Tag Archives: installation

Arts and Culture

Yayoi Kusama Retrospective at The Whitney Museum

Leave a comment

Yayoi Kusama Whitney Card

Well known for her use of dense patterns of polka dots and nets, as well as her intense, large-scale environments, Japanese multimedia artist Yayoi Kusama’s widely varied works include painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance and immersive installation. Born in Japan in 1929, Kusama came to the United States in 1957 and quickly found herself at the epicenter of the New York avant-garde. After achieving fame through groundbreaking exhibitions and art “happenings,” she returned to her native country in 1973 and is now one of Japan’s most prominent contemporary artists. This retrospective features works spanning Kusama’s career.
Continue reading Yayoi Kusama Retrospective at The Whitney Museum →

Arts and Culture

Tomás Saraceno’s Cloud City on the Roof of The Met

2 Comments

Tomas Saraceno Sculpture Cloud City
“Ooh, Big & Shiny”

Argentinian-born Artist Tomás Saraceno has created a constellation-like installation of large, interconnected modules constructed with transparent and reflective materials for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. Visitors may enter and walk through these habitat-like, modular structures, which are grouped in a nonlinear configuration.

Met Museum Front Tomas Saraceno

Over the past decade, Saraceno has established a practice of constructing habitable networks based upon complex geometries and interconnectivity that merge art, architecture and science. The interdisciplinary project “Cloud Cities/Air Port City” is rooted in the artist’s investigation of expanding the ways in which we inhabit and experience our environment.

SaracenoCloud City Sculpture Section Stairs
Interior Shot of Cloud City with Stairs

Museum guests wishing to physically climb up and into Cloud City can pick up a free, time-stamped ticket on the Museum’s 4th floor on the way to the the Roof (just ask the elevator operator to let you off). Guidelines for accessing/climbing the structure can be found at This Link.

Saraceno Sculpture Ticket Entry

Although we did not enter the Sculpture, Geoffrey and I enjoyed viewing and photographing it very much. Plus, you cannot beat the Roof of the Met for views of Central Park!

Saraceno Sculpture 2 Gs Reflection
Geoffrey and Gail Reflected in the Surface of Cloud City

Central Park Tree Top View
Tree Top View of Central Park Heading West

Cloud City will be on Exhibit Through November 4, 2012 on the Roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Located at 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street). New York, NY 10028 Phone (212)535-7710 for Hours and More Information.
Saraceno Sculpture Cloud City Poster
Saraceno Sculpture Section 3
Museum Guests Climb Cloud City on the Roof of the Met

Arts and Culture

Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds at The Mary Boone Gallery

Leave a comment

Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds Installation at Mary Boone Gallery
Image Source

If a first glance at the photo above has you wondering how a gallery floor covered with a vast and pristine aggregation of Sunflower Seeds qualifies as “Art,” please consider that these aren’t merely sunflower seeds but, rather, tiny hand-painted ceramic sculptures of Sunflower Seeds, and you may find your perception shifting. The Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea is currently hosting an installation of Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds (2010), which originally debuted at London’s Tate Modern, where it covered nearly the entire floor of the Turbine Hall gallery. The Boone Gallery show has been significantly scaled down in size (from 100 million seeds in the original installation to several million here) but it is nevertheless an impressive sight.
Continue reading Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds at The Mary Boone Gallery →

Arts and Culture

Maurizio Cattelan’s All Retrospective at the Guggenheim

1 Comment

It was a few weeks ago now, back on November 11, 2011, that I had my first in person experience with Italian-born artist Maurizio Cattelan’s most unusual retrospective exhibit, All, when I visited the Guggenheim that Friday evening for a live performance by the very excellent pop band, MGMT. The band performed a tight, 45 minutes set of mostly instrumental new material specifically inspired by the 128 separate works now suspended from the ceiling oculus of the museum’s rotunda. The songs fell very much within the surf-psychedelia vein of MGMT’s well-loved sound with a bit of a soundtrack vibe befitting the evening’s experiencing in general. Also, gee whiz, but what a spectacularly hallucination-inducing light show they had! I’m still having flashbacks. Music! Art!

The following week I had to pay another visit to the museum to take in All once again, because when I was there for the MGMT show I had a beer in my hand and the Art Nazis (guards) wouldn’t let me go up past the second ramp with a beer. And you really do need to trek all the way to the top of the ramp to fully experience the innumerable subtle nuances of this exhibit, which literally reveals itself further and further at every turn. The time lapse video above shows the installation process by the museum staff, which will answer your most pressing questions about “just how they got that stuff up there.” See it while you can.

Maurizio Cattelan’s All is on Exhibit until January 22, 2012 at the Guggenheim, Located at Fifth Avenue and 89th Street. Museum hours are extended to 7:45 PM on Monday and Tuesday nights (from 5:45 PM on other days) from December 6, 2011 to January 17, 2012. More information is available at This Link.

Click on This Image to Enlarge

Arts and Culture

Yoko Ono Presents “Uncursed”

Leave a comment

An installation of doors and figurative transparent sculptures form the nucleus of multi-media artist Yoko Ono’s second solo exhibition at Galerie Lelong, Uncursed.

Yoko Ono says:

“When we were children, we learnt at our elementary school how the warrior, Shikanosuke Yamanaka, vowed to endure seven misfortunes and eight sufferings, thereby giving all the negative things to him that would have been given to the people of his city. I was so impressed with his selfless devotion to people; I wanted to be like him when I grew up. Then I realized that so many challenging situations were given to me in life. Much later, I wondered if it would not be better to ask for seven good fortunes and eight treasures….which I promptly did. It changed my life.

In my recent exhibition, The Road Of Hope in Hiroshima, the city of the only country which suffered a nuclear disaster twice in the same century, I offered blessings to the people of Hiroshima and prayed that they would be given seven good fortunes and eight treasures.”

Ono now envisions these same blessings for New York as a reminder of our global connectedness and the universality of human experience. “These are the doors that we opened and closed to go through life,” the artist explains. “There were many doors that blocked us. But we opened them, and we went through. This is the journey to uncurse yourself.”

Uncursed will run through December 10, 2011 at Galerie LeLong, located at 528 West 26th Street, New York NY 10001. Hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.