Sunday, July 17, 2011

New York in July

If you find yourself in New York, on the weekend, in July, don't expect to go to galleries. Even though their websites, the gallery guide and all other stores would lead you to believe you are not crazy for trying...you are. I found this out with two friends when we tried to hit some shows closing this weekend (which were never open this weekend).

The good news was, we were in New York. So there were still things to look at. Shops and markets and people. Actually, the Wolf Kahn show at Ameringer was open by some freak accident too and it was worth the trip in itself. The other gallery which we found open,
showcasing the Joan Mitchell MFA recipients, was not.

But the best thing I learned about on this trip was Strand Bookstore. At 14th and Broadway with 'over 18 miles of books' I would guess 15 miles were art books. Good art books, including probably the best I have ever seen in terms of good color reproductions; the expanded edition of Diebenkorn by G. Nordland. It wasn't expanded by one page just to sell more copies either, looked like double the original from what I remember of it.

And so through these few things I got what I needed from New York again: don't be trendy, don't be indulgent, make a lot of work, struggle with it, work from a place of that's honest, work from formal picture-making questions, even if you don't know how to say what they are. Thanks NY.

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