NYC

signifieds: same, same. always changing. late february 2023

[the first stop of a year of world travel. hugging friends and filling with familiar before setting off. one week. windy, cold, crisp.]

Cervo’s: smokey and seafoody, intimate and playful. bring a close friend or sit alone at the bar and listen to the lower east side rise and fall.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Edouard Vuillard. “Best known for his small, poetic, and dimly lit intimiste interiors of the 1890’s.” a feeling of being there, quietly, within the paintings.

BDDW: if a marionette and Miró had a baby. perusing the imagination of a master craftsman.

Lodi: a five-course martini. the most painterly salads. my favorite chef.

Raoul’s: another of Manhattan’s best martinis. in winter, happy hour is dark outside. half a dozen oysters, an order of fries, and heavy eavesdropping.

MOMA: Architecture Now - New York, New Publics. “Considering the city as an ecosystem, these inventive approaches (to public-facing spaces) envision a future in which architecture creates more accessible, sustainable, and equitable cities.”

MOMA: Ellsworth Kelly’s Sketchbooks. “In automatic drawings he let his pencil flow freely. In multicolor grids he similarly harnessed the possibilities of chance while arranging squares of paper. And in collages of flat color, he chose shapes that he adopted from “out there in the world”—transforming passing impressions into an art of ideals.”

MOMA: Calligraphic Abstraction. “The works assembled here exemplify different calligraphic modes and systems of writing in mid-century modernism. From graceful experiments with Arabic scripts, decorative patterns formed by words, and rearranged or illegible texts and letters, to abstract strokes and spontaneous movements, they demonstrate the unrestrained vigor and communicative gestures of calligraphic abstraction.”

MOMA: This piece by Judit Reigl. “The canvas was initially part of an entirely different series of paintings but was rejected by the artist and consequently used as a drop cloth, absorbing splatters of paint and getting creased and stained from movement. Reig later rediscovered and renamed it Guano-Round; this new work had a new, all-over composition formed partially by chance, a technique that had fascinated her in earlier experiments with automatic painting and writing, creative activities that tap into the unconscious mind.”

Miguel Abreu Gallery - François-Marie Banier: talk to me. tell me your secrets.