I wanna live on Roosevelt Island! Ania's room is super cute, and it's so easy to just take the F train over into Manhattan, or heading the other way, to Queens. The only bummer is how long it takes to get to Brooklyn.
My spring trip was perfect. It was warm and sunny, and walking in New York is so pleasant when the weather's nice (and without the San Francisco hills, all the streets are flat). The first day, as I followed the St Patrick's Day parade along 5th Avenue, I walked about four or five miles from mid-Central Park down to the galleries in Chelsea. At Sonnabend I shadowed the unsuspecting Barbara K. for a while, as she looked at work and sang audibly to herself. It was rather charming. Yes, it's spring and everyone's feeling good. And there was more private humor in the day. When I got to 19th Street looking for Zwirner, I accidentally walked into a private apartment building across the street from the gallery, where three large James Welling flower photographs were hanging in the lobby!
Next I went down to SoHo (took the subway this time!) where I watched some touching and funny videos in "Kick My Heart's Ass: Short Films About Love" at Apexart, followed by a mysterious performance at the opening of the Marina Abramovic-curated "The Heart of Your Mother for my Dogs" at Artists Space.
Wednesday and Thursday were museum days. At one point, I took a long ride to Harlem, only to find that the Studio Museum was closed for installation. I perused the bookstore and snagged some cards from their ongoing postcard project, then headed back south. At the Whitney, Jenny Holzer's paintings were just absolutely arresting and chilling-- you could see happy, open viewers going into the exhibition, coming out completely drained and affected.
MoMA, where I was clued in to Martin Kippenberger's obsession with Picasso and Beuys, was a zoo; although I arrived a good 15 minutes before opening, the ticket line was already snaking to the door. Two little girls viewing the permanent collection were discussing a painting of an elaborately dressed high society lady: "What do you think this is about?" one prodded. The other, a bit older and full head taller, hesitated. "Well," the first continued, trying to develop a language for looking, "she's too fancy for it to be a picture about daily life..."
At New Museum, Jeremy Deller's "It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq" provided couches and a coffee table of printed materials with which viewers were to engage the "expert" of the today, in my case, a PhD candidate conducting research about the Middle East. Finally, at Brooklyn Museum, I snooped around the relatively new, dark and cool open storage, spent some time in the feminist center, and listened to the taped interviews in "Black List."
And then there were the evenings. Ruben Ochoa's impressive installation at Peter Blum drew an enthusiastic audience at his opening on Thursday night. As for St. Patrick's Day... well, you can imagine the crowds and quantities of Irish car bombs and their sticky after-effects. I also managed to catch a Polish Happy Hour NY style, which, let me tell you, is nothing like what we've seen in LA. In Los Angeles, we get a nice crowd, don't get me wrong, but in New York, 99% of the folks in the club (and with two extensive floors, it was big!) were Polish. It was insane, and a bit bizarre. But invariably you meet people who know people, and you're immediately friendly because you're only one point removed. Chris K, "you're from San Francisco? Do you know Melisska?" and the rest is history... insta-buddies!
Friday morning, first day of Spring, getting ready for the airport. It's snowing!!! It was sweetly magical: big, light flakes swirling around. Of course, the New Yorkers were grumbling. But for one day, for someone who doesn't have to deal with a whole season of the white stuff, it was absolutely perfect.
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