Lamp/Bear.

Found sitting on the plaza of the next-door building, the Seagram (which is itself a Philip Johnson and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe work of art). Urs Fischer, Untitled (Lamp/Bear), 2005-6. Cast bronze, epoxy primer, urethane paint, acrylic polyurethane topcoat, acrylic glass, gas discharge lamp, stainless-steel framework, 275 5/8 x 255 7/8 x 295 1/4 in (that is really big). "It will remain on view for five months as a gift of optimism to the city of New York." That, I found very charming indeed - a gift of optimism.




And from way above.


To be auctioned by Christie's in May.

Slash.

Mia Pearlman | INRUSH, 2009

"Slash" is the current exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. It is part of a series of exhibitions featuring 'traditional' materials - knitting, lace making, embroidering (wish I would have seen these) - and now paper cutting. Meredith really wanted to go and anything she deems 'art' means an eyefull for all.


Sangeeta Sandrasegar | Untitled # 24, 25, 26 (from The Shadow of Murder Lay Upon My Sleep series), 2009


'He' is made of hundreds of hundreds of cut-up photographs of a body, combined to recreate the whole. His name is Alex by Oliver Herring, 2009.


Rob Ryan | Can We Shall We, 2009


Andrea Dezsö | Women in Red with Black String, 2008

These were a series of what looked like really great dioramas in two long lines.





And, of course, Miss Georgia Russell, my friend in Paris was featured on these walls. Remember her stuff? The whole collection chimed her name.


Georgia Russell | The Story of Art, 2006

Parisian Lunch.

To See:

at Le Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian
51, Avenue Iéna 75116 Paris (Metro: Etoile, Kléber, Georges V, Iéna)

This is a stellar photographic exhibition of women: both of women as subjects and as photographers. There are 140 images of women taken by 100 different photographers from five continents between 1849 - 2009. Worth seeing. Absolutely. The Centre itself is also breathtaking.


Consuelo Kanaga, Jeune Fille de Profil, 1948


Diane Arbus, Femme portoricaine avec grain de beaute, NYC, 1965


Ana Telhado, Sans titre, 2008

Rabbit Hunting

I went out hunting today. For rabbits.



The random rabbit sighting on Blvd. Hausmann turns out to be a larger infestation than I had originally thought. At Printemps, the large department store, they are part of a huge art installation by Cracking Art Group, and it spans the whole department store. They are everywhere. Multiplying. In fact, after speaking to one of their caretakers, they are actually diminishing in numbers, as they are sold. Each is 1,800 euros. Fitting.







They were eveywhere. Popping up in all the most appropriate places.









I followed them all the way to the grand terrace on the 9th floor of the building, which I didn't know existed. It turns out to be an excellent place to sit on a bench and gaze out at the panorama of Paris. It also turns out to be totally free. See the view:









They were there too. Huddled in a mass. Red. Eiffel Tower and Sacré-Cœur backdrop for their rabbit gathering. So charming.





And in the windows on the street too. Watching. Let me know if you want to take add one of these babies to your collection.

Georgia Russell

At CEA, I teach with an artist named Georgia Russell. She teaches drawing. She is a crazy artist. I mean crazy in all the incredible ways. Crazy good. Crazy compelling. Crazy innovative. Crazy thrilling. She is also a magnificent human being - sparkling, beautiful, funny and humble (a rare quality for an artist as successful and brilliant as she). Here she is:



Georgia spoke last night at the institute where we teach and talked about her experience as an artist. Georgia is from a small village in Scotland, but she came to Paris as part of her studies in art. When she arrived, she spent a lot of time walking along the Seine, where all the old books are sold. She bought books and used them as sketchbooks, drawing on top of the language that, at the time, was a source of alienation for her. She would read the words and draw the city around her. Eventually, she started cutting into the books with a scalpel and felt it was a thrilling and emotional experience to destroy something - to literally take apart layers of meaning in a book. In this way, her books became sculptures of their own.


The Story of Art 2006

In her presentation, she talked about how "books modify you," and by taking the book apart, she was playing with this idea of layers and layers of meaning within a text.


Spectacle – Jacques Prévert 2006


L'Erotisme (detail) 2008 (Cut and painted book in a bell jar)

She also uses sheet music and cuts into the score, playing with the concept of timing, of measures, of movement within a piece of music.




Les Saisons de Haydn 2007

She exhibits at a gallery in London called England & Co. See her stuff on their site.

Intestines

We went to the Centre Pompidou (the modern art museum in Paris) this weekend. Above is the view from the highest point of the escalator, in a tube snaking up the exterior of the building. We loved what we found inside:


This one brought me right back to the 8th grade - biology, to be exact. Cell mitosis with a yummy green flavor. (Simon Hantai, Touches claires 1959)


Then we walked into a room where one wall was dripping with this tapestry. Or so it appeared from afar. When you actually approached the material, it turned to be scrap metal. Made of this:



Really impressive. Marc, don't you love it? (El Anatsui, Sasa 2004)



She was drop dead. Gorgeous. (Niki de Saint Phalle, Bride 1963)


The show stopper was this little arrangement. My favorite birds (if you don't count extinct ones) are yanking the intestines out of this smiling buddha. Who could think of something more charming? I walked around the corner and yipped. That is my kind of show. (Huang Yong Ping, Intenstins de Bouddha 2006)