A while ago we went to see the Banksy film Exit Through the Gift Shop. We love street art so we knew we would love this film. It was fantastic! Great music, funny and really makes you think about what is art. By far Banksy is one of the most talented street artists out there. This is a must see.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
21 June 2010
24 April 2009
fischerspooner
Last night we went to the first of three open rehearsals Fischerspooner was holding at The Performing Garage in Soho. Each rehearsal holds 60 people so it was very intimate. It was BRILLIANT!! The new direction that they are moving in is so incredible. Their creativity is beyond words, each time we see them we are in complete awe.
If they are coming to a city near you, you must go. We promise you will be so glad you went.
18 November 2008
designer art
At the beginning of November we went to the Chanel Mobile Art exhibit in Central Park. It was what I needed after working 8 days in a row and I was ready for something to get me out of my work haze. I haven't stopped thinking or talking about this exhibit since we went-it was AMAZING and I loved every minute of it.
Basically it's a project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the quilted Chanel bag (which I now suddenly kinda want one-oh they're good). So Karl Lagerfeld asked architect Zaha Hadid to create her interpretation of the inside a Chanel bag and then 11 other artists contributed works that were inspired by Chanel for the interior. It was free to attend but you had to have a ticket which we didn't know about and they were all gone months ago. We don't let that kind of thing get in our way as we are savvy in the ways of these kinds of events (sold out Sundance films are never sold out and I've only not gotten into a film once and I've been to a lot). We wait listed for two hours and got in easy peasy. Being fans of The Man we're used to waiting in lines and this was nothing compared to those lines.
So they let people in groups of about 30 at a time every 15 minutes and all of the workers were so nice and friendly. Even though you're in a small group they break it down even more to about two or three at a time for baggage check. After you check your bag and coat they sit you down on a bench and bring you a little headphones/MP3 player and tell you to wait for someone to come set it for you. Another person then comes over and sets it to the volume you prefer and explains that they are starting yours 10 seconds apart from each other for personal reflection. Then you wait for the narration to begin.
Okay, little did I know that the narrator is a voice I love, love, love. Her name is Jeanne Moreau and she has a deep, husky voice and I could listen to her talk all day (she is the narrator in the Drew Barrymore flick Ever After). There are various points throughout the structure and I'm not going to describe all of them-just my two favorites. A little way through you walk into a long narrow hallway where there is a bench to lean on. Across from you there is a wall that stops a foot from the floor and you can see a cobbled street with a puddle all along the hallway. It takes a minute for you eyes to adjust and THEN... I can hear in my headphones dripping water and I see the drips in the puddles but it keeps going and you see an upside down reflection of houses in Paris with little Chanel logos and there is the sound of talking and drapes opening/closing and you see little movements of life in the reflection. Then it goes from day to night while all this activity is going on. It was so beautiful to me I just wanted to stay in there all day but my narrator lady had us moving on.
My other favorite piece was at the end and we had to write out a wish and tie it to a tree. The point is to empty your "bag" and bare your soul. Then we went to the bag check and they give you a large magazine type catalog (a gift from Chanel) of the exhibit since photographs aren't allowed inside. Heidi and I left so refreshed and calm-almost like we'd been to a spa. It was such a brilliant experience and I was so sad it is temporary-it's moving on to London next. After we left the exhibit we walked through the park for awhile to enjoy the beautiful weather and just being in some nature for a change.
I've been struggling lately with being in NY and wondering what the hell I'm doing here but I'm back in the groove of loving it for opportunities like this where I get to experience something so magical that reminds me it's been worth it so far (my eight month mark was at the beginning of November-Yay!).
--Katie
P.S. I found this girls blog about this as well-check it out!
Basically it's a project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the quilted Chanel bag (which I now suddenly kinda want one-oh they're good). So Karl Lagerfeld asked architect Zaha Hadid to create her interpretation of the inside a Chanel bag and then 11 other artists contributed works that were inspired by Chanel for the interior. It was free to attend but you had to have a ticket which we didn't know about and they were all gone months ago. We don't let that kind of thing get in our way as we are savvy in the ways of these kinds of events (sold out Sundance films are never sold out and I've only not gotten into a film once and I've been to a lot). We wait listed for two hours and got in easy peasy. Being fans of The Man we're used to waiting in lines and this was nothing compared to those lines.
So they let people in groups of about 30 at a time every 15 minutes and all of the workers were so nice and friendly. Even though you're in a small group they break it down even more to about two or three at a time for baggage check. After you check your bag and coat they sit you down on a bench and bring you a little headphones/MP3 player and tell you to wait for someone to come set it for you. Another person then comes over and sets it to the volume you prefer and explains that they are starting yours 10 seconds apart from each other for personal reflection. Then you wait for the narration to begin.
Okay, little did I know that the narrator is a voice I love, love, love. Her name is Jeanne Moreau and she has a deep, husky voice and I could listen to her talk all day (she is the narrator in the Drew Barrymore flick Ever After). There are various points throughout the structure and I'm not going to describe all of them-just my two favorites. A little way through you walk into a long narrow hallway where there is a bench to lean on. Across from you there is a wall that stops a foot from the floor and you can see a cobbled street with a puddle all along the hallway. It takes a minute for you eyes to adjust and THEN... I can hear in my headphones dripping water and I see the drips in the puddles but it keeps going and you see an upside down reflection of houses in Paris with little Chanel logos and there is the sound of talking and drapes opening/closing and you see little movements of life in the reflection. Then it goes from day to night while all this activity is going on. It was so beautiful to me I just wanted to stay in there all day but my narrator lady had us moving on.
My other favorite piece was at the end and we had to write out a wish and tie it to a tree. The point is to empty your "bag" and bare your soul. Then we went to the bag check and they give you a large magazine type catalog (a gift from Chanel) of the exhibit since photographs aren't allowed inside. Heidi and I left so refreshed and calm-almost like we'd been to a spa. It was such a brilliant experience and I was so sad it is temporary-it's moving on to London next. After we left the exhibit we walked through the park for awhile to enjoy the beautiful weather and just being in some nature for a change.
I've been struggling lately with being in NY and wondering what the hell I'm doing here but I'm back in the groove of loving it for opportunities like this where I get to experience something so magical that reminds me it's been worth it so far (my eight month mark was at the beginning of November-Yay!).
--Katie
P.S. I found this girls blog about this as well-check it out!
21 October 2008
makes me happy
I'm so smitten with the work of Kat MacLeod. Her illustrations are so lovely and I just want to be one of those girls with their great outfits and fun hair.
I love the way she uses a mixture of different medias and even thought it's a flat image there is still a texturized quality to them that attracts me. They also remind me a bit of Egon Scheile (one of my favorite artists-especially "Sitting Woman with Legs Drawn Up"). Once upon a time I fancied myself to be an artist and if I were I'd want to be like Kat or painter Elizabeth Peyton who has an exhibit that just opened at The New Museum. I haven't gone yet but plans are being made for a night to get over there and drool for awhile. I'm such a girl-I really love simple and pretty pictures (yet I also love the dark work of Francis Bacon and Lucien Frued hmmmm...).
--Katie
06 September 2008
i'm looking to you to save me?
Heidi found a great poster site and they have this for sale.
I'm not totally thrilled with the image since it's a tomkat reference but maybe I'll consider it. There are definitely other prints that we are loving so I'm sure if anyone were to come and visit they might see one of these in our abode sometime.
--Katie
I'm not totally thrilled with the image since it's a tomkat reference but maybe I'll consider it. There are definitely other prints that we are loving so I'm sure if anyone were to come and visit they might see one of these in our abode sometime.
--Katie
13 June 2008
boston-day two
We had a slow start since we were so tired from the day before and didn't even make it out of our room until noon. First on our list of things to do was to hit the Museum of Fine Arts. It's currently under a bit of construction so there were some areas closed off but we still managed to spend 3 hours there. Our absolute favorite exhibit was Antonio Lopez Garcia's. His subjects are mostly common and simple but really powerful in their impact with something so basic as his use of lighting (it's the all those art history papers I wrote coming out isn't it?).
Apparently it can take years for him to complete a painting while he waits for the the light to be the same every time he works on it. He's both a painter and a sculptor and there were these giant baby heads on the lawn of the museum that are quite stunning when you first come up to the museum.
There was also an exhibit of British prints that was in it's final week-so we were lucky to see that and gush over it's loveliness. The prints had such great uses of color and shapes and anything pertaining to Britain makes us happy.
Our one gripe of the museum was the poor placement of the bag check. To get to your bag and go to the gift shop you had to walk through the museum and they MADE us check our purses. We had to go to bag check, get out our wallets and then check our bags again, then go through the museum to the gift shop to check out the books (they were out of the catalog for Antonio Lopez Garcia! but we did get a great photography book on Berlin for $7!) then schlep all the way back to the damn bag check to get our bags again and THEN leave.
After the museum we were starving so we headed to Cambridge to get something to eat and check out that hood. We hit an Urban Outfitters where we got our second cool book for the day (more of them to come) this one is about Swedish graphic designer Olle Eksell and we got it for only$5! It's all in Japanese but it's the graphics we love anyway.
The local vegetarian cafe was having it's annual spoken word festival so they were only doing take away which resulted in us going across the ally to some Mexican joint that turned out to be not that bad. They had a vegetarian empananda with black beans, corn and red pepper sauce that was pretty good for a non-fan of Mexican food (I like it-I just don't LOVE it for all of you gasping in horror over that comment). Our server was very ivy league and a nice guy who looked like the pervy friend from Adventures In Babysitting. We felt so bad for him since he had two large tables and 4 small ones and was constantly going, going, going.
After dinner we just walked around and admired the architecture. There were a few interesting mixes of modern architecture on some streets with all period architecture.
Then we found a cemetery that was open for us to explore. While we were there a woman came in and asked us if we were interested in a mini tour of the place since she gave them. Yes, please! It was very interesting and informative-she knew her stuff and we had a great time with her until it got too dark to really see anymore. Her name is Donna La Rue and she has been a burying ground researcher for years. It doesn't take much for us to get excited over a cool old cemetery and we have been known to visit them whenever we can in our travels (Manchester, Dublin, London, and Paris) We have our eyes on Greenwood in Brooklyn but haven't made it yet.
After we left the cemetery we decided we need some ice cream to finish off our evening, so we wandered around Harvard Square looking for an ice cream shop and happened upon the Harvard Bookstore. We found a few interesting books on sale (just add them to the pile!) plus we received a great recommendation for frozen yogurt from the girl that helped us. We both got grapefruit frozen yogurt that was so yummy-Heidi got chocolate chips on top while I got strawberries. We've never had grapefruit frozen yogurt (sounded a little gross) but it was fantastic! After that, it was getting late, our new books were getting heavy, and everything was closing so we headed back to our hotel and took advantage of our rooms TV and watched a little bit of the Deadliest Catch marathon on the Discovery channel.
Apparently it can take years for him to complete a painting while he waits for the the light to be the same every time he works on it. He's both a painter and a sculptor and there were these giant baby heads on the lawn of the museum that are quite stunning when you first come up to the museum.
There was also an exhibit of British prints that was in it's final week-so we were lucky to see that and gush over it's loveliness. The prints had such great uses of color and shapes and anything pertaining to Britain makes us happy.
Our one gripe of the museum was the poor placement of the bag check. To get to your bag and go to the gift shop you had to walk through the museum and they MADE us check our purses. We had to go to bag check, get out our wallets and then check our bags again, then go through the museum to the gift shop to check out the books (they were out of the catalog for Antonio Lopez Garcia! but we did get a great photography book on Berlin for $7!) then schlep all the way back to the damn bag check to get our bags again and THEN leave.
After the museum we were starving so we headed to Cambridge to get something to eat and check out that hood. We hit an Urban Outfitters where we got our second cool book for the day (more of them to come) this one is about Swedish graphic designer Olle Eksell and we got it for only$5! It's all in Japanese but it's the graphics we love anyway.
The local vegetarian cafe was having it's annual spoken word festival so they were only doing take away which resulted in us going across the ally to some Mexican joint that turned out to be not that bad. They had a vegetarian empananda with black beans, corn and red pepper sauce that was pretty good for a non-fan of Mexican food (I like it-I just don't LOVE it for all of you gasping in horror over that comment). Our server was very ivy league and a nice guy who looked like the pervy friend from Adventures In Babysitting. We felt so bad for him since he had two large tables and 4 small ones and was constantly going, going, going.
After dinner we just walked around and admired the architecture. There were a few interesting mixes of modern architecture on some streets with all period architecture.
Then we found a cemetery that was open for us to explore. While we were there a woman came in and asked us if we were interested in a mini tour of the place since she gave them. Yes, please! It was very interesting and informative-she knew her stuff and we had a great time with her until it got too dark to really see anymore. Her name is Donna La Rue and she has been a burying ground researcher for years. It doesn't take much for us to get excited over a cool old cemetery and we have been known to visit them whenever we can in our travels (Manchester, Dublin, London, and Paris) We have our eyes on Greenwood in Brooklyn but haven't made it yet.
After we left the cemetery we decided we need some ice cream to finish off our evening, so we wandered around Harvard Square looking for an ice cream shop and happened upon the Harvard Bookstore. We found a few interesting books on sale (just add them to the pile!) plus we received a great recommendation for frozen yogurt from the girl that helped us. We both got grapefruit frozen yogurt that was so yummy-Heidi got chocolate chips on top while I got strawberries. We've never had grapefruit frozen yogurt (sounded a little gross) but it was fantastic! After that, it was getting late, our new books were getting heavy, and everything was closing so we headed back to our hotel and took advantage of our rooms TV and watched a little bit of the Deadliest Catch marathon on the Discovery channel.
08 June 2008
boston-day one
For Memorial weekend we both had Saturday through Monday off so we decided to get out of town and go to Boston since we'd never been there and thought it was about time to check it out. We left our flat bright and early Saturday morning at 6am to catch the 7am Fung Wah bus (it's only $15 each way, who can beat that?) Our bus must have had wings because we got to Boston by 10:15 and we weren't really expecting to get there until 11 or 11:30. It was a mega-bonus for us to check into our hotel early and drop of our bags as well. We stayed at a Marriott Courtyard in South Boston and it felt like we were in a palace after being cramped in our tiny room in Brooklyn for the last 3 months. This room was twice the size, had a TV (of course it would-but we don't have one so it was exciting to us) the beds were so BIG and comfy, and it had a lovely bathroom. We were in heaven! Seriously... it was so hard to leave all that space and comfort.
Once renewed and refreshed, we didn't have set plans so we decided to hit one of the museums we wanted to go to while there. We took the silver line on the T (Boston's public transport), it's quite strange. It's a bus that goes underground in a tunnel. The other thing we noticed immediately with Boston's trains/buses is the quiet. There was hardly anyone around and we felt a bit like we were in a film where there is some disease that wipes everyone out and all that's left are zombies. It was like that pretty much all weekend-people got out of town while we came into town. It was nice to get away from constant people, people, people everywhere.
Our first stop was to check out the Institute of Contemporary Art which was small but everything on exhibit was fantastic!!
The New Museum in NY could learn some things from them. The ICA is located right by a bay and there were some sailboats cruising around and a nice breeze. May we just add that the ICA building has a fabbity-fab elevator. Yes, we were smitten with their giant elevator and it's lovely glass and wood. We could have spent a few hours watching the elevator go up and down. After the ICA we walked around the area but there wasn't much else to do unless we wanted to take a ferry somewhere-which we didn't.
We decided to go to Newbury Street since our friend Maddy suggested it and walked for quite awhile around there.
It's a lot of little boutiques/shops and for some reason it reminded us of a high street in any town, England. Hmmm... Throughout the weekend little things would remind us of England which made us a bit sad. Two years ago we were living it up all over England with "The Man" on tour having a great time. We walked and walked and walked and just checked out the various buildings as we usually do when we explore new cities. We eventually came to a large park and walked though it.
While in the park we saw 4 brides and grooms getting their photos taken. It's the season-blech. Of coarse we had to rate the various brides and their dresses-it's what we do. Sidenote-Bostonians are seriously lacking in the fashion department-we saw a lot of horrible outfits/hairstyles and while we aren't the fashion police we are still going to mock your bad outfit. We loved the old architecture of the city and took a lot of pictures of buildings.
We were getting pretty tired after walking all over so we decided to hit a movie since neither of us had been to one one in months. We went to Chronicles of Narnia:Prince Caspian and really liked it a lot-maybe even more than the first one. If you see it-Eddie Izzard is the voice to a mouse and that really made our day since we adore Mr. Izzard and we will be going to see him at Radio City at the end of June. After the film we were so exhausted from our long day we went back to our room and crashed. Really-it was a struggle to even get into our jim jams.
*up next-day two WOOP WOOP!
Once renewed and refreshed, we didn't have set plans so we decided to hit one of the museums we wanted to go to while there. We took the silver line on the T (Boston's public transport), it's quite strange. It's a bus that goes underground in a tunnel. The other thing we noticed immediately with Boston's trains/buses is the quiet. There was hardly anyone around and we felt a bit like we were in a film where there is some disease that wipes everyone out and all that's left are zombies. It was like that pretty much all weekend-people got out of town while we came into town. It was nice to get away from constant people, people, people everywhere.
Our first stop was to check out the Institute of Contemporary Art which was small but everything on exhibit was fantastic!!
The New Museum in NY could learn some things from them. The ICA is located right by a bay and there were some sailboats cruising around and a nice breeze. May we just add that the ICA building has a fabbity-fab elevator. Yes, we were smitten with their giant elevator and it's lovely glass and wood. We could have spent a few hours watching the elevator go up and down. After the ICA we walked around the area but there wasn't much else to do unless we wanted to take a ferry somewhere-which we didn't.
We decided to go to Newbury Street since our friend Maddy suggested it and walked for quite awhile around there.
It's a lot of little boutiques/shops and for some reason it reminded us of a high street in any town, England. Hmmm... Throughout the weekend little things would remind us of England which made us a bit sad. Two years ago we were living it up all over England with "The Man" on tour having a great time. We walked and walked and walked and just checked out the various buildings as we usually do when we explore new cities. We eventually came to a large park and walked though it.
While in the park we saw 4 brides and grooms getting their photos taken. It's the season-blech. Of coarse we had to rate the various brides and their dresses-it's what we do. Sidenote-Bostonians are seriously lacking in the fashion department-we saw a lot of horrible outfits/hairstyles and while we aren't the fashion police we are still going to mock your bad outfit. We loved the old architecture of the city and took a lot of pictures of buildings.
We were getting pretty tired after walking all over so we decided to hit a movie since neither of us had been to one one in months. We went to Chronicles of Narnia:Prince Caspian and really liked it a lot-maybe even more than the first one. If you see it-Eddie Izzard is the voice to a mouse and that really made our day since we adore Mr. Izzard and we will be going to see him at Radio City at the end of June. After the film we were so exhausted from our long day we went back to our room and crashed. Really-it was a struggle to even get into our jim jams.
*up next-day two WOOP WOOP!
15 May 2008
sold!
Tuesday night was the Christie's auction that I mentioned in this post. I worked late that night so I watched the auction online in between meeting prep. It was so intense to watch the auction live since I couldn't hear what was happening (no speakers on my work computer, argh!). All I could do was watch the price of each item go higher and higher. When the Kaufmann House came up the auctioneer spoke for awhile, probably talking about the history and design importance of the house. The bidding started somewhere around 9 million and climbed up to 15 million. Then the price just stayed there while the auctioneer was talking to someone off to the the right of him. Not having sound to hear what was happening I had to sit in anticipation and wonder what was happening. I envisioned someone bursting into the auction shouting "Stop! I must have that house! I will pay a bazillion dollars for it!" then the room would gasp. Of course that didn't happen but the mind wanders when you can't hear what's happening. The price finished at 15 million plus then with the buyer's premium it was 19 million in the end. This surprised me because I really thought that it would sell for much more. Who ever purchased the house got it for a steal.
The rest of the auction was very entertaining since there were many fantastic pieces that were going for insane amounts of money. There was a painting in the auction by Mark Rothko (one of our most favorite artists) that went for 50 million. It was the second highest amount ever paid for a Rothko piece. You can see the results of the entire auction here. Plus highlights of the auction here and here.
--heidi
**update 28 May**
The sale fell through. On May 23, the president of Christie’s said that “the contract has been terminated by the seller by reason of a breach of its terms by the buyer.”
The rest of the auction was very entertaining since there were many fantastic pieces that were going for insane amounts of money. There was a painting in the auction by Mark Rothko (one of our most favorite artists) that went for 50 million. It was the second highest amount ever paid for a Rothko piece. You can see the results of the entire auction here. Plus highlights of the auction here and here.
--heidi
**update 28 May**
The sale fell through. On May 23, the president of Christie’s said that “the contract has been terminated by the seller by reason of a breach of its terms by the buyer.”
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