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

I’m at an Art/Design opening tonight at 40 Walker Street in Tribecca as part of Design Week NYC – I stumbled upon this opening almost by accident, but am quite enjoying the choices of lighting and posters chosen.

O.Pad is at Opad.com and you can email Chris@opad.com or call 212-485-6190 if you want you want to see more.

Meanwhile – here’s some photos I took tonight at O.Pad’s opening.

Was at a private art opening of Laurent Dauptain tonight and had a really nice time meeting with the publicist and artist.

One of the things that strikes me in doing figurative work is that it is very hard to be original and fresh, especially with so many hundreds of years of portraits both seen and unseen.

Laurent managed to keep his work fresh and interesting when it could just as easily not been.

I felt really good being in frount of his work even as I wondered if anything might still be missing. Sipping some wine I flashed back to all the times I painted the familar and got stuck.

Usually I could work through bordum… But Laurant seems to have bypassed bordum all together – making his Paris street scenes look familar, yet fresh, new brushstrokes.

The self portraits bespeak someone who wanted a model, couldn’t find one, and chose himself, over and over.

Even as I stood there, sipping red wine, talking a nice publicist who was facinated with social media, I saw a painting being sold right before my eyes – it was a self portrait.

Laurent Dauptain’s show will run through May 29th
Axelle Fine Arts Galerie
535 W 25th St