Artshot: John Baldessari

1. John Baldessari, Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis

2. 14th Street MTA Stop, Tanquerey Ad featuring Branford Marsalis

Artshot: Mimi Vang Olsen, West Village

Whether you've seen her cards and calenders in stores or you've passed by her neighborhood fixture of a studio on Hudson in the West Village- you've probably contemplated having your pets portrait done by Mimi Vang Olsen. Her style is based on itinerate american folk paintings of the 19th century and she, after years of doing this work, is a master. Remarkably detailed with lyrical forms and patterns, her custom pet portraits are truly making the trip to her studio to see- not to mention, she's very charming!

 

Where: 545 Hudson Street, West Village

Who: Mimi Vang Olsen

What: Custom Pet Portait Artist

Rainy Landscape

 I hope this post finds you all well and relatively unscathed by Sandy....it's been a long week. I had taken the shots of a raindrops on the wrapping on a cardboard box a while back in Gramercy...they seem somehow appropriate now, as does the artwork of Melanie Comber. Ms. Comber's oil and pigment on canvases at Fine Art Society reference everything from daguerreotypes to lunar landings, snowy landscapes to viruses under a microscope. They are as foreign as they are familiar, as beautiful as they are inexplicably unsettling. It's been a strange week, so forgive (and enjoy) the stream-of- conscious imagery.

1. -minus- album artwork for Arctic Exhibition via Yahoo! Music UK and Ireland

2. Melanie Comber, No Man's Land

3.,5. Plastic Wrapped Cardboard, Gramercy Park

4. Jonnyphoto, Forgotten Moon

6. Melanie Comber, 123

7.  From Australia's First Arctic Expedition, Skeleton of a sea elephant and Harold Hamilton

Artshot: Chris Mooney

 Check out my friend, Chris Mooney's Flickr page- I'm a big fan of his work and his New York are particularly beautiful with a haunting quality that only Chris can capture.

Shiny and New

1., 3., 5., 7. Matthew Tischler

2., 4., 6. E15

Artshot: Edgar Honetschlager

1.,4. My pictures of the seats on the 1train

2. Edgar Honetschlager, David

3. Edgar Honetschlager, David Hockney

5. Edgar Honetschlager, Christian Fennesz

6. Edgar Honetschlager, Derek Jarman

Artshot: Ross Bleckner

1. Ross Bleckner, Middle Brother

2. Rusted Construction Dumpster, Chelsea

3. Ross Bleckner, Throbbing Hearts

Artshot: Antoni Tapies

Antoni Tapies, Objectes at Nicholas Gallery


Obviously, I'm on the subway quite a bit and find the decay of the tunnels and the ephemeral markings of the MTA and city workers fascinating....codes that patina and lose heir meeting with time. The top image is of numerical identifications I'm sure have been there for decades. The second (below), was photographed on the 1 train heading uptown...it's what looked like a USPS sticker that had been stuck to the fluorescent light above the subway doors, the wear and tear is subsequent months trying to remove it. All of the scrapes were backlight and I have to say, it was fantastic looking.

 Antoni Tapies, Broken Ground via Christie's

Ashcan Artists: Gramercy Park

 George Bellows via Wikipedia

East 19th Street (Between Irving Place and Third Avenue)

Known as "The Block Beautiful" - this is a row of mainly stuccoed buildings that were remodeled early in the 20th century by Frederick J. Sterner. The block was an informal colony for artists and writers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as author Ida Tarbell, painter Cecilia Beaux and the sculptor Zolnay. Music critic and novelist Carl Van Vechten, lived at 151 East 19th Street and with his neighbors, painters George Bellows and Robert Chanler, threw wild parties, about which Ethyl Barrymore commented, "I went there in the evening a young girl and came away in the morning an old woman."  - via Essortment

 George Bellows, The Studio

"At noonday the landscape is just as fine, just as mysterious and just as significant as it is at twilight." - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit (1923)

The scene is cool, summery and inviting, but this attractive corner of Gramercy Park is off limits to those without a key. It's one of the only two private parks in New York City. The other is in Queens. When I walked around the park last week, the only residents I glimpsed through the fence were toddlers in strollers accompanied by their nannies. An older residential section of Manhattan to the east of Park Avenue South and between E 20th St. and E 21st St., Gramercy Park exudes an aura of elite privilege and discretion.

Home to well-known actors and famous artists as well as members of New York society and politics throughout its history, the neighborhood makes a particularly good strolling destination. There's not much to do here except look at the buildings surrounding the park and on nearby streets (especially the so-called Block Beautiful on E. 19th), but since Gramercy Park sits at the center of one of the city's best restaurant areas, the streets around the park are perfect for a pre-dinner or post-lunch walk.

• The Park. The locked, fenced private park is accessible only to those with a key. An article in the NYT from June 19, 2008 profiles the park's guardian and self-appointed mayor and discusses some of the disputes among the neighbors about access. According to the article, about 400 keys exist. Many do not use them.
• TV series. Several TV series have used the park as a location including Ugly Betty, Fringe, Gossip Girl, and Law & Order (all franchises). I remember a particular Law & Order in which the victim was found in the park.

• Gramercy Park Hotel, 2 Lexington Avenue, NW corner Gramercy Park North and Lexington Ave. Julian Schnabel's interior is flamboyantly cool and with exceptional paintings by the artist, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others. With a tremendous fireplace, it feels like a Texas-French contemporary arts hacienda. Hotelier Ian Schrager also developed 50 Gramercy Park North, the private residences at the hotel. The hotel was famous as a comfortable bohemian destination long before its current renovation. A documentary by Douglas Keeve, Hotel Gramercy Park (2008), looks at the drama behind the scenes during the renovation.

• 10 Gramercy Park South. Home and studio of Ashcan School artist and teacher Robert Henri (1865-1929). Painter George Bellows also lived on the street.

-via Walking Off The Big Apple

Robert Henri via encyclopedia.com

 Robert Henri Class

Robert Henri, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney via Whitney for Kids

Pattern & Color: Union Square

The Artwork? Street artist in Union Square creating something magically temporary

The Furniture and Accessories? The German-based E15