Category: New York

Legends of Cool

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Iggy was in town, so where else could we be?

Iggy Pop joined longtime collaborator and friend, Jim Jarmusch to discuss the release of ”Free”, Iggy’s 18th studio album. There were stories to be shared, cool music to be heard, golf moves to be taught. By the way, the man in front of me with that gorgeous ”eye” vest I wish I’d owned, is another friend of Iggy’s and a legendary character of New York, Jimmy Webb who sadly passed away in April 2020 just seven months after the event.

92nd Street Y

September 11th, 2019

Weyes Blood, pronounced ”Wise Blood”

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On her ”Something to Believe Tour” in support of her -then- newly released album ”Titanic Rising”, Natalie Laura Merin played in Webster Hall. An intriguing young artist that somehow manages to sound nostalgic and pragmatic, contemporary and retro – ageless, in equal measure. That, and her rich, mesmerizing voice singing lyrics like:

”No one’s ever gonna give you a trophy for all the pain and things you’ve been through…”

It was not long before Webster Hall fell under her spell.

Weyes Blood in NYC, September 7th, 2019

Skyscrapers & Art

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United Nations Grounds

  • Created by the Russian painter and sculptor, Zurab Tsereteli, the sculpture commemorates the 1987 signing of the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate – Range and Shorter – Range Nuclear Missiles (INF Treaty), and is in celebration of the 45 Session of the General Assembly. Created as a monument to peace, the sculpture is composed of parts of actual United States and Soviet missiles. The work depicts an allegorical St. George, one arm raised, as he drives a lance through a double headed dragon.

    The dragon in the sculpture is not the mythological beast of the early Christian tradition, but the specter of nuclear war vanquished by the historic treaties between the Soviet Union and the United States. Accordingly the dragon is shown lying amid the broken pieces of Soviet SS-20 and U.S. Pershing missiles. Actual fragments of these weapons have been used in the sculpture.
  • Bronze monument consisting of a multitude of figures on a large ship (23′ long) with three masts and two gangplanks. Gift of Ireland.
  • The statue ‘Mir’ (Peace), one of the symbols of the United Nations Headquarters in New York, is the work of the renowned Croatian sculptor Antun Augustinčić (1900, Klanjec – 1979, Zagreb). The sculptor himself came to the United States in 1952 to choose and propose a UN ground site for the 16’ high bronze statue.
  • “Kusikawsay” means “peaceful and happy life” in the Quechua language. The sculpture, a gift of Colombia, is made of seven tonnes of melted ammunition surrendered by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) as part of the peace agreement with the government in 2016. Made by Chilean  artist Mario Opazo, it represents an indigenous canoe that comes out of the ground like a projectile.

United Nations Grounds, New York City

August 27th, 2019

Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper

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Highlights

  • Dante Gabriel Rossetti || Silence, 1870
  • Pablo Picasso || Head of a Young Boy, 1923
  • Edvard Munch || Moonlight, 1896
  • Käthe Kollwitz || The Widow I / The Volunteers || from the portfolio War, 1922-23
  • Edvard Munch || Eva Mudocci, 1903
  • Pablo Picasso || Nude Standing in Profile,1906
  • Tsuguharu Foujita || Portrait of a Girl with Cat, c. 1926
  • Amedeo Modigliani || Adolphe Basler, c. 1916
  • Egon Schiele || Male Nude (Self-Portrait), 1912

Brooklyn Museum

August 25th, 2019

Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion

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Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion was a retrospective of the work of the pioneering couturier, known for his futuristic creations and extensive licensing, which ultimately had a negative impact on the brand’s image (I remember growing up, the Cardin signature was omnipresent, from exclusive, out of my reach fashions, to cheap lighters and pens sold at the corner newspaper shop). The exhibition presented over 170 objects drawn from Cardin’s atelier and archive, which may sound like a lot, but was a mere fraction of the designer’s work over the decades.

Brooklyn Museum

August 25th, 2019

A Crack in Everything

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A visit to the Jewish Museum on the occasion of an exhibition devoted to the bard of Montreal; poetic and emotional, a little happy, a little sad and bittersweet, bringing back memories to some and bouts of nostalgia to others. It was suitably unphotographable but, luckily, there were more works by other Jewish artists around to ”save the day”.

Untitled (Tears), 2013 || Claire Fontaine
Claire Fontaine is a pseudonym that translates literally as ”clear fountain”. It may refer to Marcel Duchamp’s iconic 1917 Readymade sculpture Fountain, an inverted, signed urinal that is one of the founding works of radical modernism. ”Tears” is inspired by recorded memories of Ellis Island, which, beginning in 1892, welcomed (and also rejected) millions of people.
OY/YO, 2016 || Deborah Kass
Untitled, 1968 || Elaine Lustig Cohen
Book covers designed by Elaine Lustig Cohen
Untitled, 1969 || Elaine Lustig Cohen
Untitled || Elaine Lustig Cohen
Bob Dylan, 2007 || Abshalom Jac Lahav || From the series 48 Jews
Noam Chomsky 2007 || Abshalom Jac Lahav || From the series 48 Jews
Alan Greenspan, 2007 || Abshalom Jac Lahav || From the series 48 Jews
Monica Lewinsky, 2007 || Abshalom Jac Lahav || From the series 48 Jews

The Jewish Museum, Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything, April through September 2019

August 17th, 2019