It’s been so hot here in NYC that it’s hard to think about Art, except to say – let’s be inside to do Art – or be Art, and maybe, swim in it.

I’ve gone to a lot of openings of late but haven’t written about them including Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield at the Whitney.  This was truly a fantastic show and I didn’t realize how prolific or influential Burchfield was.   Of course, the room with one of the wall paper designs he created that was also juxtaposing his paintings from the period might have been a little to busy.  Nevertheless, the Whitney has had some first class stuff going on lately, including a bit of performance art that I actually liked (and I don’t tend to like performance art that much).

Charles Burchfield, An April Mood, 1946–55. Watercolor and charcoal on joined paper, 40 × 54 in. (101.6 × 137.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with partial funds from Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischman  55.39.

There’s a lot of good stuff I’ve seen lately but haven’t written about – catching up now – have to feed the Art Beast, after all.

Did you know there’s a new Art Establishment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn?  I didn’t – till I strolled in by accident about 2 weeks ago - it’s called The Invisible Dog – and is kitty corned next to the Coney Island bound Bergen Street F train stop.  I happened to walk in on a film screening – but what caught my eye was a large sculpture of the inside of an egg made from aluminum foil – as it turned out.     Here’s more information about the Invisible Dog:

The Invisible Dog, a new three-story art center in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, is an exuberant example of the integration of forward thinking and care for the past. The art center, admittedly, had a leg up: its home came equipped with an irresistable history. Built in the late nineteenth century, the 20,000 square-foot factory went through a number of industrial incarnations before its owners struck gold in the 1970s with the invisible dog trick: a stiff lease and collar surrounding the empty space where a dog would be. A mixture of party-hearty silliness and tongue-in-cheek trompe l’oeil, the trick became an icon of its era. But eventually public taste moved on; meanwhile, over the years, the Brooklyn neighborhood was changing. The factory closed its doors in the late 1990s; the boarded-up building was a blight on its quiet Brooklyn block.

There was also a store on premises where much of the art work could be purchased.  Nice!

Recently, I was on a romp at the Metropolitan Museum with a friend viewing An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo and the drawing show/collection  was quite impressive.  The Met describes the show this way:

Over the past twenty years, Julie and David Tobey have assembled one of the preeminent collections of Italian Old Master drawings in private hands. Ranging across the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, this exhibition, consisting of approximately seventy drawings, covers all the principal centers of Italian art—Florence, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Parma, Venice, Genoa, Milan—and features masterpieces by a distinguished roster of great draftsmen, among them Correggio, Bernini, Guercino, Guido Reni, Canaletto, and Tiepolo. Impressive in its variety, the gamut of subject matter includes figure studies, historical and mythological narratives, landscapes, vedute, botanical drawings, motifs copied from or inspired by classical antiquity, and designs for painted compositions.

Here’s what I think (if all my blogs were is a collection of press releases that people want me to mouth off on – I’d have nothing original to say – but that’s not who I am – and you’ll get my opinion and insights herein).

What’s interesting to me about the Italian Journey show is that it’s a collection created by an artist who is also well known for what he does – magazine illustrations – and in fact, many of David M. Tobey’s works are included in the show – and they are often as good as the masters’ he collected – amazing!

To be honest – I wonder h0w even David Tobey could afford to collect what he has – the selection is magnificent – the best drawings by pretty much – the best artists who drew well over the last 500 years or so.   This is a show to be returned to a few times.

Recently I was also at the Tamarind Art Gallery in Murray Hill for an opening called “His Story” that is running till July 24th, 2010.  According to the gallery notes:

Tamarind Art is proud to present “His Story” showcasing artist Hindol Brahmbhatt’s ‘painterly installations.’ Moving away from the narrative space of conventional realism (where time, space and subjects inhabiting pictorial space form a congruous whole); Hindol’s mixed media paintings can bring together in one frame, not only different times and spaces, but also elements from different cultures which have nothing in common with each other. To express this incongruity and chaos is actually an aim and significant formal device used in his story telling. To achieve this expression, artist incorporates a variety of mediums including digital photographs, torched wooden planks, etched plexiglass, japan ink, and acrylic on canvas. He takes inspiration from Renaissance art to pop culture to Asian pictorial traditions into his paintings giving viewers a new understanding about contemporary life and times. Beyond the visual appeal, the subject matter depicting the portraits of historical figures convey the idea that history has become a product, something to be displayed.

Was trying to decide just how much I liked/did not like this approach of mixing two types of materials together that normally don’t mech.   First of all, the paintings I’m told take a year to do each and part of it has to do with the woodworking – which I felt could have/should have been done via painting rather than adding the wood panels.

There is also a Plexiglas series of layers that do now show up in the photos of this Indian Artist.  Overall, I liked what I saw but I questioned the approach – the very thing I’m not allowed to question – as each artist is in control of what their approach is.

Finally, yesterday, July 1st, 2010 – there were a number of interesting openings including an exhibition that also featured the Astro Twins (who I briefly spoke with – as I sipped two glasses of Champagne) see SUMMER STARS WITH YOKO FURUSHO & THE ASTRO TWINS

- the Astro Twins were selling their dating book for woman looking to classify men based on their sign along with a summer forecast for each sign of the Zodiac – but they also overshadowed the art – while also driving a well attended and packed opening.   Actually, I had no real opinion about the art since I’m not up on Japanese stylization but I did feel the work had an audience here in NYC, I just wasn’t plugged into it – and probably did not want to be.

I also attended a show on the London Underground on Broadway that opened last night too which just happened to be live streamed to London – see http://www.ustream.tv/channel/underground-on-broadway

http://labellabling.com/2010/07/02/underground-on-broadway-soho/

I did not have much of an opinion on this show, and I wasn’t really aware of the London connection when I walked in – I think I would have liked it if that were a little more explicitly shown.  In fact, there was a second show of drawings on Pop-Up New York that I liked better – I think the drawing below will tell why:

Pop-Up NY

July 1st – 15th, 2010

I don’ pretend to understand why this show is happening – I don’t – but I really like the drawings – they are marvelous – even if I don’t understand all they are saying.

Finally – yes finally -here’s a drawing of mine from my last trip to London, Bath, Stonehenge and Torquay last spring – it’s a good friend of mine who goes under the identity of “Zee West” though that’s not her real name.

Yes, I’m still painting – just not as often.

I was at the Dream Hotel Penthouse on W.55th street for a private party and really liked what I saw.

The whole thing was arranged though a company called VIP Talent Connect that has been operating for the last 3 years as a conduit of aspiring actors, models, dancers and playwrights and Hollywood.

Got a surprise chance to listen to a Rock Concert featuring the son of Mick Jaguar – I took a few videos and put this one up, can’t say it’s the best as I didn’t hear anything all great last night but then again, my videos taken with the iPhone, was picking up a delay loop of a few microseconds that was throwing the sound off even more.

There’s also several art openings I’ve been to lately but haven’t had a chance to write about (yet).

I was at the Whitney Biennial earlier today an with the exception of a few works – I didn’t get much out of the experience.

I liked Pae White’s large mural/rug the best – and it was beautiful to look at close up as well as at a distance.  Here’s more information about the work above.

BORN 1963 IN PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
LIVES AND WORKS IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Ignoring traditional boundaries between the applied and fine arts, Pae White encourages viewers to take a deeper look at familiar encounters and ordinary objects. In 2006, White began creating tapestries with photographic images of crumpled aluminum foil and plumes of smoke. Still, Untitled, one of her most recent smoke tapestries, stages what White describes as the cotton’s “dream of becoming something other than itself” by contrasting an image of something immaterial with the physicality of fabric. This vision of an ephemeral moment suspended in space—the slight and fleeting unfurling of smoke monumentality in the heroic tradition of tapestries—transforms an everyday image into a seductive evocation of transience and longing.

I find the problem I often have with modern work is that it demands my attention yet often fails to give me a convincing reason why I should grant it.

The other problem with the Whitney Biennial work I saw today was the lack of any context or suggested way of viewing the works – on one hand – all this work is demanded of the viewer – to understand what is often not much more than scribblings of the artist – meanwhile – there’s no suggested approach to viewing the works, in general.

On another note Robert Scoble wrote a post today on how the iPad is changing Art and Music.   While the iPad painting application still aren’t as good as I’d like them to be, I would consider buying an iPad just for a sketchpad – see the movie below