arty start
It’s been an arty start to the new year! I’m about to head back to Sweden for six months to finish my masters degree, so I wanted to take a moment to wrap up and list out the exhibitions I’ve seen in the past week:
Charline von Heyl at ICA, Philadelphia. Space Savers Project at Breadboard/EKG exhibition space, Phildelphia. Michael May, Dan Levenson, Todd Baldwin, and Michael Van Winkle at Vox Populi, Philadelphia. Cities and Things That Matter at Lombard-Fried Projects, NY. The Birdwatchers at bitforms gallery, NY. Andrea Bowers at Andrew Kreps Gallery, NY. Trisha Brown at Sikkema Jenkins Gallery, NY. Matta: A Centennial Celebration at Pace Gallery, NY. Not for Long, My Forlorn by Work of Art winner Kymia Nawabi at Brooklyn Museum, NY. HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at Brooklyn Museum, NY. Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India: 1100-1900 at the Met, NY. de Kooning: A Retrospective at the MoMA, NY — for the THIRD TIME, because it’s that good. FIN.
And for kicks, here’s a picture of me standing in line for the bus back from Phila>NYC, looking like a baller with my pink suitcase. You think the guy on the right is checking me out?
West Side Highway (Meditation)
Aaron Smith
This evening New York looks
how it always looks in photos
except more flawed, like someone picked it up
and didn’t put it back the way they found it.
This far west the buildings could slip
into the Hudson, and who would miss them,
miss me? This far west it’s all construction,
someone’s good idea, each high rise
becomes another high rise stacked
against the soon-to-be-black sky.
Twilight’s only bearable in the city,
lights making something different
than daylight, little lies saying,
you’re not really alone.
This is the life we asked for,
and it’s everything we expected.
There’s nowhere else so light
and dark at the same time.
Because there’s nowhere to go
when we die, maybe our lives really can
be summed up by so many buildings
between two rivers, and because they’re
unfinished the sky behind glows
pink and grey inside them.
After a long, gorgeous summer in California, I have finally arrived back in New York. New York New Yoooork— it’s a wonderful toooown!
Manhattan juxtaposed with San Francisco at a 1:1 scale.
Chris Cobb’s ”Admit it, you think New York is really just better than San Francisco in every way” on SFMOMA’s blog open space.
Corner of East 1st and Bowery, 1942 and now.
Roof Piece, Trisha Brown, 1973
Manhattan Bridge Tower in Brooklyn, New York City, framed through nearby buildings, June 1974. Photo by Danny Lyon. See the rest of the series here.
If you’re about to move to San Francisco and a boy sends you this, does this mean he’s in love with you?
Oh my lord there is so much to do. Tomorrow I think I’ll pour a pitcher of water down the mail chute. Oooooooooooo I absolutely love the Plaza.
—Eloise
