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A friend (not in the biz, but from wayyyy back when we met in Germany during my travel year after college) came to town from Connecticut and we went to a small gallery in Chelsea that had an excellent exhibition of work by an Iraqi Ahmed Alsoudani, who emigrated to the US and Christine Ay Tjoe, an Indonesian artist. As you might be able to see, their work has some similarities in technique (white wash used on some of the images) and references to war in their respective homelands. They both reminded me slightly of Francis Bacon, and sure enough, an article on one of the artists indeed made mention of Bacon's work. I recommend the exhibit to anyone in the area. It's going on till Feb 9th and won't take more than half an hour of your time. The gallery is on 18th street just east of 10th avenue.
Then we went up to the Whitney to see the Kara Walker exhibit, which includes, in addition to paintings, her more famous silhouetted tableaux of slavery and the Antebellum South--angry, satirical, and very powerful works. Also included are a few videos using shadow puppets. I'd read about the exhibit and seen small photos of it in magazines and knew that I needed to see it in person. You can get a feel for the show here: Kara Walker: My Complement,My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love
Get to it! It closes February 3rd.
I wanted to write a little more about Kara Walker. She was brought up in an integrated area of Stockton California and moved with her family to Atlanta, Georgia when she was thirteen. She tells how she attended an integrated pj party where everyone watched Gone With the Wind as a matter of course. Also, the African American prom queen in HS wore a corset and GWTW type dress to the prom. None of this was ever acknowledged as "odd" and these experiences later influenced Walker in her art.
She won a MacArthur Genius grant in 1997.
She has been vilified by some other African American artists for her work's purported racism and in 1997 one of these artists tried to organize a museum boycott of her art.
She is currently thirty-seven years old.
And last, we had a delicious dinner at Bamiyan, the wonderful Afghan restaurant on 3rd and 26th street.
Then we went up to the Whitney to see the Kara Walker exhibit, which includes, in addition to paintings, her more famous silhouetted tableaux of slavery and the Antebellum South--angry, satirical, and very powerful works. Also included are a few videos using shadow puppets. I'd read about the exhibit and seen small photos of it in magazines and knew that I needed to see it in person. You can get a feel for the show here: Kara Walker: My Complement,My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love
Get to it! It closes February 3rd.
I wanted to write a little more about Kara Walker. She was brought up in an integrated area of Stockton California and moved with her family to Atlanta, Georgia when she was thirteen. She tells how she attended an integrated pj party where everyone watched Gone With the Wind as a matter of course. Also, the African American prom queen in HS wore a corset and GWTW type dress to the prom. None of this was ever acknowledged as "odd" and these experiences later influenced Walker in her art.
She won a MacArthur Genius grant in 1997.
She has been vilified by some other African American artists for her work's purported racism and in 1997 one of these artists tried to organize a museum boycott of her art.
She is currently thirty-seven years old.
And last, we had a delicious dinner at Bamiyan, the wonderful Afghan restaurant on 3rd and 26th street.