happy flag day

2 admirers, three flags

@ the whitney museum

details: jasper johns, three flags, 1958. encaustic on canvas, 30 7/8 x 45 1/2 x 5 in

© anita aguilar

the "infra-ordinary"

i just got back from a quick trip to the ICP (pay what-you-wish-fridays, 5-8pm, is ideal for such a compact venue).

showing now: a solid, if familiar, assemblage of surrealist images of paris in the 1920s and 30s (man ray, brassaï...a personal favorite is andré kertész's rue vavin, paris 1925); a set of prints by eugène atget that offer a dreamy historical record of the city of lights; and a collection of miroslav tichý's photographs (crudely printed, mostly of women, taken surreptitiously). i can see why some consider the work "stalker-esque" and creepy...but i love the evocative blur in so many of them.

it was said that tichy's photographs exemplify the "infra-ordinary" -- french novelist georges perec's term for "that which passes when nothing passes. " perec wrote, in approaches to what?, "my intention is to describe what remains, that which we generally don't notice, which doesn't call attention to itself, which is of no importance, what happens when nothing happens, what passes when nothing passes, except time, people, cars and clouds."

agree or disagree with whether or not tichy achieves this, but i think it's a worthy challenge...

***
on my way home, i tried to practice "follow-focusing" with my 50mm. at night, this is quite a trick. so i wound up with a lot of mistakes including these--they have a kind of "tichy blur"?
i don't think i can get away with quite this much of it though. oh well.

42nd street/6th avenue, nyc.

wondering...does black & white help or hurt?

art shots: do you see what i see?

jon stewart?
aidan quinn?
actually...
vsevolod mikhailovich garshin (1855-1888), 1884. by ilia efimovich repin.

apolo anton ohno?
noooo. an egyptian peasant woman and her child, 1869-70. artist: leon bonnat.

art shots: met museum

the charles engelhard court, in the metropolitan museum of art's new american wing.
december 3, 2009.

the charles engelhard court, in the metropolitan museum of art's new american wing.
december 3, 2009.

the charles engelhard court, in the metropolitan museum of art's new american wing.
december 3, 2009.

the charles engelhard court, in the metropolitan museum of art's new american wing.
december 3, 2009.

all photos © anita aguilar

saturday: "milk", grits and a fried egg

sunshiney saturday spent in the slope.

my lovely friend zovig and i decided to check out the takashi murakami exhibit at the brooklyn museum. it was "cuteness!" for sure. i'm not at all a fan of the louis vuitton collaboration, but those "superflat eye love" designs were quite appealing on a larger scale...i especially loved the color combinations in the "eye love" and jellyfish eyes series, on silk...it's all so much more striking on that fabric...i also liked milk, 727-727 (i actually loved all the paintings that were "sanded" ), cosmos (1998), and this daruma (i open wide my eyes but see no scenery. i fix my gaze upon my heart, 2007). the exhibition is bright and cheery and ominous and overwhelming...odd and funny and interactive...it is, to a degree, kid-friendly, if you're prepared to deal with questions about anatomical correctness/distortions. we had a little "overheard in ny" moment while standing in front of inochi (boy--maybe 7 years old: "mommy, his penis is on his stomach!" mommy: "why yes, it is..."). ha.

walking into the "vuitton exhibit/store" and taking the kooky wallpapered staircase to the floor below, which is a funhouse all its own--toys and t-shirts and other collectibles, all impeccably sorted and contained-- it struck me what a kick this show must have been to put together--and how sad it would be to have to watch all come down (show ends on july 13, btw)...

if you're as interested in behind the scenes stuff as i am, check out the terrific flickr slideshow that the museum has posted on its site...

and if you'd like a peek into the kaikai kiki studio sanctum, check out this ny sun article and its accompanying slideshow...

after the museum, zovig and i moseyed over to fifth ave...and stopped for brunch at stone park cafe. it took me about 3 seconds to decide that i wanted the hangtown fry: eggs, oysters, bacon and vermont cheddar cheese...how good does that sound?! but then...i took a longer look at the menu... i saw that they had grits, with shrimp and a fried egg. i remembered being deeply envious of the shrimp with grits at bar americain, which my sister ordered the last time we brunched together...so i changed my mind and went for the "anson mills white grits, with shrimp and fried egg."

the fact that the grits' brand name was proclaimed on the menu--as if i should recognize it--aroused my curiosity, so when i got home i did a little research. there's quite an interesting story to tell! turns out that the anson mills white grits come to us thanks to one man, glenn roberts, who was so deeply interested in the history of the south, especially its culinary history (cheers!) that he set out to revive--by organically growing, harvesting, and milling--varieties of corn, rice and wheat that were nearly extinct. he was able to find and harvest a "famous" carolina gourdseed white corn (that was "revered for its high mineral and floral characteristics, and its creamy mouthfeel"), which dated all the way back to the 1600s. this is the white corn that was milled into the grits that became my brunch!

and they really were creamy...i've only had grits a couple of time in my life (LOVE the cheddar grits at freemans...ooohhh. those are very different...toothsome...GRITTY) but this dish was nearly like a pudding. thick and rich and creamy, completely indulgent. i will admit, a little smoky, salty bacon would have livened it up. but it was very, very good.

anson mills white grits...
Originally uploaded by ata08

art and leisure...(read a good poem)

perhaps one night i will write about a friday night at a rad party downtown, where i rubbed asses and elbows with some cool cats, and was ever so elegant, all the while sipping unlimited top-shelf liquor...perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

but this friday night was more like:
a leisurely walk home from work, with a detour through the grand central marketplace, for veggies and some cajun catfish and stuffed brook trout from my favorite fishmongers (wild edibles).
then my dad stopped by for a quick chat...and then...i ran around the block to the morgan library, which is free on friday nights, from 7pm-9pm (love free admission!). i was pleased to catch “close encounters: irving penn portraits of artists and writers” (it closes tomorrow).
(i can cross 2 items off my new year's "to-do" list, as i have finally made it to the morgan musem and scandinavia house.)

i'd never visited the morgan library, so i have no sense of what it looked like prior to the renzo piano expansion. but i love the feeling of standing in the glass-enclosed central atrium--there was classical music resounding, courtesy of a cellist and violinist from the mannes college of music, and there was that wonderful, curious museum "buzz" (but without the awful crowding that's typical of most museums here, especially during "free admission" hours). there is a cafe in the central atrium, too, which is strangely not cordoned off. nevertheless, i imagine it's lovely to sip tea or a glass of wine there in afternoon.

because the main entrance was so terrifically roomy, i was surprised by the hearty numbers in the smaller east and west galleries. but it was still relatively easy to make a little space for oneself and linger over the work.

my favorite photos from the exhibition cannot be found online (i've been searching for the past 3 hours, so far, no luck):
edward albee, photographed in new york, 1962 (my absolute favorite from the show. albee here, as mark feeney notes, is "all cigarette and eyelashes");
vladimir nabokov (chasing butterflies), northern italy, 1948;
and
joan miro and his daughter, dolores, photographed in tarragona, spain, 1948 (penn's homage to the balthus painting, joan miro and his daughter dolores).

(you can see some of the photos from the exhibition, courtesy of the nytimes; a related slideshow is hosted by men's vogue ... )

and then i dropped a load on a few "sale" books about toulouse-lautrec, bonnard and vuillard at the store (so much for my "free" night at the museum), reminders of my recent trip to paris.

i made it back home in time to watch the last four innings of game 1 of the yanks/red sox series at fenway. chien-ming wang threw a complete game, two-hitter. final score: 4-1.

rather sedate, but not too shabby a friday night, all the way around!

more on the renzo piano expansion, which was completed in 2006, here.

and lastly, tonight's poem (another from babette deutsch): "string quartet."

skyspace

interesting article in the nytimes about the roden crater, a grand work-in-progress by james turrell. work sent me to phoenix/scottsdale last month, and i managed to squeeze in an afternoon at SMOCA. i loved the harold e. edgerton photography exhibit (seeing the unseen) and was, to my surprise, intrigued and amused by hiraki sawa's videos (like going places sitting down). but turrell's skyspace was definitely a highlight...

a cool and warm, dreamy, mod and peaceful space.

if you'll be in scottsdale, it will be a worthwhile stop.

more photos skyspace and smoca here...