Sunset Park, Brooklyn
November 30th, 2019
Globalisation
Category: november 2019
Warehouse Comics
Out there in Sunset Park, not far from the Industry City complex, among auto parts, plumping equipment, building products, and wholesalers we discovered this: a warehouse packed with comics, paperbacks, magazines, action figures – the lot! Easy to mistake it for yet another hardware equipment warehouse, had it not been for the two feline guides, we would have totally missed it.
November 30th, 2019
Yayoi Kusama || Everyday I Pray For Love
An exhibition introducing new works from the artist’s ”My Eternal Soul” series.
November 29th, 2019
Yayoi Kusama || Ladder To Heaven
Stretching to infinity with the help of two mirrors – one on the ceiling, another on the floor – and colour changing LED lights. I’m not sure about the ”heaven” part, the effect is more like ”as above so below”, with worshippers debating on which direction is better to take.
From ”Yayoi Kusama: EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE”, an exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, 2019
November 29th, 2019
Circumnavigating Manhattan
Best reserved for family visits
Pier 66 
Battery Park 
Ellis Island 
That Lady 
Brooklyn Bridge Park 
Brooklyn Bridge Park 
Williamsburg Bridge 
Domino Park 
Greenpoint 
United Nations HQ 
A city within a city – Beekman 
Ed Doch Queensboro Bridge & the Aerial Tram 
Roosevelt Island Lighthouse 
Carl Schurz Park foliage 
River Park Towers, Bronx 
Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse 
Broadway Bridge 
”C” for Columbia University painted on the cliff wall on the northern side of the Spuyten Duyvil 
George Washington Bridge & The Little Red Lighthouse
November 23rd, 2019
The Great Tamer
Time
Humanity’s journey through time. Violence, Beauty, Ritualism, Abstraction, transitioning with each passing scene seamlessly, every brilliantly constructed moment sending electric shocks to the brain, heightening the senses, letting energy flow freely through the body. Life going full circle, tamed only be Time. The Great Tamer.
It takes a certain kind of visionary to conceive and direct a piece as complex as this, and make it feel so effortless and organic, sleek and elegant.
The Great Tamer, by Dimitris Papaioannou
With
Pavlina Andriopoulou
Costas Chrysafidis
Ektor Liatsos
Ioannis Michos
Evangelia Randou
Ioanna Paraskevopoulou
Drossos Skotis
Christos Strinopoulos
Yorgos Tsiantoulas
Alex Vangelis
Full credits BAM Program
New York Premiere, BAM
November 16th, 2019
John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal
Charlotte Nichols Greene and Her Son Stephen Greene, 1924, Charcoal 
Daisy Fellowes, ca. 1920, charcoal 
Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Later Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, 1923, charcoal 
Olimpio Fusco, ca. 1900-1910, charcoal.
Olimpio Fusco was likely one of the numerous professional models, often Italians living in London, whom Sargent employed to pose for his mural cycles.
Lady Helen Venetia Vincent, ca. 1905, charcoal 
Lady Diana Manners, 1914, Charcoal
Lady Diana Manners was the youngest daughter of Violet Lindsay and Henry Manners, eight Duke of Rutland. Her mother, herself an exhibiting artist, was a central figure in the Souls. Along with other children of the Souls, Lady Diana became part of the ”Corrupt Coterie”, a group of aristocrats and intellectuals known for their extravagant parties in the years leading up to WWI. During the war, many members of this group would be killed; Lady Diana served as a nurse and married Alfred Duff Cooper, a fellow survivor, in 1919. Legendary for her beauty, she proved fascinating for authors like Evelyn Waugh and F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ellen Peabody Endicott, 1903, Charcoal 
Helen Dunham, ca. 1895, charcoal 
Dr. Charles Fleischer, 1903, charcoal
Sargent is said to have thought that Fleischer, with his prominent mustache, bore some resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe, which this relaxed portrait likewise suggests
Charles Martin Loeffler, 1917, charcoal and graphite 
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, ca. 1913, charcoal and graphite
In this joyful drawing, Sargent represented her in an outfit thought to have been designed by Bakst, the costume designer for the Ballets Russes. Whitney went on to found the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1930 with her collection of more than five hundred works by contemporary American artists
Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, 1917, charcoal and white chalk 
Sir William Blake Richmond, ca. 1910, charcoal
The son of portraitist George Richmond, he was named after his father’s friend and mentor, William Blake.
William Adams Delano, 1922, charcoal 
Nancy Astor, 1907, charcoal
Nancy Astor was the first woman to take a seat in British Parliament when, in 1919, she ran as a Conservative for the post previously held by her husband in the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill, 1925, charcoal 
Eleonora Randolph Sears, 1921, charcoal
A devoted and successful athlete and a pioneering figure in women’s sports. She garnered as many as 240 athletic trophies during her lifetime, winning the US doubles tennis championship four times between 1911 and 1917 and becoming the first female national squash champion in 1928
Gertrude Kingston, ca. 1909, charcoal 
Ruth Draper as a Dalmatian Peasant, 1914, charcoal
The American actress Ruth Draper is credited with originating the now-familiar one-woman show. She wrote her own monologues and impersonations, both dramatic and comic, and gained fame in the United States and Europe. Sargent first drew a conventional portrait
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was one of the greatest portrait artists of his time. While he is best known for his powerful paintings, he largely ceased painting portraits in 1907 and turned instead to charcoal drawings to satisfy portrait commissions.
The Morgan Library & Museum presented a major exhibition of his beautiful portraits of beautiful people, in charcoal.
November 10th, 2019
Joseph Cornell Illuminated
Hans Namuth
Joseph Cornell in His Backyard, Utopia Parkway, New York, 1969
”It kills me, it’s so good. Let’s pretend I took this, okay?… I used to go to Cornell’s house once a week for I don’t know how long. He would make tea on his ancient, Depression-era stove. He’d turn the gas on, and the flames shot up. He talked a lot, gesturing, in this very fluffy angora sweater he wore. And I’m thinking, I should keep the camera ready in case he goes up. A Flaming Cornell: that’d be amazing! Unfortunately, he never caught on fire. But this portrait is going to upstage the whole exhibit – I may have to set it on fire.” – Duane Michals
From ”Illusions of the Photographer”, an exhibition of the art of Duane Michals, which included this photograph of Joseph Cornell by Hans Namuth and, as far as I was concerned, upstage the whole exhibit, it did.
The Morgan Library
November 10th, 2019
Resident Alien
An exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York exploring the cultural contributions of Austrian architects that emigrated to the United States. Divided in five themed sections spread from the lower all the way up to the upper mezzanine of the ACFNY’s gallery, that is itself housed in a building designed by Austrian-American architect Raimund Abraham, it felt like an immersive experience, greatly appreciated by this humble resident alien.
Coop Himmelb(l)au || Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 for Visual and Performing Arts, 2002-2009 
Adolf Loos || Josephine Baker House, 1927 – 11 Avenue Bugeaud, 75116 Paris, France (Model photography) 
Le Corbusier and Josephine Baker attending a costume gala aboard the Lutetia, December 1929. Their outfits and makeup were controversial and have lead to cultural debates challenging binary norms and delimited monist oppositional ways of thinking. Bi-isms occupy, deconstruct, and open up potential spaces of the in-between 
Richard Neutra || Lovell Health House, 1927-1929, Los Angeles. Photograph by Julius Shulman 
Rudolph Schindler || Charles H. Wolfe Residence, 1928-1931, Avalon, Catalina Island, CA. Pencil and ink on paper 
Rudolph Schindler || Charles H. Wolfe Residence, 1928-1931, Avalon, Catalina Island, CA 
Rudolph Schindler || Charles H. Wolfe Residence, 1928-1931, Avalon, Catalina Island, CA 
Liane Zimbler (with Carl Schwarz) || Candianides Residence, 1961, Ventura, CA. Photograph by Leland Y. Lee 
Charles Paterson || Boomerang Lodge, 1961, Aspen, CO 
Hans Hollein || Urban Renewal in New York, 1964, Project perspective 
Peter Trummer || Pile-City Vienna, 2015, Digital image 
Peter Trummer || Pile-City Vienna, 2015, Digital image 
Peter Trummer || Pile-City New York, 2016, Digital image 
Herwig Baumgartner || Los Angeles Residence, 2018 
Coop Himmelb(l)au || The White Suit Project, 1969 
Haus-Rucker-Co || Palmtree Island (Oasis), 1971, New York 
Carl Pruscha || Vision for Global Urbanisation: Global Linear City, 1963 
Carl Pruscha || Vision for Global Urbanisation: Global Linear City, 1963 
Victor Gruen || Welfare Island Project, 1961, Roosevelt Island, NY 
Erwin Hauer || Design 2, Church in Liesing, 1951, Vienna, Austria 
Victor Gruen Associates || Wilshire Terrace, 1959, Los Angeles. Photography by Julius Shulman 
Josef Frank || United Nations Headquarters, 1947, New York
November 9th, 2019
(Disposable) Legs
Spooks
Streets of New York
November 9th, 2019
The Humble Fabulist 