at the sign of The Pink Pig

The Galleries: Agnes Martin, Kerry James Marshall

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: December 19, 2016]

A long time since I've written about art here, which is just my laziness.  I did want to to mention a couple of surprises, especially since there's still time to see for yourselves.

The last painting

I rushed to see Agnes Martin in the main, snail-space at the Guggenheim, a major show for the artist, who died twelve years ago. My main exposure to her work had been at Dia:Beacon upstate a couple of summers ago.  The spacious rooms of tranquil white-to-grey, meditative studies, an oasis from the bright sunshine outside, made for a perfect environment for viewing the work.

Twombly At The Met Breuer

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  March 16, 2016]

I don't write about galleries as much as I used to, but I did want to note the opening of the Met Breuer (in the former Whitney, of course), and especially a series of six late paintings by Cy Twombly.

A snatched iPhone panorama is distorted, of course--that's a flat wall--but maybe it gives a glimpse of what the works entail.

O.O. McIntyre At One Mile House

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  March 12, 2013]

I've previously mentioned a historic cocktail, the Odd McIntyre, a variant of the Sidecar.  This was possibly insufficient to alert readers to my fascination with vintage New York newspaper columnists, those tweeters of the past.

O.O. (Oscar Odd) McIntyre, now long forgotten, became famous before Walter Winchell for his staccato dispatches from Manhattan.  His column was gossipy, but kinder than Winchell's, written from the perspective of a small-town boy plunged into the glamor of the big city.

He composed it daily in a typewriter in his hotel room (and later, his Park Avenue apartment), and his wife mimeographed the column and mailed it to some 500 newspapers across the country.  He was probably the most read syndicated columnist in history.  I've read McIntyre's work between hard covers, but imagine my excitement when I discovered an "New York Day by Day"--from a Baltimore paper--pasted to the wall of a restroom at Mile High House, the bar next door to the Bowery Ballroom.

"I love this dirty town, Sidney."

Laura Tack At Con Artist

[New York Peasant by Kim Davis:  February 6, 2013]

Con Artist is an artist's collective.  It's also a gallery, located down some slippery steps beneath 119 Ludlow Street.  If you're on the Lower East Side this evening, you should seek the space out.  It currently houses an exhibit by Laura Tack, "We Rooted and Forgot."

I'm excited by Laura's work, and by her rapid artistic development.  This is a show you should see if you possibly can.

Inventing Abstraction At MoMA

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  January 24, 2012]

There's plenty of time to catch MoMA's current would-be blockbuster, "Inventing Abstraction," which runs through April 15.  The crowds aren't too heavy either: many are distracted by the bright, cartoonish baubles of the Tokyo exhibit next door (which served only to remind me that I have no understanding of Japanese art.  My bad.)

But walk, don't run.  It's hard to say what this exhibit is for.  The purpose seems didactic, but there's a problem in the way it's framed.

"Punk" After All These Years

[New York Peasant by Kim Davis:  January 16, 2012]

In the late 1970s, even before I became a teenage "gunslinger" for the New Musical Express, I was fan of punk and punk fanzines.  I was in London, and Sniffin' Glue was the local acme of the species.

But I knew of Punk, launched by John Holstrom and "Legs" McNeil in Manhattan in 1975.  I was especially aware of the bug-eyed caricature of Lou Reed on the cover of issue number one.

A Last Brunch At Lenox Lounge

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  December 31, 2012]

We dropped by Lenox Lounge to pay last respects before it closes tonight.   The seventy year old bar and jazz spot is passing into new ownership.

It's not that business is bad, rather that the current owner can't pay a $20,000 lease serving inexpensive drinks and charging moderate covers for jazz sets.

Melissa Errico at 54 Below

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  November 5, 2012]

If I wasn't prepared to battle shuttle buses and black-outs to dine out this week, I did make my way to "Broadway's Night Club" for a set by NoHo resident (herself blacked out) Melissa Errico.

I've been a star struck fan of hers since I saw her in Sunday in the Park With George at the Lincoln Center.  She and Raul Esparza delivered the most passionate, draining, triumphant performances in a musical I've ever seen.

I've caught her in cabaret before too, and she's a special performer.  The ten years which have passed since Sunday, featuring among other things three babies in two years, have been uncommonly kind to her -- as she demonstrated with a bombshell sequinned mini-dress, fishnets, and six inch heels.  As the Times said -- not me -- "blinding glamor."

Highlights from the show: Michel Legrand's "The Summer Knows," "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Mis, and a hysterical, chaotic, high-speed "Not Getting Married Today" from Company.

She killed the encores too, with the heart-rending "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story, and a burst of Donna Summer ("Last Dance") for Studio 54. 

A treasure, and time to start saving up to see her in Passion early next year.  Good news: she's not playing Fosca.

Gilbert & George Bring The London Pictures

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  June 8, 2012]

I've made no secret of my passion for their work, or my admiration and affection for them.  George Passmore and Gilbert Prousch  -- Gilbert and George as they're universally known, forever partners, collaborators, now a married couple, and a unique project in art history.

My photograph of the installation view at Lehmann Maupin, Chrystie Street

And this summer they brought London to New York with another enormous show spread over two Lehmann Maupin spaces and the Sonnabend Gallery.  Almost three hundred pictures based on 3,712 newstand placards, "found" or purloined from the East End streets.  The effect is profound.

At The Galleries: Picasso And Gilot, And Diebenkorn

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid:  May 31, 2012]

A lavish, multi-level show at the uptown Gagosian illustrates Picasso's response over ten years, 1943-53, to his wife and muse Françoise Gilot.  A beauty, and a thoroughly worthwhile artist herself, Gilot was evidently nothing less than an obsession for Picasso.  The fierce sun of the south of France also seems to pervade the exhibition.

Gilot looks out at us so relentlessly, from pictures and portraits of every kind, that it's almost a relief to find refuge in the small section of the show devoted to her paintings.