GO SEE / GOOD HUMOR
AT / STALEY WISE GALLERY
THROUGH / AUGUST 20TH 2010
The name says it all. From Jerry Schatzbery's Rolling Stones in
Drag to David LaChapelle's Miracle Tan– Staley Wise Good Humor
knows how to have a good time..
To continue with a theme that I am pondering this season, here is another example that the food world is in the process of turning ass over teakettle in a hurry. I visited Fatty ‘Cue in Williamsburg, Zak Pelaccio’s newest restaurant, last week and had a remarkable meal. Having said that, I have to agree with SAM SIFTON who said that although the food is extraordinary, be prepared for maximum discomfort while you’re eating there. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration – you are inside, under cover after all, and everyone who works there is so nice that the inauspicious setting is ameliorated by other factors.
Even though Sifton’s review encapsulates the experience aptly, I found the best line in one of the NYT reader’s comments: “The three T's meet at Fatty ‘Cue, Trendy, Tasty and TINY!” The space is so small, and the signage so dark, that you are almost guaranteed to walk past the door the first time you arrive at Fatty ‘Cue. Inside is a very raw space, on three levels, filled with the enticing aroma of barbecue.
Linda Pelaccio, Zak’s mom, is a member of an organization I belong to called Les Dames d’Escoffier – a group of elite women in the food profession. (One of Linda’s vocations is to prepare chefs and foodies to appear on television without making fools of themselves.) When the tom-toms started beating for Fatty ‘Cue, a year before its opening, I kept in mind that Linda might help me petition for a Les Dames group meal there. Linda is a nice person, so she did just that.
GO SEE / RICHARD DIEBENKORN
PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER 1949 -1955
AT / GREENBERG VAN DOREN GALLERY
THROUGH / JUNE 25TH 2010
via GvDG Greenberg Van Doren Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and works on paper from 1949 – 1955 by Richard Diebenkorn (1922 – 1993). Organized in cooperation with the Estate of Richard Diebenkorn, this exhibition will feature thirty-sixworks many of which, until now, have only been seen in museum exhibitions including the 1988-89 MoMA show The Drawings of
Richard Diebenkorn and the Harwood Museum of Art’s Richard Diebenkorn in New Mexico from 2007-08.
Diebenkorn’s early works from the late 40s through the mid 50s are among the finest examples of postwar American abstraction. Characterized by calligraphic lines and shifting fields of color, these works reflect both the broader interest in abstraction shared among many artists of the period and the diverse landscapes in which Diebenkorn lived during these years. Diebenkorn left Sausalito,
California in 1949 to pursue his graduate degree in art at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. In 1952 he moved again to Urbana, Illinois to teach and then, in 1952, returned to California where he settled in Berkeley. Each new surrounding provoked a change in the artist’s palette and in the overall rhythm of his compositions.
GO SEE / PICTURES BY WOMEN A HISTORY OF MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGH / MARCH 2011 AT THE / MOMA
via MoMA For much of photography’s 170-year history, women have expanded its roles by experimenting with every aspect of the medium. Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography presents a selection of outstanding photographs by women artists, charting the medium’s history from the dawn of the modern period to the present. Including over two hundred works, this exhibition features celebrated masterworks and new acquisitions from the collection by such figures as Diane Arbus, Berenice Abbott, Claude Cahun, Imogen Cunningham, Rineke Dijkstra, Florence Henri, Roni Horn, Nan Goldin, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, Lucia Moholy, Tina Modotti, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among many others. The exhibition also highlights works drawn from a variety of curatorial departments, including Bottoms, a large-scale Fluxus wallpaper by Yoko Ono.
I finally made it to The Monkey Bar. What a coincidence: I dined at the latest incarnation of The Monkey Bar in the same week as the New York Times published an article about such restaurants, titled, “A Vision of the City as It Once Was”. There is a zeitgeist in the New York restaurant world right now, and I’ve been thinking about it hard; it looks like I am not the only one.
In a time when many of the old-time restaurants are dying or being killed off, restaurateurs and would-be restaurateurs are suffering pangs of nostalgia for the old days, or, more importantly, what they think the old days were, or should have been. The Plaza’s Oak Room, Minetta Tavern, Waverly Inn and, the reason for the article, the Lion, are all loving re-creations of days-gone-by.
“Gentrification over the past quarter-century has killed so many old dinner spots,” Graydon Carter was quoted in the article. “I think it’s important to give people an alternative to the chic place-of-the-moment look so prevalent with new ones.”
So, I got all gussied up and swanned into the Monkey Bar last week. After walking through the spacious bar and lounge, I was greeted by a handsome, flop-haired young man (25 years old, I’d say), who was exceedingly happy to see me. It turns out that he’s the son of the actor Peter Coyote, and he’s full of charm.
Fashion legend Isabella Blow's archive of ultimates–Alexander McQueen and Philip Treacy – are set to hit Christie's auction house come September 15th 2010. A coffee table tribute book will be published to accompany the out of sight auction.
WWD reports the sale will include 50 Treacy hats and 90 styles by McQueen, whose graduate collection Blow famously purchased — and paid for in regular installments. Museums, Institutions, Designers, Admirers– this auction is not to be missed!
VAGINAL DAVIS IS SPEAKING FROM THE DIAPHRAGM
AT PS 122 MAY 15 THROUGH MAY 27TH
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS BRUCE LA BRUCE
JUSTIN BOND AND MANY MORE..
"A performance artist of underground legend."
A performance piece that re-examines the heyday of 1970s American daytime television chat and variety programs. Taking the format of legendary talk shows like The Mike Douglas Show and Dinah!, which starred lesbian icon Dinah Shore. Ms Davis isn't interested in assimilating into the mainstream entertainment complex, but instead wishes to dissect a kind of TV staple and reconfigure it by presenting an array of live and Skype guests from the various worlds of literature, dance, theatre, film and art she has intersected in her over 30 year career as a performance and live artist, writer and cultural raconteur. With guest hosts, Downtown treasure Carmelita Tropicana, and Jennifer Miller the famed bearded lady of Circus Amok expect ten days of the unexpected, the unusual and the sublime. For schedules and further info head to PS 122.
