Cherry blossoms are busting out all over New York, and the best way to start gallery hopping in Chelsea is to have lunch at the Empire Diner on West 10th Street at 23rd. This is my dear friend and ex boss from my New York advertising days, Joe Bacal.
I’ve always wanted to make an art work which incorporated pressed steel, like these panels on the walls.
Brazilian artist Vik Muniz is showing at Sikkema Jenkins, collaging cut up and torn old family photographs to create the tones to build up a new image, then photographing this, and blowing it up to a large scale digital print.
‘Gang of Cosmos’ is Robert Longo’s show at Metro Pictures. It comprises twelve charcoal drawings by Longo of well-known Abstract Expressionist paintings. It’s quite disconcerting to see immediately recognizable paintings by such artists at Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock as what at first glance look like black and white photos of the originals. The gallery statement maintains that ‘it is the overlooked or imperceptible details of the complex surface, the tactility of the paint, the brushstrokes, and the pattern of the canvas that Longo has made visible.’ Hmmmm.
It’s a pleasure to catch up with Erwin Wurmm’s quirky work on ’Synthesa’ at Lehmann Maupin. This piece, which incorporates a white plastic paint bucket, is called ‘White Bucket’. The artist’s sly humour comes through in every piece, yet formal control is always maintained.
This Erwin Wurmm work is a painted bronze
Back from the galleries, I take a sunset pic of that iconic New York structure, the water tank.
