A throw of the dice will never abolish chance -
Well - back from 10 days in New York - so much art - where to start - the
big shows at the main spaces - Fischli and Weiss at The Guggenheim, Marcel
Broodthaers at MOMA, Taryn Simon at the Gagosian, Laura Poitras at The Whitney,
The Design Triennial on Beauty at Cooper Hewitt and In Time - rhythm of the
workshop at MAD were good but real art highlights were found at more obscure
gallery spaces down in the Bowery, often in between Chinese restaurants or
above lumber yards, finding them and then entering is an experience in itself.
An example was Marina Zurkow at bitforms gallery who showed MORE&MORE -
exploring our deconstruction and disregard of the oceans with work using
firewalls and code. Other excellent spaces off the beaten track were in
industrial estates in Long Island include Fisher Landau Centre for Art, the
museum of the moving image, The Centre for sculpture and the Noguchi museum
which had a great show by Tom Sachs all spaces seemingly trying hard not to be
found.
Total Top highlights were Berlinde De Bruyckere at Hauser & Wirth, I
last saw her work in the Belgium Pavillion in Venice and was blown away there
but the new pieces in No Life Lost were just stunning. Anri Sala at the New
Museum had the mesmerising Ravel Ravel Unravel which again I had seen at a
biennale but here it was shown alongside pieces with haunting self playing
drums and the video piece Air cushion ride which is a moment of
serendipity captured in a truck stop. Agitprop! At the Brooklyn Museum had
Desert Bloom which included a stunning set of documents by Fazal Sheikh, then
theres some old favourites - it's always important to experience the power of
Alfredo Jarr's Lament of the images and The Beginning of the Universe “Grosse
Fatigue” by Camille Henrot is becoming a go-to piece at MOMA. The Masonic signs
and symbols at The American Museum of Folk was disturbing in a ghoulish way.
Walid Raad's musing on the new art museums being built in the Middle East at
Paula Cooper was hauntingly beautiful. Jane Lombard was showing a fantastically
intriguing body of work by James Clar, False Awakenings had some very clever
work exploring the world from a place just off-kilter.
Often walking through Brooklyn's fantastically diverse communities on my
way to Manhattan I used the East River ferries to get uptown - who knew
travelling could be so cool - a real recommendation. Evenings were all about
food - staying in Williamsbergh means everything is possible - but I also got
to see De Materie, an evening of juxtaposed Dutch history at the Armory on Park
Avenue an extraordinary opera by Louis Andriessen for which the term 'avant
garde' was created - shipbuilding instructions, Madam Curie, Zeppelins,
luminated tents, Mondrian, Boogie Woogie and a 100 sheep - whats not to like.
Repercussion a world premier by Boomerang an abstractfreejazzdancedrumming
evening at Dixon Place was mesmerising. Finally - I took a trip to the pencil
shop featured on an episode of Freakonomics which was a real buzz and came away
with some beautiful American vintage pencils!
