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i suppose it’s pointless to complain about how hard it is to get a decent photo of a piece of art inside a museum, especially a museum with such drab, yellow lighting (not to mention using a cheap point and shoot canon, but oh well). art, like sex, is best experienced on a one to one level, photos are an extremely poor substitute (plus the fact that it’s not a museums responsibility to provide perfect photo-shoot conditions. i realize that). still, sometimes a photo is all you have, sometimes all you can ever have. believe me, that can really suck. like when there’s a great bauhaus show happening at the moma, and you didn’t get to see it, because it was on the other side of the country. sometimes i want to see what i’m missing, if only just in 2d. chances are, i’ll never get to see that work in person – at least not all in one place. just today i was drooling over installation photos of the new “primary atmospheres” show at david zwirnir. i was glad to at least get a glimpse. heh, man, i’m kickin some serious dirt over missing these 2 shows.

regardless of trying to take decent photos, simply viewing the work in person shouldn’t have to be a challenge. now, i know that uv light is a harmful beast when it comes to art, and sometimes you can’t just point high powered lights right at a piece, especially an old piece. certain types of work need different levels of lux to stay safe from deterioration – but c’mon moca, there’s gotta be a better way than to just not light it at all. as someone with a few years of preparator experience, i’m rather surprised at the quality of the lights/lighting at moca (not that i’m a master preparator, i just happen to notice these things more often, having done the job). mondrian and reinhardt were in near darkness (ok, that’s an exaggeration, but still). i noticed the very yellow quality of mocas lights back in january of 09 when i saw that great louise bourgeois show, but this show was a little worse. i hate to be hard on you moca. don’t get me wrong, i love that you gave me the opportunity to see such an expansive exhibit – but you’re a major institution, shouldn’t higher standards apply? look, if all new lights aren’t in the budget, might i suggest some simple color correction gels. maybe it’s because my eye can’t take looking at yellow light for too long, but i think a lot of the pieces in the show were somewhat hindered by the light they were given.

there seriously needs to be a new breakthrough in art-lighting technology…i’m just sayin. get on it, scientist-lighting-inventor-guy.

ok, having said all that, it’s a good thing that the work in this show is so great that it can shine even with dingy lighting. i was thoroughly impressed right from the beginning (and the beginning, that is, the entrance to the show, was also the beginning of the chronology of work being presented. earliest works first) – curatorially i thought it was a very well rounded show, from start to finish. i even found a new appreciation for a couple artists i’m not usually interested in. oh, and i’m speaking strictly for the grand ave part of the show, the 1940-1980 works. it was a different story entirely when we took the free shuttle over to the geffen location. i can’t say it was a waste of time to see the 1980 – present works, but it wasn’t necessarily a jaw dropping experience either. i will say though that the one highlight of the geffen for me was the diana thater piece “rgb windows” (pictured to the right above). a very simple site specific piece using colored mylar on the museums three exit doors. the effect she got from such a basic application was huge. the coolest thing about it is, as light shines through the tri-colored windows, any object in it’s path will cast a really cool “spectrum shadow”. as pictured below, this is what my “spectrum shadow” looked like on the wall:

i suspect i liked it so much because of a fairly recent interest of mine that deals with the unexpected effects that light shining through windows can produce. like this for example (below) – light shining in through a far off window in another room slightly catches the wall of a hallway and spawns this beautiful patch of glow.

these “shines”, as i’ve come to call them, occur everyday all around us. i’ve been really paying close attention to these unassuming illuminations lately in hopes of coming up with a way to somehow fabricate them without it seeming unnatural – as if they were actually coming from the sun, but it would all be controlled. i haven’t figured that out yet, at least not to a satisfying end. anyway, “shines” are a topic for another post.

as for the topic at hand, i snapped a few shots of only the pieces that i really liked. they’re over at my flickr site – a few have short comments attached. click on louise nevelson’s “sky cathedral” below to see more (by the way, this was by far my favorite piece of the show. i love her work.)

and if you have the opportunity, you really should go see the work in person. because, unlike with photos of sex, photos of art aren’t all that exciting. you’ve got to actually experience it. here’s a link to more info.

ok then…who likes root beer?! meeeeeee!!! and if you like root beer, real root beer, not mug or barq’s, but real cane sugar root beer, then you have to go to galco’s soda pop stop.

they’ve got so many different root beers that after spending 40 bucks, i didn’t even come close to buying them all. haha. and it’s not only root beer, they’ve got sodas of all kinds from all over the world. everything from spruce beer (tastes like drinking tree sap) to cucumber soda (which is quite delightful). almost all their sodas are made with real sugar instead of the dreaded high fructose corn syrup, which any real soda connoisseur has got to love. i found out about this place from the video below. once you watch it, you’ll want to go. it’s worth it.

i’ve got to say though, that the best root beer i’ve ever tasted has got to be “old town root beer”, which is sold right here in my home town of san diego. their website seems to be gone or else i’d link you to it. lukes root beer pages wrote a good review about it though.

so there it is. art and root beer. have some.

mid august*. summer in nyc. yes it’s hot, yes it’s humid. but it’s also beautiful. the trees are vibrant green, the sky’s are electric blue, and the clouds are radiant white.

i decided to go straight to the moma from jfk since it’s free on friday nights (my plane landed at 330). so i took the air train to jamaica station and then the subway to 53rd in midtown. just as i walked out of the underground i stumbled upon an absolutely beautiful, hidden-in-plain-sight little park – paley park. i purchased a mint lemonade from the bakery right next to it and sat in the cool of the shade trees and enjoyed the mist from the waterfall.

next i was off to the moma, but i didn’t make it even 2 blocks when i caught the RCA Victor building out of the corner of my eye and decided to go gawk at it like a good little tourist. i absolutely love this building, it’s so beautiful.

then i was off to the moma once again. now, i had went to free fridays the last time i was in nyc, but that was in january. this time it was summer, and that meant there was twice as many people. after about a 20 minute wait in line just to check my backpack, i set out into the extremely crowded galleries. about that time, my post plane ride headache was setting in. i tried to enjoy the art but it was very difficult with that many people. i did snap a few shots of some things that caught my eye, and against my prior decision, i did visit the new ron arad exhibition on the 6th floor. which turned out to be really cool actually, his choice of materials, and the fabrication, was really impressive.

i didn’t end up staying long due to the crowds and my headache. i left the moma and hopped on the f train to brooklyn to meet up with my friend (and ex art nighter) frida. i was impressed by her neighborhood, which is right next to prospect park.

day 2

after a lovely frida-cooked-breakfast, she and i set out for the met to see the francis bacon retrospective. holy shit, that was good. there were no photos allowed in the exhibit but i did jot down a few names of pieces i liked. one of which was called “landscape near malabata”, this was probably my favorite one. the texture, color, and technique are amazingly beautiful.

of course, this photo does the painting not one shred of justice:

a few others i really liked were the “heads” series, the “men in blue suits” series, “three studies for a portrait of geaorge dyer”, and “portrait of isabel rawsthorne”, among many others.

i didn’t really have the energy to walk around the met but i did end up going to the roof garden, as i hadn’t seen it the last time i was there. along the way i snapped a shot of one of paul frankl’s skyscraper bookcases. he’s one of my favorite industrial designers for obvious reasons.

the met roof garden was smaller than i’d expected but it was still worth seeing (and while up there i heard a jazz style second line being played from somewhere in the park). it gave a good view of central parks sea of trees and it’s shoreline of skyline off in the distance.

i spent the rest of the day just walking around the east village, where i:

ate some noodles at ramen setagaya

bought some vintage sunglasses at fabulous fanny’s

went to a toy store called toy tokyo, that had a pretty good collection of japanese and american collectible, fan boy type stuff. as well as a cool spumco ren doll

*cut to january. the above text was written back in august. for whatever reason i didn’t finish writing this post and saved it as a draft. since that time i had forgotten that i even started it. it is now months later and i’ve become a bit fuzzy on many of the small details of the trip. i’ve also lost all interest in relaying the rest of the information about my trip. i will say though, that what is not mentioned here are the details of my 3rd day of the trip, my whole reason for going to nyc in the first place – the 50th anniversary frank lloyd wright show at the guggenheim museum. needless to say, it blew my mind….i suppose that says it all.

if you’d like to see all the pictures i took while on my trip go here.

oh my dear blog, how i’ve neglected you. i know you forgive me.

let’s see, what’s happened since august? well, one thing is that i sold this piece!

“Exit Perspective” – 96″ x 18″, spray paint on steel

notice the back color. that violet gave the piece a good color-bounce-shadow that was a good contrast to the green on the front. i talked a little bit about the reason behind painting the reverse side a contrasting color back in october of 08.

closer look at my “signature”:

there are very subtle fades of greens and yellows at the bottom of this piece that are nearly impossible to photograph:

speaking of fades. the black toward the top of the piece is krylon ultra flat black. man, ultra flat black has got to be one of the best colors ever invented. notice how the ultra flatness of the spray paint makes the glossy black of the paint marker lines look almost brown. that’s how black this stuff is. WHY, OH WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DISCONTINUE THIS COLOR KRYLON?! WHY?!!!!

a closer shot of the grainy beauty of ultra flat black. this stuff is like velvet. it’s just a beautiful paint. it almost makes me sick that krylon no longer makes it.*

*well, krylon does still make a paint called ultra flat black, but it’s not the same as the old one. in fact, compared to the old one, the new ultra flat black is complete garbage! krylon should be ashamed.

anyway, thank you to the couple who now owns “exit perspective”, and thank you david at objct gallery for showing my work.