New York 2012

Yes, it was freezing. Yes, there were line ups galore in front of every major art gallery or Museum but, New York is still a great time.

My friend Alan and I started with a coffee.

Yup, even in the sweaty subway people were all bundled up. I drew this sketch while overhearing some heinous teens talking. I think if you grew up in NYC you would be a sleazier more foul version of yourself....just a thought.

At the Guggenheim- the Maurizo Cattelan retrospective, ALL.

You can see the herds of people in line that you are trying to avoid at all costs, it was an amazing thing to take in but at the end of it all, I am no longer sure what I think of the artist- it was a lot of one liners, winks and leg pulling. Not much gravitas when you have a minature Hitler floating by a cord, sizzle si!, but any substantial steak....????

I caught the JFK piece about a year and a half ago at the New Museum in NYC, you went around a corner, its dark, and boom, a dead man in a coffin- and it is JFK! This was not just all denouement seeing it again, it also made you see how things looked silly and just too pop-shebang-fizz (to borrow from Gainsbourg)

The New Museum now? Forget about it! about a 3 hour wait in the -9 told me to move on.

But you can look at the mammoth undertaking it was for the museum to install a slide in the gallery, they cut a hole in the floor:



I stopped at the Sperone Westwater, just down the street in the Bowery. A show of sculptural work, old and new, not much of a focus but it was interesting stuff and the building is a massive structure which has work in the elevator on display. Most apartments could fit in this elevator mind you.

A sort of Gorilla John the Baptist with rubber gloves and disposable cups, all made out of marble, an ironic tour de force I suppose.

By evening fall, it was even colder, I slipped into this bar not far Chinatown, called Home sweet Home. Loud, but warm! I relaxed and drew some of the characters.

This was before it got too packed.


Also, dropped in on Caroline Falby, she is an ex-pat who is working on her Masters at Hunter College in city. Her studio is close to Times Square, it is this massive building which just feels like an old art building.

You can check out some her work here


She is working on some new stuff at the moment- she seems very interested in the War of 1812 and what it means to Canada and the United States. In the meantime, you can see her multi referential work which employs a breezy technique to inject joy and a seemingly carefree element to the work.


I drew this double drawing of the bartender while having a boozey afternoon, at the back of this place called Bread.

I really did leave the canal/chinatown area!

The Neue gallerie had some beautiful Egon Schiele drawings on display, more than you see if you go to the Albertina drawing gallery in Vienna ( but that was based on my trip in the early 90s, might have been one of those things when you go and everything is closed), so that was a treat.

If you go to NYC soon, you have to go to the Neue Gallerie, its focus is Austrian/German work -- amazing stuff. Also, have a coffee in the Cafe Sabarsky, it is a highly regarded dinner spot. I was there on Saturday and the lineups to eat were astounding.

A little sketch I made about a year and half ago while drinking a $6 Viennese coffee, it was good but six dollars? I know, I know, its New York baby.

Left over stuff from NYC

I was looking for something on my phone the other week or more and I found all these pics I shot in NYC that I forgot all about.




OK, this one is really the best but I will start here. This was at the New Museum in the Bowery ( is it safe? is it safe?) Technically, i am in violation of the copy right for this image but I had to take a snap of this sculpture, I thought it was maurizio cattelan but I am tired and confused so whatever for the moment. It was a dark room and there in a coffin, lying in state was JFK as a wax sculpture, hair, a suit the whole 9 yards. It is really shocking to anyone who grew up in that time period or after in the shadow of Camelot.



Oh, this is the performance artist Marina Abramovic siting on her tuchas, in "the artist is present" she sat at this table for like a month or something. The real news is that the MOMA remounted many of her performances with performance artists including 2 nude people in a doorway, they are so close you and you have to pass betwixt them to gain entry into the gallery prompting the Tyler Durden question, who do I give the ass and who the crotch? The guy was my height so I faced him and trudged through, perhaps I was more comfortable being crotch to crotch as it were, passing swords whatever your metaphor. He was so damn close i looked him in the eye and I could not focus on the guy, that is close. I also stepped on the naked lady's feet.





Lastly, I think I saw these at the whitney...I am honestly not sure I know an old man asked me not to turn the handle of these doors. The windows of these french doors had these beautiful motifs on them, with zodiac and other characters, the three graces-simply elegant.



Also there was this, i meant to take more pics of these in the subway. People were putting there NYC 2 cents worth on every surface underground. I do not picture a tagger doing this but rather a 40 something witty nebbish office worker.