “laughter” here, make no mistake it is more than tinged with darkness, especially because viewing them now, we know how things turned out for Nixon. These were dark times for the country, and many of these drawings were Guston’s “at the moment” reaction to unfolding events. Even before Watergate, the Nixon Presidency was not without a sizable opposition, for more reasons than the seemingly endless war in Vietnam. Everything about Nixon rubbed many people the wrong way, and provided a brilliant Artist ample fodder for “political satire” of the highest order. Most interestingly, for me, these are works in which Guston turns his focus outwards for, perhaps, the only time in his post 1940’s career. Poor Richard was published in 2001 and is still in print. You can see it here.

The 73 drawings that Guston selected for Poor Richard are shown, here (and below), together.

Title Page. Guston Depicts Nixon with VP Spiro Agnew (triangular skull), Attorney General John Mitchell (with his pipe) and Advisor Henry Kissenger (as glasses) as the cast of characters

Guston’s series begins with young Richard Nixon.

Jeff Elrod: This Brutal World @ Luhring Augustine- Chelsea & Brooklyn Galleries. It pains me not to write a longer piece on this. Jeff Elrod has been at the cusp of reinventing painting by combining digital drawing and computers with the end result of that stage outputted to canvas.where it may, or may not be combined with analog, old fashioned painting (at least those on display here). Dealing with blurriness from my recent eye treatment, my initial reaction was, “Hmmmm…If I close my right eye, my good eye, this is how the world looks to me these days.” But, I was drawn back repeatedly, even compelled to make the (unheard of for me) trip to Brooklyn to see the Bushwick segment of this show. In both locations, the effect was the same- I couldn’t get them out of my mind. They’re like something you see when you’re not really looking, or when you’re not fully awake after dreaming, or about to fall asleep…My initial reaction was “This looks easy to do on a computer. Take a photo, blur the heck out of part of it in Photoshop. Add a layer of a frenzied drawing and output to canvas. Then, I remember people say the same thing about Pollock and Rothko, yet no one else has done them. Some works remind me of passages of Monet, some of Yves Tanguay. But not really. They weren’t created like those were and so they don’t look like anything else. Mr. Elrod’s work commands some fancy prices. Ah well…They’re much too big for my place, anyways. If there’s a “cutting edge” in painting in 2016, Jeff Elrod’s work is the closest I’ve seen to being on it. I’m very much looking forward to seeing where this is going.

Auto-Focus, 2016 UV Ink on Canvas 9064 inches. Mystifyingly alluring.

Rubber-Miro, 2015 Acrylic and UV Ink on canvas. His uniquely shaped canvases give the work a different feel from most square/rectangular paintings.

Rake-Adaptable, 2016 UV Ink on FIscher canvas. The ghost of Robert Motherwell? “Haunting” is a word his work brings to my mind most often.

Under The Skin, 2016 UV Ink on canvas, 108 x 84 inches.

Plume, 2016 as seen in Bushwick, Brooklyn. 16 1/4 feet long by 9 1/2 feet tall.

After countless visits, I began to “see” “Jeff Elrods” everywhere I went. Like here-

Life Mirrors Art.

Brian Dettmer: Dodo Data Dada @ P.P.O.W. Mr. Dettmer creates “Book Sculptures,” something new to me. As far as I can tell, he takes a scalpel to a book, or books, and carves away all but what he wants to remain. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Funk and Wag, 2016. As in, the whole encyclopedia.

Ew Ass, 2016

PostScript.- And meanwhile, over at Gagosian, Richard Serra’s MASSIVE Every Which Way, 2015, all 16 slabs of it was coming down, making way for the next show there…

Richard Serra, Every Which Way, 2015 @ Gagosian

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “It’s The End Of The World (As We Know It)” by Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry of R.E.M. and published by Warner/Chappell Music, Inc and Universal Music Publishing Group, from their 1987 album “Document.”

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Bruce Conner- “The Most Important Artist of the 20th Century”

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

“In my opinion, Bruce Conner is the most important Artist of the 20th Century.”

And all this time I thought it might have been Picasso. Before you put fingers to keyboard to email me- I didn’t say that. Dennis Hopper did. Here-

In addition to being a fine Actor, Director and Photographer, Hopper was a major, and an astute, collector of Contemporary Art. Sharp enough to attend Andy Warhol’s first show and buy one of his “Soup Can” Paintings for 75.00. He was also a long time friend of Bruce Conner.

You've got to have friends. Bruce Conner, left, with Dennis Hopper.

You’ve got to have friends. Bruce Conner, left, in Hopper’s chair, with Dennis Hopper from the Senior & Shopmaker show catalog.

Still? That’s a pretty big statement, Mr. Hopper.

The Magic Curtain. Like a black hole to new universes within.

The entrance. Walk through this black curtain and it’s like entering a black hole to new universes within.

Though I don’t believe in qualitatively comparing Artists, there are, no doubt, many other differing opinions on the question of who was the most important 20th Century Artist. But, there was some quite compelling evidence in favor of Mr. Hopper’s opinion on view over 20 rooms at “Bruce Conner: It’s All True,” the first posthumous retrospective of the Artist, at MoMA from July 3 through October 2, and now at SFMOMA until January 22, 2017. (You can revisit MoMA’s Show  in amazing detail here.) In fact, it makes Hopper’s case about as well as it is possible to make it. With 250 pieces this show is one mind bend after another after another and after another that doesn’t stop until you’re back outside of it, in the lobby of MoMA’s 6th Floor. It’s like Groucho Marx’ joke delivery style- You don’t like that one? Here’s another. And another, and another, and another until he finally gets you. Having never even heard of Bruce Conner, he got my attention pretty quickly on my first visit.

How my head felt after. Show's Lobby.

“It’s All True’s” Lobby. The show’s title comes from a letter Conner wrote in 2000, paraphrased on the left.

By my third visit, I was obsessed. For me, “Bruce Conner: It’s All True” sets a bench mark for Retrospectives of a Contemporary Artist. Pick a genre- drawing, painting, collage, photography, film, assemblage, Bruce Conner’s work in it can hang with anyone else’s. Here are some things I noticed that could be used to support Mr. Hopper’s claim-

-He was an assemblage Artist every bit as inventive and creative as the great Robert Rauschenberg during the same period. In fact, one of Conner’s assemblages was selected for the 1961 Moma show, “the Art of Assemblage,” when he was 28, where it was shown alongside works by Malevich, Magritte, Miro, Man Ray, Picasso and Rauschenberg. Conner, himself, was denied entry to MoMA on opening night, but that’s a story unto itself.

"THE BOX," 1960 Photo ©MoMA

“THE BOX,” 1960. Dennis Hopper actually preferred this work to Picasso’s “Guernica” as an anti-war statement because it is “not cloaked in pleasing forms.”1 Photo ©MoMA

-While he drew for much of his career, with fascinating results, he created an entirely new and unprecedented type of drawing, made out of inkblots (yes, you read that right) that contain from 1 or 2  upto 494 inkblots in a single work that, I believe, people will spend years trying to figure out how he did them. Even once they do, they are going to have a very hard time achieving his level of mastery with their manipulation.

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HTF? “INKBLOT DRAWING,” August 17, 1991. See a Detail of this further down. Photo ©MoMA

-His groundbreaking first film, “A MOVIE.” was a work that was hugely influential, credited by the same Dennis Hopper with inspiring the acid scene in his own film “Easy Rider.”

Blowing Minds. "Crossroads," 1976 at Moma. Photo ©Moma

“CROSSROADS,” 1976. Mushrooms, of all kinds, even atomic clouds as here, are a running theme. Yes, all of his titles are in CAPS. *-Photo ©MoMA

“CROSSROADS,” 1976, a 36 minute film that struck me as being part horror film, part meditation on the power of the unseen forces in the universe, showing the unimaginable devastation an atomic explosion unleashes, while at the same time showing it as a force of nature to which it gradually melts into, as we watch the surrounding clouds become indistinguishable from the atomic cloud. The end result is summed up in what writer William C. Wees calls the “Nuclear Sublime2.” Showing multiple views of the atomic blast at Bikini Atoll on July 26, 1947, which Conner selected from the over 500 cameras that filmed the event (some at speeds of up to 8,000 frames per second), and juxtaposes the images with, first, actual sounds of the event, and then soundtracks created by synth master Patrick Gleeson and avant garde composer Terry Riley. Forty years later it’s hard to see this film becoming irrelevant any time soon. It’s a film that everyone involved in the military or government of any nation around the world, or those with the power to vote for or select them should see. Conner’s other films (totaling over 20) were no less creative or groundbreaking, and are increasingly being studied, and recognized.

-He took some of the greatest photos of punk musicians and punk bands ever taken.

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Up against the wall! A wall of his punk photos shot at the Mabuhay Gardens Club in L.A. *-Photo ©MoMA

Frankie Fix of "Crime," 1977. Photo ©Moma

FRANKIE FIX of the band “Crime,” 1977. *-Photo ©MoMA

-He created unique portraits he called “photograms” using his own body that are unlike any “selfie” ever taken (actually, Edmund Shea photographed them) and are so ethereal he titled them “Angels.”

Spiritual Side "Sound of One Hand Angel," 1974, Photo ©MoMA

“SOUND OF ONE HAND ANGEL,” 1974, *-Photo ©MoMA

"Angels" by Bruce Conner. Photo courtesy of Moma.

A Room full of “ANGELS.” *-Photo ©MoMA

-His collages are every bit as surreal as any by Max Ernst, the Surrealist Master of the Collage.

"PSYCHEDELICATESSEN OWNER," 1990 collage from engravings. Photo ©MoMA

“PSYCHEDELICATESSEN OWNER,” 1990, collage from engravings. *-Photo ©MoMA

-Being as he was the first Artist to put film to contemporary music, he is considered to be the “Father of Music Video,” with his “COSMIC RAY,” in 1961, then “BREAKAWAY,” with Toni Basil (see above). His subsequent work with David Byrne and Brian Eno on videos for their 1981 album “My Life In The Bush of Ghosts” presaged and anticipated MTV’s “Music Videos.” Having his innovations and techniques aped without credit was not something he accepted well. I put this lower on the list because the music video seems to be fading in importance.

And, he ran for office (a seat on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco), in 1967, actually garnering a few thousand votes.

So?

Why haven’t more people heard about Bruce Conner? Why isn’t he listed and discussed in 20th Century Art History Books?

"Untitled" from Mandalla Series, 1965, felt tip pen on paper. 10x10 inches

“UNTITLED” from MANDALA SERIES, 1965, felt tip pen on paper. 10×10 inches. *-Photo ©MoMA

Detail of left side

Detail of left side

Bruce Conner was something of af an “anti-artist.”  He didn’t like the art establishment, and that came out in his dealings with galleries and museums, including a bizarre encounter with the Security staff at MoMA, at that opening in 1961, alluded to above. In this show he is quoted questioning the need for an Artist to put his name on a work, and near the end of his career works that are undeniable Bruce Conners began appearing with other names, like “Emily Feather,” or “Anonymouse” attached to them. It seems it was a conscious effort to avoid inclusion. He claimed he hired these Artists, but today, they are assumed to all be by him. He once said having work out in the public under his own name made him nervous.

Women's World. Form Left- Pinups on the back of "Untitled," 1954-61, "Spider Lady," & "Spider Lady Nest," 1959, Homage to Jean Harlow," 1963,

Women on his mind. Form Left- Pinups on the back of “UNTITLED,” 1954-61, “SPIDER LADY,” & “SPIDER LADY NEST,” 1959, “HOMAGE TO JEAN HARLOW,” 1963, “WEDNESDAY,” and “LADY BRAIN,” both 1960. Entrance to “BREAKAWAY,” right. *-Photo ©MoMA

Contemporary Art of any time is supposed to break all the rules that had been set in place before it. In Bruce Conner’s case, he broke the rules in every medium he created in, and he broke the rules for being an Artist in the “Art World,” which he loathed. It’s interesting to me that there is so much craft in his films- including dripping ink on them, punch holes seemingly randomly, that make them Art Pieces in themselves. This is part of a duality in his nature that sees him pay attention to the minutest of details like these films, his collages, or his ink drawings where countless minute lines are drawn in pen that somehow never intersect with each other, contrasted with the hugeness of “Crossroads,” horrible, yet strangely beautiful, and contrasted with the “spirituality” of works like the “Angels” and his final work, “Easter Morning.” Bruce Conner may have been many things, it’s all true (as he says in a letter that is the basis for the show’s title), but one thing he was not is easy to categorize. Unless that word is “Artist.”

The first gallery featuring Assemblages. Photo ©MoMA

After seeing “A MOVIE,” you exit the door at left and enter the first gallery featuring Assemblages. *-Photo ©MoMA

Walking around “It’s All True,” as well as no less than three very good satellite shows going on around town, of Conner’s trippier collages and tapestries at one Paula Cooper, unique works at the other, and prints and drawings at Senior & Shopmaker Gallery. I found that every time I look at one of his works, I’m left with the same question-

"Tocatta & Fugue," 1986, engraving collage

“TOCATTA & FUGUE,” 1986, engraving collage

"Christ Casting Out The Legion Of Devils," Tapestry from engraving collage. Both seen at Paul Cooper Gallery

“CHRIST CASTING OUT THE LEGION OF DEVILS,” Tapestry from engraving collage. Both seen at Paula Cooper Gallery

“HTF?”

That’s “How” inserted instead of the W in WTF? As in- HOW did he do that?” No matter which genre of his work I’m considering, that question hits me. I stare at his drawings, for example, including one with hundreds of lines where no two intersect (like “UNTITLED,” above) and wonder “How did he do that?” I’m face to face with a pseudo Max Ernst collage, like the one above, and wonder “I can’t see anything cut out and applied on top of something else. It’s all seamless, and this was before scanning, photoshop and all the rest. How did he do that?” I look at his movies, “BREAKAWAY,” (above) and wonder the same thing. “How? The editing and the way it’s complied is beyond the technology of the time.” I’m not alone in saying this. In fact, no less than Harvard put on a film series of Bruce Conner’s films in 2008 that THEY called “Bruce Conner, the Last Magician of the 20th Century.” (Mr. Conner passed away in 2008). Then, there’s the “Inkblot” drawings, in which each inkblot is a perfect, unique, miracle of beauty, like a snowflake.

Detail of "INKBLOT DRAWING, August 17, 1991" seen above in full. Photo ©MoMA

Detail of “INKBLOT DRAWING, August 17, 1991” seen above in full. *-Photo ©MoMA

“How the…” Don’t ask.

As near as I can tell, Conner folds the paper (vertically in the image above) then applies the drop of ink. How he manipulates it after that to get these seemingly miraculous results is the mystery. Artist David Hockey wrote a fascinating book titled “Secret Knowledge,” about the lost techniques of the Great Masters of Painting going back to the mid 1400’s. He makes a downright riveting case, via reverse engineering, for some of the optical “tricks” and methods some of the greatest Painters ever used. I think someone is going to need to do a Volume 2 of “Secret Knowledge” and include Bruce Conner. MoMA’s curator, Laura Hoptman, said at the Press Opening, “For Bruce Conner there is always the acknowledgement of the viewer, especially in the drawings you can not only admire the steady hand and the attention to detail but it’s also on us to look so carefully and closely as possible to divine the meaning and also the intensity of the work.” While I agree that looking closely reveals wonders, I also wonder how much Conner really wanted us to see and understand3, how much of Bruce Conner, the Artist, was about making (some) works for himself, works that defy understanding by others because they aren’t meant to be. Unless his wife, Jean, also a very fine Artist, tells us, it looks like we’ll never know.

"Black Dahlia," 1960 Photo © Moma

“BLACK DAHLIA,” 1960. Inspired by an unsolved sex-murder case in L.A. His Assemblages require, and reward, very close looking. You’ll even see a nude, from the back. *-Photo ©MoMA

One of the themes of some bigger NYC Art Shows this year has been a revisiting of the Art History of the 20th Century. “It’s All True” does it again and makes such an emphatic case, as “Nasreen Mohamedi” did earlier this year inaugurating TMB, that I would be shocked if either Artist is omitted going forward.

From the "Dennis Hopper One Man Show," Print after engraving collage as seen at Senior & Shopmaker Galleri

From the “Dennis Hopper One Man Show,” at Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, a partial reconstruction of a Bruce Conner show honoring Dennis Hopper. Limited Edition print after engraving collage.

Beyond that, Dennis Hopper’s opinion will live on. I’m glad he expressed it before he passed of prostate cancer in 2010. Is Bruce Conner “The most important Artist of the 20th Century?” I don’t know if it matters. What matters is that his Art is being seen more and more, and so it will grow in appreciation and influence. Bruce Conner may have had reasons for being an “Anti-Artist,” and “Anti Art World” during his life, but one thing that is apparent- Now that he’s unfortunately no longer with us, his work is going to continue to speak for him, while it is seen far and wide in the 21st Century. Where he will continue to blow minds…like mine.

"BOMBHEAD," 2002

“BOMBHEAD,” 2002. Based on a Self Portrait. *-Photo ©MoMA.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “In C” by Terry Riley, the soundtrack for Bruce Conner’s final film, the gorgeous masterpiece, “EASTER MORNING,” 2008, which struck me as a farewell to life, and is the final work in “It’s All True.”

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  1. SFWeeky ↩
  2. Wees’ excellent piece on “CROSSROADS,” in which he coins the term, is here. ↩
  3. Very very few are going to get to examine the film strips of his movines to see the attention to detail he lavished on them. ↩

Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel #November 11, 2016

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

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If those paving stones could talk…The scene in front the Hotel Chelsea, currently covered in scaffolding, this afternoon after the passing of Leonard Cohen yesterday.

Here’s an iPhone video I shot outside of 222 West 23rd Street, world famous as the Hotel Chelsea, which Leonard Cohen helped to immortalize in no small way, through his songwriting, and his presence in Suite #424-

Leonard’s “Bird On A Wire” performed live by a couple who were “just passing through,” something that adds even more to it being a fitting tribute to Mr. Cohen, and the spirit of the Hotel Chelsea he helped foster.

Leonard Cohen's wall plaque is now behind the scaffolding, making it very hard to get a shot of.

One for the road. Leonard Cohen’s wall plaque is now behind the scaffolding, making it very hard to get a shot of, though folks were able to leave tributes nearby.

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UPDATE- As seen on Saturday, November 12

UPDATE- As seen on Saturday, November 12

I’ve got a good deal of personal history there, myself, these past 25 years, though none that directly involves Mr. Cohen. The Chelsea is the figurative center of the Chelsea Neighborhood, and was immortalized most recently by Patti Smith in “Just Kids,” which also took place before my time in the area. None the less, I have a ton of respect for all that went on there, and the amazing group of people who occupied the place, including my late friend, Storme, who I recently wrote about. Certainly Mr. Cohen is right up there with any of the others in terms of bringing to the Chelsea the cachet that made the place, the area, and the City a mecca for countless thousands of people- then and now.

Outside Academy Records, one of Manhattan's top Record & CD Stores, tonite.

Outside Academy Records, one of Manhattan’s top remaining Record & CD Stores, tonite.

In the basement of The Strand Bookstore tonite. Yes, the basement where Patti Smith once worked.

In the basement of The Strand Bookstore tonite. Yes, the basement where Patti Smith once worked.

I don’t know what the place is going to become now. I doubt it will retain much of it’s former energy. It’s another sign of the times. An era is slowly ending right before our eyes. Another place that was once a focus point for seemingly boundless creativity, filled with people who inspired each other, the world around them, and beyond, that now must be found somewhere else in town. While there will never be another Leonard Cohen, I look forward to the next generation of Musicians, Writers, Artists and Poets who’ve been inspired by him and all the others.

Hallelujah. There are some big shoes to fill…

More on the legendary Leonard Cohen at the Hotel Chelsea (which sits one block west of the recent bomb blast) can be found here.

R.I.P. Leonard Cohen.

*Soundtrack for this Post is “Chelsea Hotel, #2,” by Leonard Cohen. Thanks to kitty for reconnaissance assistance.

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The Rothko Chapel, Chelsea

“I became a painter because I wanted to raise painting to the level of poignancy of music and poetry.” Mark Rothko.

I could sit there for a month. One of the infamous "Seagrams Murals," 1959. Rarely seen.

Seagrams Murals, Section 6, 1959. One of the infamous murals for the 4 Seasons Restaurant, but never installed there.

Lines to get in are nothing new in New York, or in Chelsea, home to some of the most “happening” nightclubs in the City. But a line to get in at 2 or 3pm in the afternoon is rare anywhere in NYC. Even rarer are lines to get into an Art Gallery at that hour- unless it’s late in the run of a “must-see” show. But, the line filled the lobby and extended out the door at the extraordinary Mark Rothko: Dark Palette show which only opened the day before at Pace on West 25th Street. Five years in the making, and focused on exploring one aspect of his work, don’t bother asking for the price list, it’s also unusual for a gallery show because none of the work is for sale. Darn! What will I do now with that spare 90 million dollars?? Maybe I’ll open some grocery supermarkets with reasonable prices most neighborhoods in Manhattan desperately need.

3pm November 5. The crowd in the lobby waits.

3pm November 5. The crowd waiting to get in fills the lobby. Buckle up! It’s only going to get more crowded.

When it comes to writing about the work of Mark Rothko, I have to say up front that it’s very hard for me to be unbiased. Mark Rothko’s Art changed my life. In 1999 I saw his Retrospective at the Old Whitney (now TMB) the final weekend it was there. It was one of the unforgettable experiences I’ve ever had at an Art show, and it was perfect timing, given the roadblock I had hit with record companies in trying to get my records released unaltered, I then decided to turn (back) to Art History, my first love. Thank you, Mark Rothko.

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Let’s get lost. This is how I prefer to see Rothko. Each work can be seen on it’s own. Getting close to feel engulfed by the work is good, too.

There have been Rothko shows in NYC since 1. But, none of them have yet matched the feeling I got from the 1999 show- aided in no small part by the way the works were hung, the way the show moved through his career. I’ve longed for that feeling ever since. At long last, here it is. The “dark” works have a unique mystery among Rothko’s work, and are a terrific choice for a theme. While some see them as “depressing,” (including a lady mentioned in the show’s introduction card who rejected one that Rothko had painted for her for that reason), I find them to be among his most powerful, subtle, even, yes, poignant pieces. While it’s always great to encounter a Rothko in a Museum, they’re usually hung among the work of others, which I find a bit distracting, For me, Rothko needs to be seen and experienced in a “vacuum,” or with only Rothkos nearby. Few institutions have that many Rothkos, and given their popularity, it is very hard for them to part with them and disappoint their visitors, even for a couple of months.

Worshipping at the altar?

Worshipping at the altar?

Luckily, two of the very few people who do have some, the offspring of Mr. Rothko, Dr. Kate Rothko Prizel and Dr. Christopher Rothko, have gone above and beyond to support this show. A number of the works on view come from their collections- by my count, no less than 4 from Kate’s and 2 from Christopher’s, in addition to “Seagrams Mural, Section 6” which they jointly own. That’s 7 of the 21 works on view- one third. (Christopher Rothko, by the way, is the author of one of the very best books on his father there is- Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out.). To help facilitate the loans of 3 pieces from major Museums, the Rothko “kids” loaned the institutions works from their own collections so the institutions would still have Rothkos to show their visitors, and enable them to part with the works requested for this show. Remarkable. Dad would no doubt be proud. With 21 “dark” works, the majority of which are out and out masterpieces in my estimation, including some stunning works on paper mounted on canvas, the results are as close as there has been to a truly “must see” show in Chelsea in years.

Someone else...

Someone else…

That said, it was only a year and a half ago that another show in this same space left me transfixed and provided many hours spent in sheer meditative bliss- by Richard Pousette-Dart. This one is very similar in it’s effect, as we explore the history of Rothko’s use of dark colors in his “sectional” works. I can’t categorize what these works say to me because it’s different each time I see them. Sometimes it’s spiritual. Sometimes poetic. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing on a foreign landscape looking at distant horizons. But, it’s that experience they give, the pure joy of looking, seeing and letting them in that transfixes me.

"Black in Deep Red," 1957. The day will come where these works will be as famous as Monet's are now, in my opinion.

Black in Deep Red, 1957. The day will come when Rothko’s work will be as ubiquitous as Monet’s are now, in my opinion.

This has been a year full of big New York School Abstract Expressionist Shows. First, there was the biggest “name” in AbEx, Jackson Pollock, at MoMA, then concurrent shows of his wife, Lee Krasner, and long time friend, Philip Guston. A very nice smaller show of New York School Artists is going on at Allan Stone Projects that includes two marvelous Joseph Cornell Boxes (Ok, he’s not an AbEx Artist, but his work is wonderfully abstract, and he was a New Yorker), alongside works by Abstract Expressionists2 de Koonjng, Arshile Gorky and Clifford Still. There’s also a nice Joan Mitchell show that’s about the same size as the Rothko show going on very nearby it, AND there’s the Centennial show of Richard Pousette-Dart, for my money the most under appreciated of the lot, going on right now at Pace uptown!

"Untitled," 1955 the earliest work here has never been displayed in the country before.

Untitled, 1955, the earliest work here, has never been displayed in the country before.

Phew…

I didn't bring flowers, so this will suffice as my "bouquet."

I didn’t bring flowers, so this Post will have to suffice as my “bouquet.”

For me, though, this show will be the high point. Short of going to the “real” Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas or the Seagrams Room at the Tate, London, this is the only, and best, chance you’ll get to get that feeling…until the next big Rothko show. Unlike most of my Art Show Posts, this show only opened this past Friday, November 4, so you have until January 7, 2017 to experience it.

"Untitled," 1968, one of a few acrylic on paper, mounted on panel pieces here, seen from an angle.

Untitled, 1968, one of a few wonderful acrylic on paper, mounted on panel pieces here, has fascinating sides.

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After that? You’re stuck being like me- Praying for the next one.

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*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Rothko Chapel” by Morton Feldman.

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  1. Mark Rothko: The Watercolors in 2014, shining light on his seldom seen work in the medium, and Mark Rothko: A Painter’s Progress, The Year 1949 in 2004, focused and fascinating, both excellent, and both at Pace, East 57th Street. ↩
  2. according to a list The Met has published ↩