Temporary Nomad

Back in New York again, this time staying with marvellous hosts Ellen and David Levy, who live in the West Village.

Ellen is a bioartist who shows her work in a Chelsea gallery run by Michael Steinberg, so she has great access to the New York art world. Plus she’s a New Yorker born and bred, so has plenty of insider information. So, our first day there we had a visit to the excellent Chelsea markets, where the locals do their gourmet food shopping, but without the Dean & DeLuca prices.

But, again we were in New York for the art, so we went along to an art show at the Armory called 212 – this turned out to be a professional show with Chelsea gallery owners showing for collectors, and checking out each other’s goods. Funnily enough one gallery from Adelaide was showing: Greenaway Gallery.

Later we also saw a show in an experimental performance space called PS122 – A Room of One’s Own, by Coco Fusco, but it was rather disappointing. Ah well, we made up for it with dinner with a huge bunch of Adelaideans visiting New York at Next Door Nobu. Super Japanese food, but we knew to expect a big bill when I realised I’d actually even heard of Nobu.

More art in the form of the Neue Galerie, which was in the news recently for its acquisition of the Bloch-Bauer Klimts bought from the family after they were returned to them just this year after being looted by the Nazis. The portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was the highlight,

but again I preferred the landscapes, especially the Birkenwald.

And then it was time for the last big New York museum – The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wow, again fantastic – 5 Vermeers, some really nice Cézannes and Van Goghs and plenty of other old masters. Like the Louvre we could have had another day there easily and still not seen it all.

Our final New York art experience was a quick tour with Ellen of some Chelsea galleries. First up was Postmasters where a well-known bioartist Natalie Jeremijenko was showing “OOZ, Inc. (…for the birds)”, a funny installation piece in which the artist has set up an enriched environment for birds on the gallery roof. We were lucky enough to arrive when Natalie was there and she gave us an annotated tour of the exhibition, since she and Ellen know each other well.

We saw about 6 or 7 galleries in all, including one in which the artist had used caviar in the paint. Almost all of them had wonderful spaces, with such imposing and intimidating entrances that I’m sure some of them we wouldn’t have gone into without Ellen’s lead. In fact we learnt that until a few years ago, ordinary people were discouraged from visiting these galleries, only serious collectors being welcome. That has changed now, but the atmosphere of exclusivity remains.

It’s not only the galleries that are hard to get into. One evening we went looking for a pub we’d read about, just a few streets over from where we were staying. When we got to the place where the bar should have been, we found only a little Middle Eastern restaurant/bar. Assuming the pub must have closed down, but not wanting to give up on the evening, we went in and had a rather tasty dessert and a drink. Coming out of the bar, and ready to go home, we came across people pouring out of the next doorway, and loudly saying “That was great, but I’m so glad you told me how to get in or I never would have found it”. We’d missed the secret entrance!

Our last night in New York saw us heading over the river to Brooklyn and a great little event called the Secret Science Club. A really cool pub called Union Hall was hosting a science talk, by Leo Silverman on chimeras. The pub was really Brooklyn style funky, with one whole wall covered with bookcases and filled with huge leather sofas and armchairs like some London gentelman’s club, and a strange indoor bocce setup down the back. There were lots of people looking happily chilled out, including a knitting circle down the front. And the talk was brilliant. So we left New York feeling overdosed on culture and quite ready to move on and relax.

Image Credits: Bloch Bauer is thanks to the BBC/Getty Images, Birkenwald is from About.com and Natalie Jeremijenko’s work is from Postmasters