Art and Nonsense

NYC - Dia: Beacon

2009-01-07T23:36:00.003-06:00

Before heading to North Carolina for the holiday, Logan and I stopped by NYC to see an old friend. While we were there we got to see a few exhibitions. On my friend's recommendation we took the train about an hour north of the city to Dia: Beacon. What a great space. A lot of the collection consists of large scale installations. The whole place is almost 300,000 square feet. This includes a basement that was practically all Bruce Nauman works. When you venture into the basement there is no other lighting than that of one of Nauman's flashing neon pieces. Another room contains a large-scale multi-screen video installation. It is one of the most wonderful permanent collections that I've seen in quite awhile. The space compliments the work without taking the spotlight and the work just seems to belong where it is. You can see the effort that went into making this space just right for the art it houses. Another great experience was to see several of Sol LeWitt's wall drawings. What pain-staking detailed work it must be to install those pieces. Not a line was out of place. It is well worth the hour train ride from Grand Central Station.

The time of year we were there couldn't have been better as well. Being from Texas, it is not often that we get to experience several feet of snow. What a beautiful sight. Since photography was not allowed inside, I'll leave you with some pictures of the building and the surrounding area.

Chicago! (Part Two)

2008-11-13T01:17:00.002-06:00

Yes, we are still on the same day...I told you we saw quite a bit on Saturday. We made our way to Navy Pier for the fireworks that night. We were there a bit early so grabbed some dinner and and rode the Ferris wheel. Then we ran into an old friend of Sarina's, got some frozen-fruity drinks and watched the fireworks. The fireworks that night were Halloween themed; that basically means that they played Marylin Manson during the show. We then made our way back to the bus stop and called it a night.

Sunday we ventured up north to see Wrigley Field. Unfortunately the Cubs' season had just ended. But, it was still great to see the field (it's a lot smaller than I thought it would be) and the bleachers on top of the surrounding buildings.

From there we went to one of Sarina's favorite places, the zoo. It's really an impressive zoo, there are a lot of animals in well kept up habitats, they are all active and well fed. And the best part is the zoo is free! One small word of advice for those parents of young children reading this...please do not encourage your children to bang on the glass when visiting any place where there are animals on the other side of glass. (I know, parents love it when people without kids give advice about kids...but this really isn't one of those things that changes with experience. It is always not cool to bang on the glass.)

After we left the zoo, we walked through a park and across a highway to the beach on lake Michigan. When Sarina told me she went to the beach, I figured it was like the 'beaches' here at some of our lakes in Texas...a bit of grass, maybe some dark brown sand and some rocks. But, it's more like a beach in California with great sand and even sand volleyball courts.

We walked along the beach for awhile and then took a bus to the Sears Tower. By the time we watched the informational video and made our way up 110 floors, the sun had set and we had a great view of the lights of the city. After the Tower, Sarina took me to the Grand Lux Cafe for dinner.

On Monday, before I had to catch my flight home, we did some shopping in Sarina's neighborhood. There are some great little boutiques in the area, but I couldn't bring myself to spend any money that day. I found some great pieces, especially in Bonnie and Clyde's, however I think since it was my last day there I was feeling a little shopped out. Maybe next visit! I had fun. Thanks for having me up, Sarina!

Chicago! (Part One)

2008-11-02T20:21:00.000-06:00

Recently I took advantage of a long weekend to fly up to Chicago and spend some time with my sister-in-law Sarina. We covered quite a bit of ground in 4 days. I really loved the atmosphere of the city and was lucky that this late in the season there was such beautiful weather. It was in the mid-70's all weekend. Perfect for all the exploring that we did.

The first night I got in we made it down to experience the city's Second Friday Art night with galleries up and down South Halsted Street open. By far my favorite was Logsdon 1909 gallery and studio. They had an absolutely packed space with works ranging in mediums from ceramics to video installation.

The second day we slept in a bit, but then finally made it up and around to quite a few places. First stop was the Museum of Contemporary Photography. There was an exhibition of pretty good photos from Dave Anderson, but what was really interesting to me was the combination of Anderson's exhibition with another exhibition of Farm Security Administration photographs.

We then walked across Michigan Ave and into Grant Park. They were setting up for a marathon that day, so we made our way through the maze of port-o-potties and fences looking for Buckingham Fountain. What we came across was a construction zone. Currently the fountain is being completely refurbished, including the landscaping surrounding it.

Next we came across 'the Bean' (Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate), grabbed a hot dog and just watched the other visitors interact with the reflective surfaces. It's really an endless source of fascinating photographs. We saw a myriad of brides and a great quiencera party. Her escorts had on pin striped suits with wallet chains and bright pink ties.

We continued on to the The Art Institute of Chicago to look around. It's quite large and really could take a whole day in itself to do the place justice. We picked a couple of topics to cover and followed the map to just those galleries and of course spent some time in the gift shop. They did have quite an impressive collection of art books for sale and I can never resist.

Next we hopped on the bus and took a fairly short ride to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Most of the galleries were under installation, it was getting late and they were setting up for a private event later that evening. However, we did get to see one floor of their permanent collection. There was a room full of Cindy Sherman photographs which was great to see and another gallery which I was quite impressed with was a collection of Bruce Nauman works. We spent some time investigating an installation of a plexi-glass maze with 4 video monitors facing into the maze, a projection of a rat finding it's way through the maze and a surveillance camera that intermittently spliced real-time images of the room with the video of the rat in the maze. Fascinating! Then we ended up in the museum store, where I found all kind of great things. Lucky for us the store was open an hour later than the galleries.

Since I am taking so long to compose this blog, I've decided to call this Part One...more to come.

Annual Staff Trip

2008-09-14T13:52:00.003-05:00

Once a year the employees of the Austin Museum of Art organize a staff trip to experience the art of another city with most of our co-workers on one big happy bus and do a little bit of bonding. This year was San Antonio. Growing up in Texas, I had been to San Antonio many times, but most of those trips were spent at one of three places: The Alamo, Sea World or the river walk. (Or in a gym playing volleyball...my family isn't much in to art.) I was intrigued to learn more about the art scene in a city that I forget how close it is to where I live now.

Our first stop was the Japanese Tea Garden. The bus was late arriving that morning, so our time here was cut short in order to make our next stop on time. So, we filed through the gardens and learned a bit about it's history.

Then, Alix loaded us on the bus with her trusty itinerary in hand. No one would be left behind and we would not be late for any of the scheduled stops along the way. Damn it, we were going to have fun and experience as much art that can be crammed into one day!

Onto the Southwest School of Art and Craft. We toured their well supplied studios that accommodate all kinds of media including; photography, print making, fibers, metals and ceramics. Those of us who work at the Laguna Gloria location (and specifically at the Art School) felt an affinity for this place, as it is both an art school and a historic site.

For lunch we gathered at Paloma Blanca. Great Mexican cuisine and an especially good Tres Leches cake that our table just had to have. (I think we unveiled some deep seeded issues steaming from childhood that revolve around cake. However, I admittedly am more than enthusiastic about my share of cake.)

After lunch we continued on to the McNay for a behind the scenes tour of their recently added exhibition space. As they were currently in installation, we were able to see the preparators at work. We also saw an interesting exhibition about Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas as well as parts of the permanent collection.

The last stop was Blue Star Arts Complex which is an amazing community of artists. There are galleries, artists studio lofts, public sculpture and much more with fantastic public programs and events. With fotoseptiembre under way we got to see an exhibition of contemporary photography.

With the delirium setting in we boarded the bus and began our short trip back to Austin.