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Where do I begin - I have had a very exciting few days to say the least.
I very much liked the Rebecca Warren show at Maureen Payley.
That evening was the 100 Things Auction for the Legacy List which was an amazing success lead by the younger group Michael Walker and Rebecca Masri for which they managed to muster up 100 auction prizes which included trips to Mexico, Montenegro and Paris, even Tracey donated one of her mono prints. The event was held in a palatial building called No1 Mayfair and we used every nook we could find. We managed to conjure up between us 600 very enthusiastic guests and raised over £70 000. One of the 100 prizes.
Boris with all the young east end volunteers.
Next morning, it was off to New York and straight away a tight schedule. First thing, to Brooklyn with Lizzie, where we visit the studio of Larry Bamberg where he shows us his pet stick insects.
A totally different experience was the visit to the studio of Mariah Robertson, where she is making artworks with her photographic equipment in pitch dark so all the work is created by accident.
To Chelsea where we visit Jim Hodges which was quite magical at Barbara Gladstone where there were splish sploshes of paint falling down from the ceiling, dancers come from time to time to mish mash it all together. It looked very pretty.
At Tanya Bonakdar was the work of Jack Strange; at last his long awaited solo show. It was a delightful show, not what I was expecting, it was very playful and low-key. I loved Little Nemo in the bag.
Afterwards, it was Times Square as we left our vehicle there was the chair.
High up in Times Square was the most amazing collaboration between James Richards, Ed Atkins and Haroon Mirza. The show was mesmerizing. I was transfixed, in a dream it was happening inside and outside on the big humungous screens in the Square, light bulbs swinging away and pulsating through Alex Logsdail’s dad’s radio collection building up to a radio static orchestrated crescendo accompanied by the droning of pictures and words blurred into each other with the strong feeling of an Echo Button! Way Out. Lizzie checking out the American Beer Can with with Stefan, Josh Tonsfeldt, Ed Atkins and James Richards.
Haroon and Roy checking out the equipment after the show.
Haroon's photo of me dreamily checking out the work on the street.
he performance was on for four days and the next evening I got to see the whole thing from the street I could not believe us Brits were interfering with the New York landscape. The after party took place in a great venue in down town on the Lower East Side. Many artists joined us including Jordan Wolfson and Lisa Oppenheim.
Picture of them both with Tiffany.
Later, it was back to Chelsea for the day, where we dropped by to see Sarah Braman’s show which was the highlight of the day at Mitchell Innes and Nash.
We walked along the beautiful high line for speed and to admire the beauty of the New York’s autumn colours against the old red brick buildings.
A short cut and we were at Nicole Klagsbrun’s project space where we saw Mikka Rottenberg’s performance for Performa. It was fabulous, unimaginable to have envisaged the grande finale which was spectacular. It involved colour light bulbs, animated colour fountains and tweety birds in Africa with a lot of people being turned on a turn stile by someone else on an exercise bike, whilst their sweat is being secreted through plastic tubes to a lab where with the help of a station in Africa and small concrete piles being transferred by tube from one country to another, a rainbow vial of test tubes is created which is transferred again by tube to Africa and Voila the fountain. I forgot to mention the singing fridge.
Back to more serious matters if one can say that. The Guggenheim, I am at this magnificent dinner sitting across from Roni Horn, and Maurizio Cattalan which I presume must have been a very important table. In the middle of the gallery a similar feeling to Keith Tyson’s Large Field Array is hung 150 sculptures by Maurizio Cattalan. Amongst the Horses, Donkeys, Pinocchios, Pablo Picasso’s, baby Hitlers is this wonderful portrait which I am told is of someone very famous in the art world’s wife? I do not recognize.
I stayed with all the kids for the after party band. The young ones don’t seem to hang out like they do in LA and London. They all looked like they were too scared to talk to each other. Interesting band.
We went to Harlem to visit Thelma Golden in her amazing museum. It was quite magical. The visit reminded me of Jerusalem which to me is like walking through a festival everyone dressed proudly in their definitive costume. Harlem was also a little like this inside the museum and out. Some People showed they were incredibly proud of their different heritages by what they were wearing and this even reflected on the street in a more diluted but distinct way. This of course was my initial opinion but the reality may be much different. The art inside was all about black African artists. There is such a pride and purity to this practice. We saw many of the artists, such as Mark Bradford, Kehinde Wiley, Isaac Julien and Glenn Ligon who are all in the Zabludowicz Collection amongst of course many others. Thelma is amazing, this is a picture of her in front of a collage by Romare Bearden, who is one of the most influential black artists in the world.
A few more shows and we were done. Caragh Thuring’s show at Simon Preston, like Jack’s was very low key, it seemed almost that Caragh was trying to break through to another level. Really looking forward to seeing what she does next.
The grand finale though was Robert Heinecken at Friedrich Petzel it was an amazing show steeped in History. I loved the work. I reserved a couple of very interesting works for the collection.
I bumped into Blue Curry at toomer labzda Gallery. They were so happy it was opening night.
Next stop: LA LA land and I felt I had landed on the moon except the cold weather felt a little familiar. Straight to Regen Projects where Shaun and Jessica Morgan stand next to Sue Williams as she bravely shows us her magnificent erotic paintings.
Afterwards Shaun gave us a banquet surrounded by the wonderful artists, Walead Beshty, Lari Pitman, Catherine Opie, Elliot Hundley and Doug Aitken. Maja Hoffman and Doug Aitken. Looking forward to visiting Doug’s studio next visit. Maja took me to the party of Adam McEwen in a bungalow in the grounds of Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood. It was all hyper real to me and such a great bunch of people. What a beginning. Adam McEwen’s show was very BIG in Gagosian Gallery - what happened to smaller art works? I have his outdoor sculpture hanging in Finland would have loved to have his dead aeroplane.
LACMA was very nice, good design show and great Glenn Ligon show I thought. We were met by the very charismatic Michael Govan.
A very glamorous work by Robert Therrien. Also Pacific Standard Times Asco and California Design from 1930 to 1965
We drop by to David Kordansky where the group had a lock in at lunch and Poju and I - very hungry - were locked out! We walked the streets and visited Honor Fraser which is always interesting, she showed me some KAWS work and I don’t know why but I like it. At Cherry and Martin we looked at some more Heinecken and finally we went to Kordansky where we visit Aaron Curry’s show, who has made a collaboration with Richard Hawkins.
Studio visit to Mark Bradford was incredible. He and Baldessari are both gentle giants. Would love to see them both standing next to each other. He was so kind and charismatic to our group we were all mesmerised. He took us to his mother’s old hairdresser, which is now the store room storing all his colourful paints and papers.
