The new retrospective of Balenciaga fashion at the incantatory Musée Bourdelle focuses on the Noir - and that gave the curators a lot to consider. The show is not as well installed as the previous retro of Madame Gres but the enchanting sculpture and bric a brac of the sculptor whose studio this was make a perfect backdrop for the draping and bias cut of the very contemporary looking dresses and suits.
Paris
I love Paris. Each shop so highly curated. Some things don't change even if the world going to hell in handbasket.
Politics in Paris
Landed in a giant rally for François Fillon who is on the verge of being pushed out of the race for president due to corruption scandal. Massive turnout to save his candidacy. Thousands fear it could instead now be Marine Le Pen, their version of Donald Trump.
Separated at Birth?
Separated at Birth? Rick Owens, Fall 2017, and Pablo Picasso's Parade, 1917.
Mary Quant and Pierre Cardin at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Mary Quant and Pierre Cardin at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
Fashion week apace and everyone in white sneakers in the rain.
Wish instead for more sixties as in Sheila Weller's great fashion piece in Vanity Fair.
Louise Bourgeois at the Peter Blum Gallery
The saddest story in the world written and illustrated by Louise Bourgeois at the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) show (67 st) at Peter Blum Gallery. Since seeing this at Guggenheim retro I have cherished it as the last word on love affairs gone awry.
Cthchoukine at LVMH Paris
Here at the last days of the Cthchoukine exhibit at LVMH Paris. Worth hauling 6000 miles. The Picassos and Matisses all together in the galleries. A once in lifetime thrill. So many paintings previously known to me only in books.
Jeanne Gang's TED Talk
Jeanne Gang: Buildings that blend nature and city
A skyscraper that channels the breeze ... a building that creates community around a hearth ... Jeanne Gang uses architecture to build relationships. In this engaging tour of her work, Gang invites us into buildings large and small, from a surprising local community center to a landmark Chicago skyscraper.
Jeanne Gang finds ways to connect things that aren't naturally cohesive at first glance. At the Architecture Biennale in Chicago, her hometown, she paired cops and kids in a space playing basketball. Her new Ted talk expands on that theme.
Artists Take on Trump
Like many other arts institutions, the Petzel Galleryin New York has had to figure out what to do about Trump. Some institutions are closing. Instead, Petzel has been pro-active: they have mounted a selection of artists work in response to our President-elect or past work that is responsive. It is by turns cheeky, dramatic, and frightening. In addition, they have invited all-comers to submit their own video responses. One of my favorite artists, Dana Schutz, has captured Trump's descent in her usual spot-on visceral manner in a work she must have just recently completed. Perhaps it also warns us not to descend along with him. Painting by Dana Schutz, Trump Descending an Escalator, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery, New York.
Benjamin Millepied's On the Other Side
Benjamin Millepied has done his most mature and engaging work in On the Other Side for his L.A. Dance Project which had its premiere in London last spring and was performed in LA for the first time this past weekend. Mark Bradford did the beautiful, color-popped set and Alessandro Sartori the complementary costumes. Benjamin makes his dancers work hard, they spin and glide at breakneck speed. There were echoes for me in this piece of Dances at a Gathering, the Jerome Robbins piece which I had just seen at NY City Ballet so it was fresh in my mind. The duets and trios that populate this work are feisty and fearless. Also on the program was enchanting dancer Carla Korbes (also a company associate director) in the Wendy Whelan role in Chris Wheeldon’s After the Rain. She’s quite different but equally special. Acts for the Blind by Roy Assaf reminded me of the Uncle Thomas sequence in The King and I with its charming spoken biographical narrative. The Ace Theater is gorgeous in all its over-the-top encrusted glory and makes contemporary halls seem tame. All this to say: we are so lucky in Los Angeles to have Benjamin back.
Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves"
The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe playing at The Duke on 42nd Street has been extended. Do not miss this energetically synchronized ensemble performance directed by Lila Neugebauer. (Scott Rudin has a hand in as producer, somewhere there are surely plans afoot for a move or a movie and artistic director Katherine is daughter of mega player Bruce.) Meanwhile, DeLappe, who is still in grad school, has done for me what hardly any other playwright has been able to do: keep me at the edge of my seat, which in this case was the front row fronting on the fake turf of a soccer field so that every warm up stretch and ball drills were literally at my feet.
The play was extensively workshopped and developed, which shows that process works. This all female production about a season of a high school girls soccer team has sharp, rat-a-tat dialogue which reminded me of Billy Wilder's The Front Page more than anything else. The girls riff off each other, but multiple parallel conversations gradually pare down until the slightly deus ex machina sad end.
Anyone who has ever been on a team, watched a team, or has been the parent of anyone on a team will love this. Which includes just about everybody.
Festival Albertine
A belated shout out to Festival Albertine Books in French and English held at the Cultural Services | French Embassy in the US last month.
There could not have been a more timely event—and we didn’t even know Trump would be president then.
This series, moderated by Ta-Nehisi Coates, explored how France and the US are, or are not, addressing the issue of race in the arts.
A highlight for me was the dance panel moderated by Jennifer Homans ofNew York University and with the first public confession by Benjamin Millepied of just exactly went wrong for him at the Paris Opera. Normally these things are stuffed under the rug. But Benjamin’s outing of the Paris Opera Ballet’s historical racism—common to most ballet companies—was an eye opener.
What are we to do about cross cultural and cross racial collaboration and participation in the coming four years? Albertine attempted to at least define and describe it. Solutions will be even harder to come by, but must be in place in order to combat what will surely be a retreat from global exchange.
Gagosian Gallery Showcases Work of Pablo Picasso's Daughter Maya
As is typical with Pablo Picasso, forever engendering rivalry for attention even from beyond the grave, two gorgeous Picasso shows are now in New York. At Gagosian Gallery uptown, the bookstore gallery is ripe with Maya’s (his daughter by muse Marie-Thérèse) collection of warm and witty works of her father’s. (Interestingly, her collection includes some portraits of her successors Dora Maar and Jacqueline Roque, and Claude and Paloma, Picasso's children by Francoise Gilot). Most recently in the news for the contested sale of the sculpture of her mother to the Qataris, the collection she does still own is still quite remarkable. At the ALMINE RECH GALLERY nearby (Rech is the wife of Bernard, Picasso’s grandson by his first wife Olga), a number of important works are displayed alongside Alexander Calder’s work, proving that these two playful giants of 20th century art are easily able to co-exist and in fact improve upon brushing up against each other.
Do graze my previous reporting on the many wonderful Picasso shows that have gone up in recent years as heirs seem ready to agree the time is right to de-accession. I began with Picasso by helping to produce a film with Thirteen WNET New York after his death. As with all his women, I have been in his thrall ever since.
President Obama's Medals of Freedom
The President gave out his Medals of Freedom this week. I watched the ceremony on tv, here in LA it was afternoon and I stole eagerly away from an essay I have been wrestling with.
Instead I got to watch people who have wrestled with their arts successfully: Robert De Niro whom I first met when he was in Marty Scorcese’s Mean Streets and he would beg me for extra tickets for his friends; Robert Redford who starred in three of my favorite classics, All the Presidents Men, Out of Africa, and The Way We Were, Diana Ross who with the Supremes made her girl group as important as the Motown guys, Frank Gehry, a friend and one of our LA favorite adopted sons, Lorne Michaels who makes me laugh, Vin Scully our Dodger voice, Bruce the Boss who made much-put-upon New Jersey hip, and Maya Lin, another friend whose cuts into the earth and mounds on top of it have formed connective tissue to the environment and to memory. 21 in all, a 21 gun salute to the power of the arts and sciences, to talent, to working hard, to showing up, to staying true, to being dedicated.
All the while Trump was parading in and out of the NY Times, or rather slithering like the chameleon he is, trying to pretend he is really a New York closet liberal at heart.
The juxtaposition of these two events was enough to make me cry.
Emile Ardolino
It was the 23rd anniversary of the death of Emile Ardolino this week, known most widely for directing the beloved classic Dirty Dancing.
But Emile was actually most attached to his PBS roots via his work on Dance in America, the series that brought the best of dance to your living room. Emil worked with Balanchine, Robbins, Ailey, Paul Taylor and many other choreographers who at first resisted the idea that dance could shrink to the small screen but because of his brilliance and patience with these geniuses, he was able to overcome their fears
I was lucky enough to inherit some of this brilliance when I produced a comedy pilot for PBS. Ha. I know. PBS is not that funny. But we had writing stars like Chris Durang and Lew Black and John Guare and actors like Griffin Dunne and Alice Playten to launch us. And we had Emile.
Emile and I grew close during this renegade production over late nights. He had been in Oh Calcutta the racy off Broadway hit and I had been in SAB so we forged a deep bond. Emile then won an Oscar for He Makes me Feel like Dancing, his doc on the National Dance School and Hollywood beckoned.
I too had sold a few feature projects in LA and eventually moved out to LA around the same time as Emile. He lived near my children's school and so on my carpool days I would sometimes stop in for a coffee and we'd trade tales of our successes and failures.
But Emile had a secret. He had AIDS and was getting very sick. He never told me or many of his friends but felt he had to hide this. The meds available at the time were not effective and he relied on steroids to get him through
At the end I belatedly realized he was near death and tried to regroup but he was adamant that he not be seen. I was heartbroken.
Today you can still see his work-- and for this I am grateful. He died before Dancing with the Stars became a hit but nothing has the raw energy and grace that he imported into seeing dance on film or tv.
I miss him.
Rolex Awards in Los Angeles
The Rolex Awards were held last night in Los Angeles. I was the proverbial (art) fish out of water…..which alas is what so many of the marine biologists trying to save the planet say is happening all over the world as indigenous peoples who must rely on aquaculture for their living confront the equal but opposite imperative.
Donald Trump has made a climate denier the head of the EPA. This is troubling on so many levels—our compliance with Paris accords etc—but I wish he could have been in the audience last night as Rolex showcased individual scientific documentation about marine, plant and wildlife come a cropper. There is no disputing it, these researchers in the field are documenting first hand planetary destruction.
They are also tying in their efforts to build community based educational initiatives. In other words, they do not stop short of merely trying to reintroduce glaciers (Sonam Wangchuck) or save giant manta rays (Kerstin Forsberg) or help paralyzed people to walk again through robotics (Conor Walsh). They are extending their work to create schools, health care programs and alternative ways of public outreach so that their science is combined with hard, practical, local results.
Last year I attended the Rolex Arts Awards. It was also an extraordinary event. I was convinced by last night’s program that we need to mingle more with our fellow innovators in areas outside our own expertise in order to really make a global difference.
Take a look at the beautifully produced films on their website which tells these stories.
Talented Women of the Art World
In spite of Donald Trump and his kind, the art world is filled with talented women. This weekend I spent a little time talking with Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn (Salon 94), Amalia Dayan (Luxembourg Dayan) and Pilar Ordovas (Ordovas Gallery, London) each of whom is curating their galleries with an eye to history as well as commerce.
Rohatyn has taken on artists whose feminist clarion calls we have heard for some time: Marilyn Minter, Laurie Simmons, Katy Grannan, Betty Woodman, and Judy Chicago. Her ferocious drive has made her an art world star but she is in the trenches every day ferreting out other artists she does not represent like Barbara Chase-Riboud, the writer/artist whose sculpture is newly installed in her 94th Street branch.
Amalia Dayan is constantly turning up lesser known Italian mid century gems like Salvatore Scarpitta (who is school of Alberto Burri) as well as giving over her townhouse to newcomers like Alex Da Corte.
Pilar Ordovas has a temporary space up until January which you must see as it’s like a fine thematic museum exhibition on just about my favorite topic: Artists and Lovers. She has managed to get some extraordinary loans for this show which quietly, but dramatically shows how being in love can make your work better, or sometimes capsize the whole shebang.
Everyone has their eyes on the sales this week and the possible Trump effect. These gallerists will continue follow their own instincts and interests no matter what.
This is what we must all do.
MoMA Highlights Art of the 1960s
MoMA The Museum of Modern Art has reinstalled its fourth floor galleries and devoted them to a year by year survey of some of their vast holdings of art of the 1960s. I’m deep into research into this period so I was quite taken by it. A friend complained that it was too chronological; for my part, I found the year-by-year artistic journeys compelling.
Right now, this exhibition has tremendous resonance. While outside the police are lining up to protect our PEOTUS in his gilded lair, inside MoMA one sees artists reactions to the tumult of the sixties, a decade Trump is eager to annihilate as it represents the groundswell of civil rights, female reproductive rights and human rights.
Lying in the corner is Claus Oldenberg’s wilted ice cream cone. Across the way is Andy’s golden Marilyn, and around the corner is James Rosenquist’s F-111 room, originally painted for the Leo Castelli gallery which takes on the military industrial complex. A wall full of sixties posters, the Avedon Beatles images for Sargent Pepper, make the sixties seem like a colorful, playful era when the countervailing forces of dark were constantly gnawing away at our freedoms.
More poignant still are Henri Cartier-Bresson's images of the Paris student riots of '68 which echo so eerily what is going on right down the block. Is it possible that because Trump doesn’t really want to move into the White House anymore than he really wanted to be President that 5th Avenue is going to be blocked off forever and that New York City taxes will be going to maintain his presence?
He said last night on 60 minutes he wants to give back his salary. I think he will have to do more than that to accommodate his penchant for his Manhattan penthouse. Meanwhile, he should stop into MoMA, if he can get past the barricades. It may bode well for artists to have something to fight against.