cornerspiritualspaces

just looking through some of the 100s of photographs I took in New York last week - these are from the Brooklyn neighbourhood we stayed in and focus on some of the religious spaces on the corners.

artartartandfoodinNY

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! 

thinkingfoldingfilm

looking at the idea of editioning some of the folded folding modular structures so focusing on methodology and materials to make some finished pieces – but also there is still the idea of making objects with a view to filming them eventually. Some more versions -

also a show coming up that will be good - http://thisisbecausetheinternet.tumblr.com/about I shall of been and returned from New York by then – the itinerary of which is getting very full with the New Witney to check out, the Serra at David Zwirner, the New museum of Modern Art has the triennial, Bjork and Yoko Ono at MOMA. I’ve never been to the American Folk Art Museum so looking forward to that.