BENEATH THE SURFACE

Tuesday, September 11, 2012.  Walking down 9th Avenue to the barber I came upon the open steel sidewalk doors to the basement of an old tenement.  They've never been open before, and I have trod over this work countless times.  I wonder who left these there?  Was it someone from the current gallery or someone from the previous, Giant Robot?  I'm happy enough with either.  The neon colors dripping over with white paint - I like how it looks - snow falling on a mountain burnished orange by the setting sun.  And the other - love rising out of the depths.  I like that idea too.

DOOR JAM

April 20, 2011. What makes up a vision? So many discarded pieces can be repurposed into endless combinations, an infinity variety bound only by individual imagination. A long black figure anchors this piece, surrounded by the red porcelain plates. The snake wraps the figure in an undulating dance. The entire scene is locked into place, constrained. The figure pushes against it in a continual conflict.

SPLATTER

June 1, 2010. Outside Giant Robot. I wonder if they use these metal doors as a staging area, or did someone come by and say 'Hey, a clean canvas. Let's do something.'? Anyway, G.R. doesn't seem to mind, and a little color on a drap sidewalk is a welcome sight.

Bird on a Wire

September 22, 2009. Tuesday night, haircut night. And I'm back in the East Village, close to Tompkins Square Park. High up on a signpost is this image. A bird perched on a branch, bent low and looking forward. It isn't warbling, its poised. Is it to strike, for flight, or rest? And is the dripping red as ominous as it portends and what statement is our artist making? I can't infer from what I see here. Maybe it is the expected gloom of winter coming with the first day of fall.

Art Around the Park at Tompkins Square

September 6, 2009. On Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend, you can move your feet in the direction of Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. There you will find Art Around the Park. Surrounding some of the park’s north, west and south sides is a sheath of canvas, and at work are scores of painters working side by side in whatever style suits them. The artists have two days to work on their canvas and at the end of the day on Sunday, there are gaping holes, maybe where a work has been sold, or maybe where the creator took it home.

My friend Rael liked this work by Steve Cox. The texture of the lines leaping and covering in alternating patterns was inviting. The grey lines were soothing, but ominous, asking how to decipher what contained them in this densely moving mass like a school of mackerel being herded by unknown hunters.


I like this work by Lora Morgenstern. She creates this patchwork community, the strollers by, and the onlookers. History – who has been here again, before, and never again because they have left us. She engages you as you stop to look. She talks, she looks, she sketches - some more, some less - but she wants you on this quilt. She will remember you in this way.

And then I like this work. And am still thinking about it. You can’t help thinking of all the religious themes playing out here in a global view. But I want to know about the individuals. Who is the dark skinned person, back to us? What is that relationship to the figure with the outstretched arms. Who is the man standing next to him, facing us, arms down, plaintive, staring? What has happened in the pietà scene at the bottom. What tragedy befell them, and can we still help them? Maybe it is the End of Days.

9th & A

August 18, 2009. Today would have been my parent’s 67th wedding anniversary. I thought about it as the day started on my walk through Central Park. That was it, just thought about it. That thought had nothing whatsoever to do with the art that is pictured here I thought this photo was interesting in the context of the narrative with it. Is the man under the car, or has he fallen out of the car? Is it fatigue over all of that art sitting in the closet, is it an accident, is it a murder. The mystery just sits there. And then someone added a sketch of glasses to the grouping. They’re looking, watching, but out at the viewer, not in at the photo.