Category Archives: Museums

Edgy Venetian Glass

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Luke Jerram’s Virus Installation: E. Coli (2010)

The finest collectors in the world put a premium on exquisite Murano glass. Take a few minutes to see the new twist that’s on display at Columbus Circle at the Museum of Arts and Design in Glasstress New York, a show that’s a mix of installation, concept, and pedestal work.

Curator/entrepreneur Adriano Berengo paired the finest Venetian glassmakers with some of the world’s best contemporary artists (e.g. Vic Munoz, Thomas Schutte, the Starn twins) for an exhibition ranking at the top of fan favorites at the 2009 and 2011 Venice Biennales.

MAD is presenting the provocative show for a few more days. Luke Jerram’s Carroña crows-with-shatttered-chandelier installation is the most eye-catching, but there’s plenty to more to contemplate about how the Murano craftsmen made such exquisite fabrications of some pretty wild artistic notions (like Luke Jerram’s glass-blown virus reproductions.)

Javier Perez’s Carroña (2011) on display in Venice

Last-Minute Invite to Gertrude’s Place

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There are only a few days left to go visit the Steins (Gertrude, Leo, and the rest of the family). They’re at the Met in The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde.

Instead of the tiny, little studio they inhabited in Paris, the Met has spread out all of the Matisses and Picassos they ever owned over nine galleries. Sure, there is a smattering of Cezannes, Renoirs, and a few others, but the show is really about the how the Steins kick-started the careers of Henri and Pablo.

If you’ve seen Woody Allen’s re-creation of Gertrude’s place in Midnight in Paris, you might be surprised that learn that it was only a 460 square-foot studio. But what a collection of paintings moved around on those walls! Take a look. The Met has produced a brief video comprised of old photos from the decades that the Steins lived, entertained, collected, and schmoozed in that miniscule space, which had such an outsized influence on the direction of the 20th century avant-garde.

It took the Met eight years to pull all the works together (to raise money to buy more work, the Steins often sold off beloved favorites to the Cone sisters in Baltimore or Mr. Barnes in Philadelphia). If you want to know more, view the recording of the two-hour panel that the curator hosted back in April.

And go over and pay Gertrude and the family one last visit.

Mars on Park Avenue

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It’s time to live the dream. No doubt you’ve seen the American Museum of Natural History’s show about what it’s like to explore Beyond Planet Earth. (AMNH has even dug out 1950s letters to the Hayden on its web site.)

But drop into the Park Avenue Armory to experience it for yourself. Tom Sachs has created the surface of Mars and an exploratory base out of materials that he scrounged near his art studio. The results are spectacular, fun, and a trip worth taking.

You’ll go through orientation to enter Space Program: Mars, but once you’re on the base, you can stroll around, take the test to enter the LEM, chat with the dozens of lab-coated workers, tour the museum, or just sit and view it all from the bleachers in front of Mission Control. Seriously, you can be entertained all day. Check out the inspiring trailer and a few on-site photos.

If you’ve wanted to travel to Mars, now’s your chance, before the show blasts off June 17.

Find a Good Weave

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Ernesto Neto, The Sun Lits Life, Let the Son installation at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

This week is the time to see some really innovative weaving by three completely different artists.

In Chelsea, relax into the colorful crocheted poly-chord environmental sculptures created by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto at Tanya Bonakdar’s 21st Street Chelsea gallery. The participatory experience is more intimate than Neto’s Park Avenue Armory installation three years ago, but features his signature dangling spice-filled pods. Be sure you climb to the second floor to recline on the Blue Hammock and Green Hammock. Enjoy the photos here, but experience it all in person before the final day, May 25.

If you missed Sheila Hicks’s 50-year retrospective last year at Philadelphia’s ICA, celebrate her achievement at Sikkema Jenkins one block away on 22ndStreet. The array of fiber work from 1958 to today is cooler and more high-concept. Runs until June 2.

Aricoco, nest-un-settled (aging), 2011

At Columbus Circle, meet young Brooklyn artist Aricoco upstairs at the studios on the 6th Floor of the Museum of Art and Design. Known for her interdisciplinary works and performances, such as her RUNawayHOME cocoon, ask her what she’s weaving out of the red and white plastic shopping bags she sourced in Chinatown.

Manhattan’s Digital Grid

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How much fun can you have with the Manhattan Grid? Plenty, if you have computer access and can make a trip (before July 15) to the The Greatest Grid exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.

Plan to spend a couple of hours wrapping your mind around how the farmland in your neighborhood was leveled by hand and horse cart to make the wide, smooth streets and sidewalks we’re used to today. (You’ll quickly see that the East Side’s Second Avenue Subway construction isn’t that big a disruption after all!)

Go online and check out one of the exhibit’s highlights – a digital composite of 92 farm maps drafted in 1818-1820 by John Randel, Jr. to show how the grid would bisect various hills, rivers, streams, swamps and pastures in years to come. Zoom in on your street and see who owned your property in the early 1800s, and read how MCNY worked with the City create this cool online map.

Also, take a look at the digital maps posted by The New York Times, including Randel’s big 1811 map of the grid (the centerpiece of the MCNY show), the 1836 farm map, and other interactive images created by the NYT team. Clicking through the views on the left will reveal all sorts of interesting history.

Check out the Channel 7 Eyewitness News video, featuring an interview with the curator (NYU’s Hillary Ballon) and a peek inside the show.

Want to do a little time travel on the modern version of the Manhattan grid or another borough? It’s easy. Go to NYCityMap and type in an address. When the schematic map appears, clock on the “Photo Camera” icon at the top of the map and you’ll see an aerial view of the neighborhood. Move the slide bar to enjoy the view to any time between 1924 and today to see what the block was like way back when.

Florence, Machine & McQueen

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Nostalgic for the Met’s McQueen show last year? In the run-up to 2012’s Costume Institute Gala at the Met next Monday, Vogue is running its fantastic video of last year’s gala featuring, well…everybody. Just try to count the famous faces in this video.

You’ll get a glimpse of the red carpet, the grand staircase, cater waiters, celebs, designers, Scottish bagpipers, the exhibition itself, and Florence holding forth at the Temple of Dendur with vocals, charisma, and lighting that Lee would have loved (very Plato’s Atlantis).

In case you didn’t know, this year’s fete will celebrate Schiaparelli and Prada, who are taking up residence at the Met through mid-August in an exhibit that opens to the public on May 10, featuring videos by Baz Luhrmann with fictional “conversations” between these two design icons. Preview some of the featured fashions and theme.

And be sure to set your calendar to see the live web stream of the glitterati on this year’s Costume Institute red carpet on May 7, sponsored by the Met, Vogue, and Amazon.

Learn Your ABCs (of Fashion)

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Can you name a fashion designer for every letter of the alphabet? Test your skills by visiting FIT Fashion and Textile History Gallery to see Fashion, A-Z.

FIT uses its street-level gallery to showcase its permanent collection of 50,000 garments and 30,000 textiles, and this time they’ve decided to test your alphabet skills as well, by starting with Armani and Alaia arranging the installation mannequins right through to Yohlee and Zoran.

Boudicca ensemble, Fall 2006, England, museum purchase

If you miss it, don’t worry. This is only Part 1 of the total extravaganza. Part 2 begins May 23.

Oil Drills in Manhattan

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 Have you seen the latest art installation in the Theater District? It’s Josephine Mecksper’s Manhattan Oil Project – two 25-foot tall oil pumps churning away 4 hours a day (twice a day) weekdays and 8 full hours each weekend.

Go to the undeveloped land on the southeast corner of Eighth Avenue and 46th Street and bring your friends (and camera) before it’s gone.

Sponsored by Yvonne Force Villareal’s Art Production Fund, which produces hard-to-produce artist installations, this one had special help from Sotheby’s and The Shubert Organization, which know a thing or two about mining riches in Manhattan.

Is it actually pumping oil? Feel free to stand there and answer out-of-towners questions on that one.

 

Bioluminescent Superstars

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You don’t need to be James Cameron or build your own submersible to peek in at the amazing stuff in the deep, deep ocean. The American Museum of Natural History has pulled together a gallery of some of the strangest creatures of all time for its Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescenceshow.

Credit: AMNH/E. Grosch

In the deep, black depths of the ocean, several varieties of Anglerfish have strange bodies, heads, and hunting apparatus – bioluminescent fishing lures. They can light up these lures and also affect a strange glow due to the presence of their own colonies of bioluminescent bacteria.  You can’t make this up.

Want to catch a glimpse fast? Look at the Anglerfish video.

If you want to linger over these unbelievable deep-water superstars, go right to the Flickr Luminous Lures page.

Hey, Socrates, What Do You See?

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If you’re hankering for last summer’s BMW Idea Lab, zoom in on the conversation on the future of Long Island City and the shoreline near Socrates Sculpture Park at the Noguchi Museum’s visionary show Civic Action.

Noguchi and Socrates have commissioned four artists to work with architects, designers, and urban planners to reimagine the surrounding neighborhood, a mélange of homes, high rises, light industry, and Costco. The proposals by Mary Miss, George Trakas, Natalie Jeremijenko, and Rirkrit Tiraanija are on display at the Noguchi for a few more days. Other related installations will appear at Socrates in May.

If you can’t get to Queens, go virtual by checking out three videos and watch the brainstorming among artists and planners:

Enjoy the discussion and contemplate some exciting futures.