Yes, but is it art?

As promised, at last, a few images from The Frieze Art Fair... I always enjoy art fairs because you get to see it all. Frieze is pretty blue chip, big galleries and famous names. But still, there's fun stuff to be found.

One of the pieces that seemed to get the most attention in terms of foot traffic was this first piece (Questions to my father 6, Karl Haendel). People would stop in front of it and read through it all -- it takes quite a while. The crowd gathered in front makes a pretty successful work of art by some measures. But then again, I'm not sure -- is it art? Ponder that while looking at a few other images below...


Art boys and girls, always rushing around...


Except when stopping to chat:


Or to have coffee (or Champagne!)


This one, made from chairs won a prize (getting into the Tate's collection):



And this made me laugh:


Is there an implication here for the balance between the genders?



And surely the most fantastic piece was this... The picture sort of gives it away...


When you approach, you see the lights, but when you look in:


It's bottomless. I really want one of these for my next apt. I lacked the needed 140,000 (don't recall the currency, but does it matter? Pounds? Euros...) So apparently did the Tate.


And an Ian Davenport is always fun. Those lines and colors, hypnotizing...

BB

bb in b, or back on the road

I was back on the road this week, but a different kind of trip. Those of you who have been reading along since the beginning know of my flugelbindery road trips (think very short trips, at someone else's expense, the kind of trip where everyone you encounter at the airport is suddenly very polite to you, and you keep reminding yourself "It's not me. It's not me.")

This was mainly personal. Well, there was some work in Barcelona, but the two extra days weren't hard work, not all. And the two days in Germany, doing some wine tasting (of the swallowing, not spitting variety), and the 3 days in London (among other things visiting the Frieze Art Fair --more pictures soon), all of this was just for fun!

But now the somber time approaches. The return journey. True, cheered by glass of the bubbly, but still, time to get home, back to work, and back on that torture machine known as the elliptical trainer...

But more soon!

xoxo

BB

A Serenade to Myself

Yesterday on my commute from New York to Boston I launched iTunes to listen to music while I worked. I used to do this often, but these days work in silence, except while on trains or buses, since it not only blocks out sounds but transports the mind.

For reasons unknown, I decided to type Serenade into the search box, and thereby created this play list for myself. It has its oddities, but really worked quite well.

Especially startling and pleasing was the transition from the Mozart Wind Serenade to the Serenade from Shostakovitch String Quarter No. 15, to Frank Sinatra and the Moonlight Serenade, to Dvorak's Serenade.

There don't seem to be that many serenades in popular music, at least by explicit name.

It might have been one of those "you had to be there to appreciate it" moments...

BB

P.S. What incredible articulation Sinatra has -- he takes as much care with his consonants as the best singers in lieder...

Last night, at last

Last night, at last, I made it up to the High Line, the elevated freight line that was built in the 1930s abandoned around 1980 and has recently been converted into an elevated urban park. I know I wasn't at all original in looking up at the High Line snaking its way from the Meat Packing District up to the 30s, wishing I could find someway to sneak up. Because in the decade after beign abandoned it came to be colonized by plant life -- native grasses took over and if you looked down on it from a nearby building it looked like a ribbon-field running through the city.

The new renovation has kept that feel to it, and the native grasses, just streamlining things and making connections to new builds and creating entry points.

I only had my cellphone camera with me and caught these two pics:





What was going on in there, we were meant to wonder and we did...

BB