BWW Reviews: 3 Hot Summer Spots for Art: Turrell, Punk Couture and White Snow at the Guggenheim, MET and Park Ave. Armory

It is hard enough to know what we really see and experience. Are you feeling all life has to offer, is your head down or are you alive? It is even harder to know what others feel.

When two people see art do they see the same thing? No, definitely not. Lynn Stein and I enjoyed a day in NYC at the Guggenheim, the MET and the Park Avenue Armory. What did we see and how did we experience the same exhibits?

Our first stop was the Guggenheim. This was the luck of a vacant parking spot that put us within eyeshot of this quintessential NY building by the right architect. Originally criticized for looking like a washing machine, Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim is inspiring building both in and out even if it is incredibly difficult to hang large art on the rounded and relatively low Museum walls. I would be happy to go there and just see the building and not see any art. However I expect brilliance from this forever hot spot in the art world once tagged The Museum of Non-Objective Painting. Wrights Walls' deserves the respect of being graced by the best art by the best global artists in the best of all possible worlds.

Daniel Buren and Maurizio Cattelan at play in the great rotunda

Recently the Guggenheim has let me down. Maybe they too decided the walls are to hard to work. I have sensed a theme evolving from the curatorial crew to engage artists and installations that convert and transform the space with eager artists that hang art down the middle of the pinnacle of this art-cathedral like space. When will the Vatican redo the ceiling of their great vaulted building? Never. The Guggenheim might learn something from the Pope and realize they are chopping out some wright to put in some wrong. Maurizio Cattelan's recent retrospective exhibit comes to mind as does Daniel Buren's nothing but a mirror in the middle thing. After the Buren show I felt someone at the top should take the fall and be fired for the lack of art on the walls. The Cattlelan is eye-popping and a beautiful hang but those empty walls don't sit well with me.

The James Turrell exhibit should provoke another cutting at the top...but it wont. In all fairness the international crowd seemed to really like the center hall installation. The crowd looked like a Hamptons Jitney had taken the wrong turn and plopped the ready to tan hopeful Manhattanite escapees down on the Guggenheim's atrium floor(Note to self...do a flash crowd gathering of would be beachers all suited up in a museum setting...hit MOMA with this).

Turrell's art bathers gone purple and a fifties scene at the beach

Everyone was gazing up at Turrel's slowly changing color progressions not unlike you would at a late night showing of a celestial projection at the Museum of Natural history. Yes, I missed the Pink Floyd accompaniment and to get a rise out of the guard I asked if anyone was smoking pot inside. He sternly retorted that he was there to make sure that did not happen- wonder when he goes on brake? It had the feel of a hippie style 60's sit-in except that these were well-healed folks that might not call for or benefit from a social revolution.

The atriums view upward and Ikea's lighting

I overheard a mom say to her son that it looked like IKEA lights. Has IKEA come that far or has art stopped outpacing the mall?

James Turrell, Aten Reign, 2013. Daylight and LED light. Temporary site-specific installation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York © James Turrell. Photo: David Heald © SRGF

And pool lighting as advertised by Duke Electric in New Jersey.

Turrell's display was soothing and reminded me of the light show I watched at my friend's pool as we hung baked by the sun and other treats at his SlumHampton's retreat where homes fetch only 2-10 Mill- thick enough for me.

A few Greek guys were sitting next to me. Mix coffee with art and I am a blabber mouth. I quickly asked them what they thought of the light fest. They said they see the light at the end of the tunnel thing and that it would be a long trail for Greece. Each ring of color would take years to move past. We laughed together and were more human for a moment. I was enthused by this financial reference and their words gave credence to the myopic view we all bring to art and everything. We see what is relevant to us and overlay reality with what is on our minds what now we are in. Indeed they were partially joking, but partial clouds make for a sun-tanable day letting in some light.

One guard with the ask me-kick me sign was very informative. I asked him and got a good bit of knowledge. Others gathered to listen as I had opened up a box of description we were all eager to unfold.

Turrell's light play provokes questions out what we see, what is illusion, what has substance and the ephemeral nature of space and more.

What did my Compadre, Lynn Stein see?

Her thoughts:

"James Turrell at the Gugenheim is well worth the long lines; It is Turrell at his finest. It is even hard to imagine that the building was not specifically built for the piece-it is that seamlessly joined to the work and its environment. I'm sure many of you have seen the image but you have to experience it in person. It bathes you from the top of your head to the soles of you feet. After my jaw hit the ground as I entered the rotunda and I got my bearings there was a moment of selfishness for me. I wanted be to alone with the spirit Turrell created with this piece. It is quintessential Turrell in that the visitor is questioning what he sees and what is really there. I don't want to give too much away but the work and the timing of the changes conquers up a silent music. It was busy with many visitors and there was ample space to lay on the floor or sit back sloped upwards on the continuous benches. It never gets completely hot or icy cold, a conscientious choice. The smaller works do the same thing as the larger piece except they are completely condensed and feel jewel like. There is asmall whiff of magic trickery but I was willing to go all in and be taken away."

Different strokes for different folks. But as I have sat with the work in my minds eye it rests very pleasingly and I wonder if our memories were coated with images like Turrell provokes at the Guggenheim might this not be a greener ball to bounce around on.

We headed to the MET, our original first stop and indeed the best first stop for art in NYC and maybe the world. Our goal was to see the Punk exhibit. The show was in the same exhibit hall as the famous blockbuster show by Alexander McQueen about a year ago or so. Both exhibits share a similar feel. The walls were eroded and blackened too anything but that which you would expect in a museum. Music played, large videos helped promote visual overload and poignant snipets sounded out from above. Sid Viscous seemed to be elevated to a God. Does he even belong in a Museum- a Museum as great as the MET? Is this fashion meant to give your mind a brake from the serious art elsewhere and are the curatorial crew just bighting their nails and happily counting the cash?

Note to the frugal and wise...just give a penny to enter the MET. Their printed pricing is suggested in small letters and it is worth the dirty look to give a penny. As well, the MET is very well endowed as everyone with any money wants to be associated with this grande-dame of art world venues.

Lynn and I had the same assessment of the exhibit. As she put it:

"Punk Couture at the Met is a contradiction in and of it self. I will try to keep the claws at bay. Having lived exactly at the right time in the right place, the lower east side 1977-1981, I felt particularly close with high expectations. It's interesting to witness a show filled with trickle up effects of what the kids were wearing back then. Real street punk looks, as cool as it did then, but maybe I'm partial. I missed the examples of the actual original garment side by side with the couture versions. The wigs were over whelming and I for one find it hard to believe that that was the best solution the MET could come up with; Not to mention that there were so so many punk hair shapes that were just as important as the white t-shirts, purple lipsticks and high heels with tight black jeans. I felt memories of Bloomingdales and the need to create spectacle with black clothes, white clothes and real good gold plated safety pines.

The street wear and the couture versions of it all never seem to meet and instead the viewer it faced with an over load of black. For me I had a hard time seeing the couture versions in the space that looked labored to reflect the original scene. But those wigs have got to go? Who signed off on those anyway?"

Though it was one of the flashier VIP openings of the year, thumbs pointing downward for this Punk gone Museum world presentation. Maybe things like culture, street art and more can not be recreated in a vacuum. Does graffiti loose something when it is in a museum and not on a subway car? Does a kick the can real life performance piece by David Hammons while walk in Haarlem 30 + years ago be all it can be in it's moment and is there something not captureable on video. In essence it is untransportable Scotty and locked in the Einstein wrapping of space and time as one.

Lastly we hit the Armory on Park near 67th street to see what Walt might have done in the back lot on a bad acid trip. Snow White (or White Snow if I must), is dancing on a monstrous video, jiggling her prime parts as they plop out for peeks at who is looking. We are looking and quite disgustedly. A stage set like construction creates the not quite dream house Ms. White/Ms. Snow lived in cause the Regency was booked. The artist dressed up and the raunchy party began with videos capturing all the ridiculousness and silly sleeze we have all experienced at the bad frat house on campus or at that new years eve party we hope to forget. The housing structures hosts the trail of debauchery and vomit filled toilet bowls that leave you hunger-less and wishing you stayed basking in Turrell's peaceful light.

The sounds overlaying the exhibit are thrust at you and do not make you feel all warm and cozy. I asked a guard and he told me lots of folks ask how they stand being in this setting hour after hour, day after day. Lynn and I agreed that this Disneyland ride left you uncomfortable, sick and horrified. Is this the goal of art- to shock and awe like a Vietnam or Iraqi campaign? Yes, but more no here.

In all fairness the artist is playing with our ideals, our crystal pure vision of happiness in the land of the free and the home of the brave. He is saying all is not quite right in dreamland and America. In the end at best this art will give you a nightmare or two.

On the other hand the gift shop was hilarious. The prices were reasonable and I am sure you could buy something that appreciated in value just by its presence in the show and that all important signature and claiming of the object Mr. McCarthy scribbled. The part of Mr. McCarthy's discussion of the work screening in the video room would be better missed. After I heard him explain the difference between Snow White and White Snow and the magical transformation he had created by just switching her name around I smelled a stinkier fish that made the regurgitated vomit bring back fonder aromas.

Through September 25th and free Saturday nights.

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell

The juxtaposition of seeing all three exhibits in one day was great and walkable. There is a soft Jungian archetypal context that binds these exhibitions to our culture, to our time and to our now. I am just not so sure these are the best of times for art and culture. That best of all possible worlds always appears to be slightly ahead around a bend of our forever flowing stream.

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