Wow! My mind is officially BLOWN. New York City keeps getting more and more beautiful. YES! The old town keeps improving itself, reinventing itself. It is New York’s gift to perpetually renew itself. It may look like a worn out rent boy, late at night when the rats seep out of every city pore, sometimes. But, when you dig deep into the city’s cultural life you find pure WOW!
The ART scene, HERE! New York City offers ART experiences so deep, intense, rich, moving, thought enhancing, AH!
You want to visit. You need to spend the day(s) in Chelsea. Walk. Walk with Brian Goings, artist down 23, 24th... around. Spend some time in the quiet Irish Bar and meditate on the pleasure of ART, real profound, extraordinary, earth shattering, mind melding, brain bending, life enhancing, joy filled, funny, witty, crazy, hilarious.... ART!
The first Gallery we visited was:
532 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
We embarked on “Fired People,” by artist Alessandro Pessoli. The show, was seductive like a sexy mermaid drunken on juice from the deepest sea of punk rock passion, calling out to a sober sailor, tied to the mast. Ceramic, textile, dens metal filigree transparent tables deck with the fruit of dreams wait for thoughtful attention. Be careful not to trip over the gorgeous glazed trophy of victory, in the shape of an open head oozing out thought...dreaming about arriving at a home where pure LOVE flows and the flowers never wilt. The colors... the palette, soft and steeped in a Mediterranean sunlight that invites inspired understandings and enlightened (a)musings.
Then we took a dive into sound and light, at Josée Bienvenu
with “My Rubies and My Diamonds,” Phoebe Washburn Sept. 13th - Oct. 27, 2012
A dip into the multi-layered complex deceptively simple, submarine Sunday News papers, paint, gentle collage, delicate lines, understated.
Our next stop was, at Gary Snyder Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, Chelsea:
Where the Ralph Humphrey exhibition knocked our socks off!
Gosh. Goodness. Dear Virgin!
Buddha!
However, you say it; the show was seminal. It was as fun as attending a hot sermon at ART temple. It was orthodox. Hard-core, historical, and on-point. Gallery head, Gary Snyder called a, “crusty primitive fetishistic African mail-box.” WOW! These paintings, objects really, sit on the wall kind-of like Donald Judd’s metal shelve sculptures... yet, they are paintings which riff on the work of other Modern Masters: Mark Rothko, especially. Super -hyper visual YUM!
After these three mega-cool exhibitions of contemporary art we had to take a break and sneak away into the specifically New York solace of a dark and quiet, dark green, forest colored, deep bench, and reeling astronomical comfort of a local Irish Pub. Ah!
Of course, I had the Shepard’s Pie. It was much like my mother used to make when I was a child.
I digress! Anyway, it was splendid. Lush and restful, the waitress was pretty and kind. She answered questions and made accommodations to fit my special dietary needs. In short our break was bliss, as we dove into one of those refreshingly real and simple conversations where you say exactly what you mean and are understood. Brian cares deeply about the process of thinking, about Marcel Duchamp. His work is as delicate, as it is complex. I’m delighted to witness the unfolding wonder of Brian Goings and his artful genius of honed perspective and deep but gentle thought.
We visited one more gallery. But, I don’t have time to write about that now.
See you, later!