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Lady-Made Nature

May 25, 2017 in Art Matters, Astro Matters, City Matters, Feminist Matters, Weather Matters

I had another bad writing day–can I write a book? is this something that should even happen?–so I put on my raincoat and sailed into this stormy day to look at paintings. Fine arts is a relatively new fascination for me. My mom has a BFA from Massachusetts College of Arts so I always focused more on film and literature (and fashion, who am I kidding?). Recently, though, I’ve really fallen in love with the rainbow time capsule offered by painting and, to a lesser degree, sculpture; I’ve even written critical essays about a few key shows this year.

I went to the Rachel Uffner gallery to ogle “Same Space, Different Day,” an exhibition featuring the paintings of Shara Hughes, who captures the glee of childhood with an old soul scope and a punkrock fairytale palette. Man o man, do I love her work. I first noticed it a year ago–she doesn’t live far from me in the Williamsburg-Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn–and today was lucky enough to talk to Ullner herself about what makes Hughes unique to people far savvier than me. Continue Reading →

The Magic Social Realism of Alice Neel

April 14, 2017 in Age Matters, Art Matters, Book Matters, City Matters, Country Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Reviews
    Born January 28, 1900, the painter Alice Neel grew up right along the twentieth century, though she was less a product of her time than a harbinger of times to come. Significant success eluded her until the sixties; a true Aquarian, she was built for that decade of upheaval–and this new century of upheaval, too. Today, her hard gems of truth and beauty illuminate what we most need to see.

    Neel first came on my radar as I was rushing through a gallery of contemporary paintings at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, were I screeched to a full stop in front of her 1974 portrait of former museum department head John I. H. Baur. With a palette of slate and ochre and a bold, almost slapdash brushstroke, she’d conveyed him as an institutional hack and a bemused enabler. It was rueful and rich, and though I hurried on, when I saw the Zwirner gallery was hosting a show of her work, I hurried right there as well.

    These paintings of her family, neighbors, friends, lovers, and political comrades in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side are not perfect. In some cases, they could ask more, tell more. But they resonate as few twentieth-century portraits do because they are so vibrant and cock-sure – so defiantly gripping.

    Hilton Als reviews theater, not fine arts, for The New Yorker. Yet he curated this Zwirner exhibition, perhaps because Neel’s intensely democratic curiosity mirrors his own. (His Neel book will be released this June.) In a catalog essay, he shares what this child of West Indian immigrants, raised in deep Brooklyn to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, initially recognized in her work Continue Reading →

Here Comes the Sun

March 20, 2017 in Art Matters, Astro Matters, Spirit Matters, Weather Matters

All hail the vernal equinox! This is a glorious day not just because there’ll be more light than darkness from here on in. It’s glorious because everything is perfectly balanced, and, more than most times, we can trust that what feels good is also right since that balance extends to each and every one of us. To reflect this hallowed equinox, I’ve chosen an Alice Neel painting of Andy Warhol superstars Ritta Redd and Jackie Curtis, who had a beautiful balance that was uniquely their own. Take a few moments to assess what is your unique balance—not according to a “should” so much as according to your most specific desires. While you’re at it, take a few more moments to thank the sun for being such a wonderfully constant life bearer. Even in our worst times, we are so lucky she glows upon us.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy