MuseumChick | Danee Gilmartin

Even though I moved into a new apartment this year, I am still in walking distance of Pier 94. So it seems that my criteria for living quarters is- must be close to art shows and Pinkberry.  Upon arriving, I grabbed all the reading material and maps, even though I NEVER use them. A quick look and I think, “Ah, I’m just going to wander but just in case I’ll pocket these”. This year’s Armory Show focused on Scandinavian Art and although I was told the show was smaller this year, I didn’t notice…

… but here are the pieces I did notice.

Always hard to miss and usually shocking, artist Andres Serrano’s photographs on display courtesy of the Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art Gallery.

My favorite booth was the Ronald Feldman Gallery’s labyrinth of transparencies from artist, Leon Golub. Walking around and looking through the violent imagery (seemingly images from war and oppression) gave a more involved experience.

Glaring at me from the corner were these creepy eyeballs that moved and blinked with the aid of a projector.

The highly decorative Americana booth of Ambach & Rice was dotted with baseballs signed by celebrities. I noticed that a few of the autographs were from Kurt Cobain, P.Diddy and Snookie.

It isn’t your eyes fooling you- this dangling phone appeared flattened and protruding from the wall. The guy next to me commented, “I wonder if it’s still useable” and I replied, “but who uses house phones anymore?”

It’s a wooden french macaron, so this self proclaimed macaron connoisseur had to take a picture.

Always one of my favorites and one that helped reinvent my life- El Anatsui. If I could have one piece it would be an El Anatsui. Bright bottle caps and wire made up this dimensional hanging sculpture.

©2012 Danee Gilmartin All rights reserved

After a winter stroll through the Socrates Sculpture Park, I walked one block south to The Noguchi Museum. This small duplex museum housed in a 1920s industrial building has an unrefined and modern feel with brick walls, cement floors, and exposed beamed ceilings- a sharp contrast to Noguchi’s smoothly polished and brightly colored pieces. With ample walking space in between pieces, even on this semi-crowded weekend I could stroll the museum unrushed and without distraction. This ideal situation for viewing art has been hard to find in NYC museums for me lately.

Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was a Japanese-American artist. Although born in Los Angeles, Noguchi lived in Japan in his young life, moving back to the US at age thirteen. While taking evening sculpture classes on New York’s Lower East Side, he decided to become an academic sculptor, training in the US and Paris. In 1938, he was first recognized in the US when he completed a stainless steel relief called “News” symbolizing the freedom of the press on the Associated Press building in Rockefeller Center. He went on to complete many outdoor sculptures in NYC, including my favorite, a modern, bright red and precariously balancing cube called “Red Cube”,  located in the financial district, off of Williams Street. For an example of Noguchi’s outdoor, unrefined sculpture go to Central Park. “Unidentified Object”, done in 1979, sits in the park by the Metropolitan Museum of art off of E 80th Street. My next mission is to get some pictures of these sculptures and post them for you. I’ll link them when I do.

Noguchi opened  and personally designed this museum in 1985, at that point this area was still mainly industrial. Today this area of Long Island City, Queens is quickly developing with brand new high rise condos that overlook the East River and quaint cafes.

©2012 Danee Gilmartin All rights reserved