Artsy Fartsy.

(Let me preface this by saying that I am HORRIBLE when discussing art. Indulge me for a few minutes.)

In the past two weeks I have journeyed to MoMA twice and the Met once. For some reason I seem to be on an art kick recently as I find it is always a way to get inspiration for my dancing. In these visits I found that these two museums, while usually stunning, are both in a bit of a lull right now. There are some great pieces to be seen but overall the exhibits left me a little under whelmed.

At the end of the workweek, spoiled by having the day off on Saturday, I knew I needed to do something to energize myself. Mid mental-breakdown this week I had a brief “razor-plan” meeting with Sir David and he suggested going and exploring the galleries in Chelsea. “What a glamorous idea,” I thought to myself, having lived my whole life only seeing New York galleries in movies and never in person.

Armed with my Time Out New York and eager to see art from people I had never heard of, I walked my tired feet over to 10th Ave and proceeded to be amazed. The first gallery I entered was Anton Kern, which was showing the works of Brian Calvin. My first impression was purely just the feeling of being overwhelmed by how spacious and beautiful the gallery was. As I continued on during the day I realized that they only get more and more impressive; white walled warehouses with ceilings pouring light down into the space. It really was all out of a movie, if only I had been cavorting with New York elite and drinking champagne, it would have been complete.

(Brian Calvin's "emo" girls.)

Through all the art I viewed, I realized that some of my favorite works were by artists whose work at first seemed cliché. At times the subjects or approaches appeared old but were filled with a life that seemed completely new. First there was Brian Calvin, whose cartoon-ish young women seemed to jump out of a page from the graphic novel (and brilliant movie) “Ghost World.” Somehow these cartoons were also very human too.

Second and perhaps my favorite overall gallery was the work of Vik Muniz and his garbage Mythological constructions. It is such a common view in art to act profound by finding beauty in ugliness. It’s kind of the “American Beauty” syndrome of seeing garbage and realizing that everything around us is in its own way “art.” There was no pretentiousness in his meticulous creations, whose mammoth scale mirrored the larger than life subjects that he created. In the picture you cannot see everything quite as clearly but every single bit of the composition is a piece of garbage. Refrigerators, car parts, bolts, buckets, anything he could find was used to form these warehouse-sized renderings. It’s amazing to see how full of expression yet somehow completely fake looking these pieces were. They really were breathtaking.

(Vik Muniz makes Narcissus all trashy.)

Nothing even came close to being as breathtaking as Barnaby Furnas’ series of “Red Sea’s” works. Tucked in the back of the Marianne Boesky Gallery (on 24th between 10th and 11th…GO!) these three paintings are incredible. Anything as mammoth as a 30ft wide painting is going to be overwhelming but as I stood and looked between the three different works in the series I was almost paralyzed at how great they were. To create these he used a special technique where he holds up the canvas and pours the paint on, maneuvering the canvas to spread the paint. The three paintings are so different yet they all seem to just explode out of themselves. Like in dance, it’s always amazing to see such stillness being so powerful.

(My new favorite piece. Red gets me every time.)

Barnaby Furnas and Elizabeth Huey were two of the artists that made me reassess my ideas of art that use religious imagery. One was more in your face than the other but they both used approaches I had not seen before. There was an abstractness to them that was refreshing after my art history class of relentlessly dissecting religious iconography of Michelangelo’s work. I think that modern religious art is more my style than renderings of straightforward biblical texts.

This has ended up being especially long, mainly because I feel like I have discovered something completely new (even though I am probably the last person in New York to go) and felt so exhilarated by it. Such a change of pace from the museums, if you ever want a nice day of art, head to Chelsea!


CHANGE YOUR LINKS!!!!!