Galeria Pt.2

Spent another fun afternoon wandering round galleries. This time it was centered around the galleries on 24th Street between 9th and 10th (as opposed to the completely different 21st St galleries). The highlight was the Richard Serra exhibition at the Gagosian – an huge cavernous space where I’d last seen Damien Hirst’s exhibition. This time the usual Hirst carcusses were replaced by immense curves of iron plate, each twice as high as me and 2 inches thick. The sheets, if sheet is the right word for such thick chunks of metal, are curved around in on themselves forming spirals you can walk through. The feeling is for all the world like walking down steep sided thin crevasses carved in cliffs by streams. The overall feeling was one of intense awe and also serenity, as if the structures had been there forever. I got home to a phone message from Laureano saying that I should go to this exhibition immediately – how right he was.

Richard Serra’s organic work far outshone my usual favorite Anish Kapoor, exhibiting at the Barbara Gladstone gallery. Ever since I first came across Kapoor at the Ottawa museum of modern art I’ve been a great fan. Unfortunately all of the subsequent works I’ve seen have not reached the same level of emotional impact that the first pieces (including the Three Witches) made on me. Tim took some pictures which I’ll try and put up once he sends them to me.

Helmut Newton had a collection of around 20 of his large scale pieces (each around 6 foot by 8 foot and costing $30,000 – I bought two for christmas presents, darling) just down from the Gagosian. The feeling of the gallery was intensely intimidating, it was pretty much the only gallery where the staff wore suits. The pictures were classic Newton, although I did get to wondering if my mum took a picture out of a plane window when it was landing whether it was worth as much? It would probably be better anyway.

Tim, my companion for this gallery trip, was highly amusing in Tracy Moffat’s Fourth exhibition. This is a collection, as Tracy herself kindly explained to us as she passed through on the way to the gym, of photos taken of the TV during the Sydney olympics with the athletes who came in fourth highlighted. Tracy went to great lengths to qualify that one of the guys who had come in fourth then was now World Champion. Anyway, what was amusing was that when we got there Tim made some disparaging (and loud) comments about Tracy’s talent, having done some work on a recent shoot that cost her $1/4 million just to hire Pier 59 for a few days. He then noticed that she’d walked in and wandered over to say hello, as I stood there wondering if she’d heard him. Apparently not. Ah, New York life.

Other brief mentions – an exhibition of 100 classic prints had some wonderful shots in, including one of Bjork. The Imogen Cunningham show at the John Stevenson Gallery was also wonderful, and interesting for the contrast of the original, faded shots against new prints that Imogen’s son had done.

Do you feel real?

Had a splendid night out last night with Andy. Our first visit to the Limelight club, a converted church on 6th Avenue. Lots of platforms to wander around and smallish dance rooms. The reason for our trip was to see Jesus Jones – Andy had managed to score some guest passes. Excellent show! They played all the old classics. Only strange part was Mike, the lead singer, now has a sensible haircut… After the show I convinced Andy to wander backstage with me so we got to meet Mike briefly which Andy loved as he’s been a huge fan for ages. One of those things I still love about New York, that you can do things like that a lot more easily.

It must be Monday

As I came into work this morning I wondered why it was so quiet and everyone looked so subdued. As I walked into the office I remember thinking “maybe there’s been another terrorist attack and I don’t know yet”. Get in, turn on my mail and find an e-mail from a friend in the UK going “are you OK?”. Ho hum. ‘Luckily’ it appears to have been an accident. For a while though everyone in the office was stopping shock still and staring out of the window whenever we heard anything that sounded like a plane engine.

On a more happy, random note – went for dinner in Il Buco the other night and sat across from Matt Damon. Not as good as Matt Affleck but you can’t complain.

Life thru a lens

Had a classic New York night. Was planning to go see Zoolander, a piece of movie fluff involving Ben Stiller. Instead ended up going and seeing Mulholland Drive – the new David Lynch movie and the movie equivalent of a pan galactic gargle blaster.. Whoa! It’s two hours long and like Memento but different and more arty – very bizarre but some good random lesbian sex scenes. Still not quite sure what the movie was about.

Anyways – we all went to Von after the movie for a drink (which turned into many, for a change) when this guy leans over the bar to get his bike helmet. He seems vaguely familiar and progressively more so as he walked around the bar to get his helmet. He looked almost exactly like one of the guys in the film, the director (played by Justin Theroux). So he wanders out and I ask the barmaid if he works there, she says no, he’s an actor, just in the David Lynch movie… Bee-fuckin’-tsar! The fact that the movie was so surreal and disjointed just meant that we felt we’d become part of it. New York, eh.

So anyways I’m now dealing with a massive hangover as a consequence…