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

Venice Biennale

At last, long overdue, a few images on the Venice Biennale. I wish I had more to say... Having been for the 8 years, there is purely the sportive aspect: will, grit, endurance, surivival (you can imagine the t-shirt -- I survived number 53!). Having said that, this year didn't seem to me quite up to previous years. My own yardstick is how infrequently I was tempted to reach for my camera to create a mental cue card for a fascinating work of art. Having said that, it's big (BIG), so there is always something worth seeing.

But first, taking a step back, way, way back, here's a few images from Pompei. This was the second time I visited and I enjoyed it even more than last time. I'm always captivated by the decorative motifs -- timeless:



Somehow I had never visited the amphitheatre. Well here it is:


And now Venice: Tomas Saraceno "Galaxies forming along filaments..."


Susan Hefuna, "Building" (she works on onion-skin type paper, layering images)



Hans-Peter Feldmann, "Shadow Play"



Sadamasa Motonaga, "Water work"


Mona Hatoum, who I first saw at the Biennale four years ago was back at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. I wish I had taken more pictures. Much of the collection is decorative 19th C art, where she had brilliant mixed her work into the collection, subtly and subversively. Then she had some newer work on display as well. This cloud of barbed wire was amazing to look at:


Now I've got to get back to work... cooking work that is...

BB

Impressionism

{a fine activity for a cloudy autumn day is to remember the days of summer...}

{photo credit: me! please do not reproduce without permission}


{photo credit: Tran Huu Dung via Dennis Dutton}

That it should come to this...

Last week I was swilling fiano and falanghina, was almost satiated with buffalo mozzarella and even the very fresh and wonderful fior di latte, was touring the biennale like a jaded 10-year veteran (whilst retaining my own native enthusiasm), was eating brioche for breakfast, pasta for lunch, and nice salads and vegetables for dinner (and discovered myself amazing not to have gained a pound while traveling), was sunning my... wrists* on some rocky and sandy beaches, was wandering Rome and Venice with the keys to my kind friends' apartments safely tucked away in my bag, was charmingly overcharged by a Roman taxi driver**, and was invited for a quick coffee at the late Sol Lewitt's Amalfi coast house*** and was looking at his hand-drawn wall decorations and drawing table...

Today I am bouncing in along the motorway in a Greyhound bus from Boston to New York.****

BB

* I sunburn really badly and very quickly. So personally the early 20th C swimsuits are just fine for me... from neck to ankles all nicely covered... It does dampen the sex appeal a little, but what's one to do?

** Have you ever been swindled, known it was happening, but somehow enjoyed the other person going through motions of trying to fool you that you don't object? The taxi driver has the middle seat down covering the meter. Then he mumbled something about extra charges. But he was so much like Roberto Benigni in Last Night that I didn't want to burst his buble. His patter was so obvious, but charming nonetheless...

*** Sol Lewitt is in my personal pantheons of greats. Of course, not only me, but conceptual art is a specialized cup of tea outside the art world, but when I first saw his installation at Dia: Beacon I knew it was my kind of art. Since then I have become something of fanatic. Anyway, Sol Lewitt's widow invited a friend to spend the week at their house, and he invited a friend, who in turn invited me. Lewitt had a half-dozen drawings executed on his walls. And I got to see his drawing table (pictues next time -- not much to see but so inspiring!)

**** In fairness to both Greyhound and myself I should mention that it is one of the new coaches: plugs, internet, and no dirt on the seats. What happened to Champagne cocktaisl cheap white wine on the shuttle? What happend to Amtrak? Priced itself to irrelevance sadly: 5 times the price as the bus and no internet. I'll take it on a snow day, but otherwise, unlikely.

P.S. Could someone who is wiser in such matters please explain the Beatles song "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" to me? I think I get it, but it requires explanation. Today I'm listening to Bach (Well-Tempered Clavier) and the Beatles, a pretty much old-school combination I must admit, but BB has more than a thread of old school in the spine...