Everyone loves a parade! Or at least on a day when spring seems irrevocable and the nibs on the tips of trees are enchanting us into the thinking life might be for the enjoying. OK, that wasn't a sentence but really all I want to say is this: First Annual LIC Bike Parade Queens, New York Saturday, May 10, 2008 Registration 11:30 AM Workshops 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM Parade 3:00 PM - 4:00PM Free / Rain or shine! Socrates Sculpture Park has more info....
I'm taking the challenge. Or at least half of it. Orange Flower has started a 30-day macro photography challenge over at Flickr -- not a contest, just a share, compare and don't despair kind of thing (thanks for sharing, Kim). Meant to keep you engaged and taking pics every day. Here's the Flickr pool; here's the announcement with a list of participants....
I ask because I don't know. It could mean nothing. It could add to the meaning of a work. In Jasper Johns' case, it certainly means at least one thing: big $$. But I want it to mean more. I started thinking about Johns' signature because I went to his show of drawings from 1997-2007 at Matthew Marks Gallery (NYC, through April 12). I noticed in the end of his show that he marked some of his drawings with very precise signatures. It's not just his signature on this handful of pieces. It's "J.Johns / March '06 / St....
Faris McReynolds makes paintings like good baseball pitcher throws spitballs. It's nasty stuff, roughed up and delivered with a predictable inpredictability. There's an amazing moment where you lean in and ask "How did he do that?" And as soon as the question is asked, he's got you. Check out the photos above, of a painting in his current show at Goff + Rosenthal (NYC, until April 26). One is a detail from the other. It's a big painting of a bunch of cowboys looking at strippers on a stage. The close-up makes one the of the dancers look like...
Artist Robert Morris spoke last night at the New School as part of the Sculpture Center's "Subjective Histories of Scultpure" series. I have a soft spot for Morris' sculptures. In 1991, I saw a small collection of his work at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It was like a miniature retrospective of his work. I was just in high school, and growing up in a Richmond suburb, I hadn't been exposed to minimalism or any of the more radical artistic developments from the last 50 years. Entering the gallery, I saw one of Morris' felt sculptures. I looked at...
In the same way we can be moved by the rustic paintings of Lascaux, seeing something innately human in their creation and stroke, we can look at Katy Moran's paintings and be moved at something that will last as long as our DNA does. They are like cave paintings of the future, descended from those damp, rough walls via Delacroix and Joan Mitchell. There's just something about Katy Moran's paintings that is very, very old. Or really, I mean "old masterful." Old master-y. Whatever the kids call it. (Spray Glue calls them "Victorian.") Moran, a 33-year-old from Great Britain,...
Julian Hatton isn't exactly a cubist, but his approach to landscape is that of an artist trying to compress multiple perspectives into one flat canvas. His colorful landscapes, currently on view at Elizabeth Harris Gallery (in NYC, until April 12, so act fast), are suggestive, evocative, and ultimately satisfying in themselves. His work can be a bait-and-switch where, in the end, you're happy to be fooled. The color is extrapolated, which is to say it's not realistic but nor is it unrealistic, exactly. He'll use perspective lines that evoke a fence by a country road, or a round-ish shape...
Painter Thomas Nozkowski spoke to a crowd gathered at the Fisher Landau Center in Long Island City, Queens. The occasion was a small survey of his paintings there (until April 14). Pace Wildenstein also has a show up, of Nozkowski's most recent work (until May 3). The show at Fisher Landau spans all of Nozkowski's mature period since the early 1970's, and includes 20 of his small-ish canvases. Mr. Nozkowski, who arrived in his Suburu just as I got to Fisher Landau, is a pleasant and modest man with big ideas and an unassuming manner. He talked about going...
I stumbled upon Brgr yesterday, having somehow avoided any buzz or or word-of-mouth. And the days of me seeking out good hamburger restaurants are a distant memory. But as I was walking back from the art galleries in Chelsea, I happened to see they claimed to have the best milkshake in New York. Could it be true? Could a place without vowels actually have a frosty cold river of frothy, bold taste? I decided to find out. I ordered a black and white shake. They only have one size and it costs $5.50. After five minutes or so, a...
Since the cupcakes I made for Jennifer's birthday were such a huge success, I thought I'd share the recipe (and the modifications I made from the Barefoot Contessa's). The biggest change I made to this recipe were adding a lot more carrots, baking at 400 degrees for the whole time, and... the coup de sucre... injecting frosting into the carrot cake cupcakes. I've put up a food porn photo set from the making of. Here was the finished product (sorry for the fuzzy but the photo was taken *after* the party): Here's the recipe, with my modifications. Pretty shamefully ripped...
