This is the coolest thing in New York City right now. Doug Wheeler's mind-blowing installation–his first ever solo show in New York City–at the David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea, named SA MI 75 DZ NY 12 (you can call it the "Infinity Room", or the "Amazing Room", or just "Whoa…." ) plays brilliantly with light and space and color (and the absence thereof) to create an environment which takes away all of your visual reference points until you literally have no clue what's right in front of you, if anything. The walls are rounded, so there's no horizon or edges with which to orient yourself. Everything is painted a super-clean white, and you have to take off your shoes and wear protective booties to keep it that way. But it's mostly the light that creates the magic of Doug Wheeler's Infinity Room, and we can't even begin to speculate exactly how he pulls it off. And the space is constantly changing too! The artist has programmed the lighting to evoke a day-into-night-into-day cycle, moving over the course of 32 minutes from a dark blue (midnight) to an intense white (noon) and back again.
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Was legendary NYC crime photographer Arthur Fellig–better (only?) known simply as Weegee–a self-promoting hustler who exploited murder and mayhem to further his considerable ambitions? Was he a sharp-eyed street photographer whose perceptive portraits of the urban underbelly would influence the likes of such acclaimed artists as Diane Arbus and Robert Frank? Was Weegee just an action junkie? A cop groupie? A trafficker in sensationalistic sleaze for the NYC tabloids of the 1930s, looking to make a buck? The answer, as the fabulous exhibition Weegee: Murder Is My Business, just opened at the International Center of Photography, makes clear: all of the above.
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We don't pass through Times Square NYC very often, for obvious reasons, but every once in a while fate (or, more likely, out-of-town visitors) has a way of landing us smack in the middle of all of those crossroads-of-the-world hordes. Now, wading through 700 million tourists can make us feel many different things, from irritation (don't just STOP in the middle of the sidewalk!) to gratitude (thanks for spending all that money!), but it's also always pretty much guaranteed to make us hungry. In years past, restaurants near Times Square NYC for a quick, reasonably fresh and/or tasty bite to eat were pretty much zero. Last fall, though, the snack situation in NYC Times Square started to change for the better, with the addition of several new carefully-curated (and nicely designed) shipping-container kiosks, located right on the pedestrian plazas which now give the Great White Way a little breathing room, and two of which we sampled yesterday.
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Sometimes it feels almost unfair, the amount of enviable things Paula Scher has accomplished in her career. She spent most of the 1970s as an art director at CBS and Atlantic Records, designing some 150 album covers a year, including that iconic, monster-hit debut Boston LP, with its trippy flying saucers. The 1980s were spent honing her already considerable typographic-integrated-design skills with posters, book jackets and branding, and then in 1991 she became a partner at Pentagram and, through her highly-influential work creating identities for such clients as the New York Public Theater, Citibank, the MoMA, Coca Cola, and the New York City Ballet, helped make the company into the world-renowned design firm that it is today. AND somehow over the years, Paula Scher has also found the time and energy to create an incredible series of massive, beautiful, insanely intricate paintings that she calls MAPS.
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Posted in Glenwood News
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Tagged art, artist exhibition, Bryce Wolkowitz gallery, Chelsea NYC, Maps, Midtown NYC, paula scher, paula scher design, paula scher maps, paula scher posters, typography
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Chef Zakary Pelaccio and his kitchens of mad-genius chefs have whipped up some of our favorite meals of the last few years: at the original Maylasian-y Fatty Crab on Hudson Street, and then the Upper West Side version of the same. The temporary "ham restaurant," Fatty Johnsons, where his late lamented taco spot Cabrito also once wowed; and at the great Fatty 'Cue in Williamsburg, at which we've feasted many times on plate after plate of deeply-satisfying smoky delights. Last fall Pelaccio and crew opened a second Fatty 'Cue, this time in Manhattan, on Carmine Street (where Cabrito and Fatty Johnson's once resided), and they've been packing in the crowds and getting rave reviews ever since.
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In April of 2010, renowned artist Ai Weiwei, one of the most acclaimed artists and activists of his generation, was detained/arrested/kidnapped by the Chinese government for 81 days. No charges made, no communication allowed to the outside world, almost-daily interrogations about his involvement in… well, we'll probably never know. EIGHTY-ONE DAYS! And this was a Chinese artist who, among his many other accomplishments, consulted on the Bird's Nest, the iconic stadium of the Beijing 2008 Olympics! Ai WeiWei Not exactly a low-profile individual, neither within his own country nor in the international community. For many in the art world–and, really, anyone paying attention–it was a scary reminder of how governments can act with zero shame or accountability if they so choose.
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The too-often overlooked Museum of the City of New York, residing all stately on the Carnegie Hill stretch of Fifth Avenue, right across the street from the spectacular (and also often-overlooked) Central Park Conservatory Garden, has a terrific pair of free exhibitions going on all winter. One that history buffs, armchair city planners, and New York City enthusiasts should definitely try to catch. Called the Greatest Grid (what Manhattan has had for two centuries) and the Unfinished Grid (what we may have in the future), these terrific sister shows commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Commissioners' Plan that sealed the city's fortunate fate back in 1811. Not only does this free exhibition document the grid's beginnings, but also does a great job of examining the implications–social, architectural, financial, emotional–of the layout over the past two centuries.
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We've been fans of the Meatball Shop since it opened a few years ago on the Lower East Side, and have cheered on its subsequent expansion to both Williamsburg and the West Village. The more meatballs the merrier, as far as we're concerned. That said, we were definitely a little skeptical when Top Chef finalist Chef Dave Martin opened up the Meatball FACTORY on East 14th Street this fall. With the same mix-n-match concept as the Meatball Shop–choose your ball, choose your sauce, choose your starch–was the Meatball Factory just an opportunistic imitation? After our visit to Meatball Factory NYC on a cold night last week before a movie at the Regal Union Square, the answer seems to be: yes and no.
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Ever since the middle of September, Gwyneth Leech has sat on a stool within the base of the lovely, legendary Flatiron Building drawing on coffee cups. Five days a week, three hours a day (Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 until 2:00, to be exact), Leech creates often-intricate, sometimes quite colorful patterns and drawings on all of the "disposable" cardboard coffee cups that she's drank from since she last entered the prow, as well as cups from artist friends she's met for coffee or tea in that time. The drink, date consumed, and social situation is dutifully recorded on the bottom of cup before she starts her work. After they've been illustrated, Leech suspends them from the ceiling of the Flatiron Prow Art Space, and over the course of these past weeks and months, has transformed this triangular, windowed gallery–until recently home to cell phone advertisements, and still sponsored by Sprint–into a little Flatiron District neighborhood treasure.
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