Time.com has released their list of the Top Ten Art Exhibitions of 2009. The list includes a wide variety of styles, from modern abstract paintings to African style sculptures. Many of the top exhibitions on the list were on exhibit in New York City.  The number 1 pick, Francis Bacon’s “A Centenary Retrospective” was at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the number 6 pick, the James Ensor exhibit was at The Museum of Modern Art earlier this year.

Two of the top ten exhibitions are still available for viewing in New York City.  The number 8 pick, Vassily Kandinsky is at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum through 1/13/2010.  Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract art and this exhibition will display nearly one hundred paintings dating from 1902 to 1942.

The number 9 pick, Georgia O’ Keeffe: Abstraction is at the Whitney Museum of American Art through 1/17/2010.  O’Keeffe was a central figure in twentieth-century abstract art and the Whitney’s exhibition includes more than 125 paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures by O’Keeffe.

Churchill has short-term rental apartments available in New York City near these museums. Contact us at 866-255-0593 or email us for more information.

Photo courtesy of Time.com.

Edvard Munch and the Uncanny is an exhibition currently in the Leopold Museum in Vienna. It’s gonna be there until January 18th.

The exhibition features art from the late 18th century to the early 20th and apart from Munch they have taken works from artists like Goya, Redon, Bosch, Piranesi, Kubin and Ensor (among others). It has a nice length – not going too slow, it takes you about an hour and a half or two hours to see it all. Personally, I thought Munch’s works the least spectacular but that’s probably because I’m more at home in the drawing/graphics department than in the paintings department. At least in this case.

Anyways, Munch’s paintings were less uncanny than disturbing in what they said about the man who painted them (paging Doctor Freud!). Judging from his painting (and from his paintings alone, I hardl know anything about him), he must have had a very difficult relationship with women in general and some pedophile tendencies.

The exhibition was an interesting summary of what was considered uncanny and partly still is. But some things do seem a little funny nowadays and less scary. Like one of my favourite pieces of the whole exhibition, Félicien Rops‘ Dinner with Atheists.

Unfortunately, I can’t find the version exhibited, but here’s a similar enough draft:

Generally speaking, I found it pretty amazing how many naked women there were in this exhibition – female nakedness and sexuality must be a really scary thing for men…

[More favourites after the break.]

Munch’s Vampire is an awesome example of his apparently conflicted relationship with women.

If it wasn”t titled The Vampire (which btw wasn’t Munch’s idea), it would be a picture of conciliation, of giving comfort. But no, WOMEN ARE EVIL BLOODSUCKERS!

This is Theodor Kittelsen’s Forest Troll:

I love how the troll doesn’t live in the forest but is the forest.

Francisco de Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters:

Klemens Brosch’s First Draft’s of the Artist’s Exlibris:

Unfortunately, this is not the version of the exhibition – I couldn’t find that. The one I saw was only the arm, no mountains and there were a lot more stars so the face wasn’t that visible. And the person on the hand was in a different position. But you get an impression. [Weirdly enough, they did not sell the exlibris in the museum shop. What a waste of perfect merchandise.]

I really liked the Redon and Kubin stuff exhibited. Here’s Redon’s Swamp Flower:

And here Kubin’s Horror:

And François Chifflart’s The Conscience:

I think that I’ll leave it at that. Let it just be said that the exhibition is worth a visit.

Paris has been good to me recently. Yesterday I drank absinthe with mon père at a cafe near the Louvre, having spent the day at Les Invalides gazing at Gatling guns and Napoleon’s tomb. I spent Friday at the Musée d’Orsay scoping out art and people. There were a few girls who looked like they’d just been photographed for the Sartorialist and who caught me staring shamelessly at their various structured wool blazers, vintage jewelry, perfectly tousled bedhead hair, just-so rolled-cuff jeans, and ideal boots. I did manage to avert my calculating eyes enough to see some of James Ensor, however, and to take note of some things I found interesting.

:: He described light as the opposite of line, and line as the enemy of genius.

:: He takes a lot of credit for being the first artist to understand light’s distortive effect on a line, and uses this claim to distance himself from the Impressionist movement.

:: He was an atheist, despite his huge number of Christ-focused works – apparently he only painted Christ because he identified with him as an outcast. (For anyone who knows the Enneagram – what a 4.)

:: He became a member of Les XX, or The Twenty (a group of 20 Belgian artists formed in 1883) after the group of which he was previously a member, L’Essor, rejected his painting The Oyster Eater.

James Ensor, The Oyster Eater, 1882

My favorite fact of all!!

:: He called himself James (art) Ensor because in French the sound of the words art + Ensor = the sound of the words hareng saur, “smoked herring.” How delightful. Whenever herrings appear in his work, then, they are meant to represent the artist and his work. The two skeletons below are I think supposed to be critics, who didn’t like him so much.

James Ensor, Skeletons Fighting for a Smoked Herring, 1891

James Smoked Herring on color:

“Drenched in British purples, I have offered up my tones: pigeon breast, hind belly, balky mule lung, monkey bottom pink, lapis lazuli and malachite, excited nymph thigh, panther pee-pee, high-smelling hen hair, hedgehog in aspic, barrel-maker’s brothel, revered rose, monkeybush, turkey-like white, sly violet, page’s slipper, immaculate nun spring, unspeakable red, Ensor azure, affected yellow, mummy skull, rock-hard gray, brunt celadon, shop soiled smoke ring.”

James Ensor, The Terrified Musicians, date unknown

And finally, here’s a song – You’ve Got the Love by Florence & the Machine, remixed by the band The XX, who I figger must have taken their name from the group of artists. Clever.

Je suis un artiste belge, né à Ostende en 1860 et mort en 1949, à la fois vaguement familier et encore relativement méconnu du grand public. Partagé entre inspiration classique (les maîtres flamands) et coups de génie modernes, j’ai produit une œuvre (peintures et dessins essentiellement) éclectique et fascinante, dont le Musée d’Orsay, à Paris, propose une rétrospective jusqu’au 4 février 2010.

Fortement influencé par l’école flamande, je produis à l’âge de vingt ans des tableaux dans la veine réaliste, mais témoignant déjà d’une recherche originale et poussée sur les volumes (Le Lampiste, une œuvre qu’on dirait pré-cubiste, datant de 1880) et la lumière (Après l’orage (1880) ou La Grande vue d’Ostende (1884) préfigurent tous deux les impressionnistes).

Tout athée que je sois, je traverse ensuite une crise mystique, ou plus exactement christique, qui me fait me frotter aux sujets bibliques, et m’amène à me comparer à la figure du Christ (de L’Entrée du Christ à Jérusalem, 1885, à L’Entrée du Christ à Bruxelles, 1889, que je peins cette fois-ci sous mes propres traits). Je vois en effet dans les outrages et le supplice que la foule lui inflige un reflet de mes propres souffrances face à l’incompréhension du public et de la critique. Artiste narcissique et égotiste par nature, je peins ou dessine pas moins de 112 autoportraits, et brocarde violemment le milieu bourgeois, la critique artistique et les pouvoirs politiques de mon époque.

Pas homme à me laisser abattre pour autant, je pratique l’autodérision avec férocité souvent, jubilation aussi. Je fais mien le sobriquet “hareng saur” (=art Ensor) que m’attribue la critique (le sublime Squelettes se disputant un hareng saur, 1891). Je dénonce le grotesque et la bassesse de mes contemporains à travers les figures des masques de carnaval de mon pays flamand et de squelettes tout droit issus des vanités du Moyen-Âge (memento mori...). Ces masques à la fois féroces et joyeux, sinistres et éclatants de couleurs, prennent une telle place dans mon œuvre, à partir de 1883, que je finirai par être connu comme le “peintre des masques” – épithète à la fois très parlante et un peu réductrice, qui m’est attribuée par mon compatriote Emile Verhaeren. Mes œuvres les plus connues, L’Intrigue (1890) et La Mort et les masques (1897), illustrent le mieux cette période de mon travail.

Mes sources d’inspiration sont assez bien connues et documentées, et bien mises en lumière dans le parcours que propose l’exposition du Musée d’Orsay : peintres fantastiques du Moyen-Âge (Jérôme Bosch dans mon tableau Les terribles tribulations de Saint Antoine, 1887), maîtres flamands (Rembrandt, Rubens auquel je rends un hommage parodique dans mes autoportraits tels que Autoportait au chapeau fleuri, 1883-1885 ou Ensor aux masques, 1889) ou espagnols (Goya), inspirations japonisantes (masques du théâtre Nô, dont je possède une étonnante collection, et que je mets en scène dans des tableaux sibyllins comme le fascinant Étonnement du Masque Wouse, 1889), et, encore plus près de moi, le mouvement Symboliste.

Si l’exposition remonte bien aux sources de mon inspiration, elle ne dit rien en revanche d’une éventuelle filiation. Par mon art et mon attitude parfois sans concessions, je ferais pourtant un bon père putatif de quelques-unes des figures du dessin et de la peinture underground de la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle, voire du début du XXIème siècle. Et pourquoi pas, après tout ? N’ai-je pas, sûr de mon art et de ma valeur, annoncé que “mes recherches (…) précèdent celles des Impressionnistes”, et clamé ensuite mon influence sur les mouvements picturaux majeurs du début du XXème siècle (cubisme, expressionnisme…) ?

J’aime imaginer l’impression que ma série dessinée Les Auréoles du Christ ou les Sensibilités de la lumière (et en particulier La Crue. Le Christ montré au peuple, 1885), avec son gigantisme, ses couches crayonnées au rendu presque organique, a pu produire sur le père d’Alien, H.R. Giger. Mon autoportrait déguisé L’Homme de douleur (1891), qui mêle le visage d’un Christ aux couronnes d’épines aux traits grotesques d’un masque Nô, avec ses rides creusées, ses sillons de sang, ses yeux exorbités, a probablement croisé un jour le regard du pape de la B.D. underground Robert Crumb. Et que dire enfin des dessins du punk, goth-rocker et Outsider Artist (une forme britannique de l’Art Brut) Nick Blinko, sinon qu’ils sont pour certains d’entre eux un hommage macabre et exalté à mes propres foules et paysages de masques ?

Vous ne connaissiez peut-être pas vraiment mon nom, ni mes œuvres. Je suis un artiste belge, né en 1860 et mort en 1949, à la fois vaguement familier et encore relativement méconnu du grand public…

Mon nom est Ensor. James (art) Ensor.

James Ensor au Musée d’Orsay, du 20 octobre au 4 février 2010. Informations et renseignements pratiques sur le site Internet du Musée d’Orsay.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Niveau 0, Grand espace d’exposition



James Ensor
20 octobre 2009 > 4 février 2010

This exhibition, the first retrospective to be presented in Paris since 1990, aims to show the interplay of fracture and continuity to be found throughout Ensor’s work.

James Ensor

James Ensor
L’Intrigue, 1890
Huile sur toile, 90 x 150 cm
Musée Royal des Beaux Arts, Anvers, Belgique
© ADAGP, Paris 2009

Continuity comes from the Naturalism and Symbolism that influenced his early work, as well as the tradition of masks, disguise, grotesque and satire, and carnival, a legacy from his childhood in Ostend, a city to which he was deeply attached. Fracture is the dramatisation of the use of colour and light.

It is also the invention of a new language where the words intrude unsubtly alongside images, in order to give meaning to ideas, and the invention of a new narrative system teeming with characters and actions.

Through his scathing irony, his sense of derision and self-derision, his intense colours and his expressiveness, Ensor, a strange and unclassifiable painter, finds his place amongst the precursors of Expressionism.

James Ensor

James Ensor
La mort et les masques, 1897
Huile sur toile, 78,5 x 100 cm
Liège, musée d’Art moderne et contemporain
© ADAGP, Paris 2009

This exhibition has been organised by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Musée d’Orsay and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris.

Courtesy Musée d’Orsay
Images © ADAGP, Paris 2009. Tous droits réservés.

Links

• Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Stampfli & Turci – Art Dealers

Disclaimer & Copyright

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Niveau 0, Grand espace d’exposition



James Ensor
20 octobre 2009 > 4 février 2010

Première rétrospective présentée à Paris depuis 1990, cette exposition entend montrer le jeu de rupture et de continuité perpétuellement pratiqué par Ensor.

James Ensor

James Ensor
L’Intrigue, 1890
Huile sur toile, 90 x 150 cm
Musée Royal des Beaux Arts, Anvers, Belgique
© ADAGP, Paris 2009

Soixante ans après sa mort, l’héritage d’Ensor est ainsi toujours tiraillé entre son ancrage belge, voire ostendais, et une reconnaissance internationale. Écartelé aussi entre le solide naturalisme de ses débuts et les fantaisies masquées, « squelettisées », acides et virulentes qui traversent, à grands pas colorés et grimaçantes, la plus grande partie de sa carrière.

Cent cinquante ans, ou presque, après sa naissance, Ensor demeure un peintre inclassable et le titre de « peintre des masques » que lui attribue son compatriote Émile Verhaeren ne suffit pas à cerner son œuvre inclassable, prolifique et polymorphe.

Le MoMA et le musée d’Orsay ont donc décidé de re-visiter Ensor, et cent dix ans après l’échec de sa première exposition à Paris, de questionner de nouveau ses impénétrables masques et ses menaçants squelettes. De le placer face au XX° siècle dont il dépend très largement, ayant assisté à l’éclosion de l’expressionnisme, du cubisme, du futurisme, de Dada, du surréalisme… Ayant même, selon son propre discours, « anticipé tous les mouvements modernes ».

De placer Ensor, au cœur de ce XIX° siècle dont il est bien un des turbulents enfants, revendiquant une place définitive, « entre Manet et Van Gogh… ».

James Ensor

James Ensor
La mort et les masques, 1897
Huile sur toile, 78,5 x 100 cm
Liège, musée d’Art moderne et contemporain
© ADAGP, Paris 2009

En 90 œuvres tableaux, dessins, gravures…, et en quatre parties, l’exposition James Ensor, permet de reconsidérer ce peintre toujours étrange. Entre Manet, Van Gogh et tous les modernismes.

Cette exposition est organisée par le Museum of modern Art, New York, le musée d’Orsay et la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, avec le soutien du Gouvernement Flamand.

Courtesy Musée d’Orsay
Images © ADAGP, Paris 2009. Tous droits réservés.

Links

• Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Stampfli & Turci – Art Dealers

Disclaimer & Copyright

 I was scared but I worked up the courage to walk to the bathroom to face my reflection in the mirror. I have never seen my face contorted the way it was. I had a massive red bump peering out from beneath my skin with a disgusting white cap on the tip that was gawking at me. I went into a state of panic. ‘My head is going to explode’ was the only logical explanation I could think of. It was a matter of minutes before one of my roommates would walk in and find globs of my brain splattered across the mirror, the sink, and the toilet. They would probably be standing in a puddle of blood and skin and wondering why my body was laying on the ground without my head in sight. It was a tragic thought but there was no other possible explanation for the way my face was pulsating.

Lauren found me lingering in my state of panic in front of the mirror a few moments later and she told me that my little mountain of a friend was gross but that I wasn’t going to die. It was simply a pimple. I tried to pop it, as I would any other pimple, blood ran down my face and the white cap disappeared to make it look less like a monster from the depths of hell. My face was still pounding but knowing that I wasn’t going to die let me retrieve back into my room soundlessly. As soon as I saw the chaotic state I left my bed in I remembered the reason for waking up so abruptly- something happen to me last night in my dreams. Because of the commotion of my morning thus far, my dreams were now far from me and it was a blurry memory that was left behind. I remember being in outer space with an alien spaceship waiting for me nearby. I had a choice but everyone around me was in a state of panic and I just wanted to be at peace.

I was late to class because I neglected to remember that Jenn’s computer is an hour behind. Oh well. I was moving slowly anyway. I was walking on the familiar roads but I felt like everything was new to me and I didn’t really care if I was experiencing my day or just moving through the motions. I shouldn’t have been in class anyway, according to the wasp that wouldn’t leave me alone. Halfway through class a wasp decided to wiz past my ear to let me know he was after me. I sat there. The girls sitting on both sides of me screamed and tried to move out of the way. I sat there. The wasp circled my hand, my head, and my delicious smelling coffee mug. I sat there. Finally I made a move to appear as if I were feeling some sort of fear from this lousy excuse for a stinging, honey collecting machine. Block shoed him out the window and continued his class discussion about reality versus the beyond.

Several Circles by Wassily Kandinsky

 The wasp was stubborn and decided that he preferred my coffee to the outside world. He flew right back in and darted for my mug. I sat there. This repeated a few times until the idea to shut the window was put into action. Block was jealous of the attention the wasp had got. He was competing with an angry stinging machine I should have told him. He shouldn’t be jealous. We continued the discussion about what is real, what we only think is real, and what are the instances that make a person sound crazy.

Intrigue by James Ensor

That class came and left too quickly for me. I didn’t have a chance to get into it because I was still concentrated on my hectic morning. I had a chance to make up for it during my night class though when more strange things followed me. I headed to class after lounging around the apartment for a few hours. It was getting dark and it was misting, not raining, misting. As I walked on the side of the road with my hood up, a big truck passed me. It passed me quickly, stopped abruptly, than started in reverse in my direction. I walked up to it and a pleasant man stepped out of his Herr’s Chips truck.

“Hey do you need a ride? Want to get out of the rain?’

‘NO!!’ I screamed inside my head, although it probably came out as a quiet and polite ‘No, thank you.’

Now why on earth would he ask me if I wanted a ride? Was he going to offer me chips too? I don’t understand it. Or any part of my day for that matter. I woke up with alien on my mind, my head throbbing which lead me to be late for class. Then-  the wasp that bombarded into our classroom wouldn’t leave me alone. He ignored everyone else and only had interest in me. And to top it off- a Herr’s chip truck thought I needed shelter from the storm (that was not occurring). I don’t know if I ever will, or if I will ever want to know what was the meaning of that strange day. Well today is a new day and my head is still attached and unexploded. Things are good and they can only get better.

james ensor

20 octobre 2009 – 4 février 2010

Première rétrospective présentée à Paris depuis 1990, cette exposition entend montrer le jeu de rupture et de continuité perpétuellement pratiqué par Ensor.

La continuité, ce sont les héritages naturaliste et symboliste qui marquent ses débuts ainsi que la tradition des masques, du travestissement, du grotesque et de la satire, du carnaval, héritée de son enfance à Ostende, ville à laquelle il est viscéralement attaché. La rupture, c’est la dramatisation de l’usage de la couleur et de la lumière. C’est également l’invention d’un nouveau langage où les mots s’imposent, à côté des images, pour signifier crûment des idées et celle d’un nouveau système narratif où pullulent les personnages et les actions. Par sa cinglante ironie, son sens de la dérision et de l’auto-dérision, sa couleur intense, son expressivité, Ensor, peintre étrange et inclassable, trouve sa place parmi les précurseurs de l’expressionnisme.

Gisteren was het in de provincie Gelderland ‘Gratis Museumdag’. Uiteindelijk zetten 69 musea de poorten open en boden daarmee de kans aan vrekken en cultuurbarbaren om nu wel eens die verantwoorde stap te zetten. De secretaris opteerde met zijn gezin voor Museumpark Orientalis in het dorp met de mooiste naam van Nederland: Heilig Landstichting. Toegegeven moet worden dat dit park al lang op het lijstje stond, maar dat de vrij hoge toegangsprijs (1o euro voor een volwassene, 6 euro voor een kind van 4 t/m 13 jaar) ons weerhield en deed wachten op een buitenkansje.

Wellicht kennen sommigen dit museum nog onder de voormalige naam, Bijbels Openluchtmuseum, maar om een breder publiek te trekken en ongetwijfeld meer geld in het laatje te krijgen, werd de naam enige jaren geleden getransformeerd tot de huidige.  Volgens eigen zeggen biedt Museumpark Orientalis “een eigentijdse kijk op de drie religies die bepalend zijn geweest voor de identiteit van hedendaags Europa: jodendom, christendom en islam. Orientalis laat zien dat er meer is dan het bekende spanningsveld tussen deze drie: een gemeenschappelijke oorsprong, de gedeelde geschiedenis, verwante tradities, verhalen en rituelen. Het museum wil een plaats zijn waar mensen met verschillende culturen en levensbeschouwingen elkaar kunnen ontmoeten. Zo wil Orientalis bijdragen aan een samenleving waarin vriendschap en respect de plaats innemen van angst en vooroordeel”.

Blik op de Via Orientalis. Bron: www.trouw.nl.

Dit lijken nogal ambitieuze en lastig te praktizeren doelstellingen, maar het moet gezegd: het aanbod is gevarieerd en niet alledaags. Momenteel bestaat het museum uit een binnenmuseum, het joodse Beth Juda met een oosterse boerderij, de islamitisch-Arabische karavanserai met daarnaast het hart van het museum, het tentenkamp Ain Ibrahim, het moslimdorpje Tell Arab en de vroeg-christelijke en Romeinse Via Orientalis. Ter gelegenheid van het thema van de Gratis Museumdag, ‘Zet je zintuigen op scherp’, had Orientalis alle vrijwilligers uit de kast getrokken om met name het jonge publiek te bedienen.

Het kroost van de secretaris vermaakte zich dan ook met het verhaal van de ark van Noach, waarbij de kleuters op het hooi in de boot mochten aanschuiven. Tevens werd er druk gekleid in het binnengedeelte onder de bezielende begeleiding van moeders, zodat de secretaris zelf de tijd had om een op drie schermen geprojecteerde video over de drie religies in zich op te nemen, waarbij (overlappende) culturele aspecten op de voorgrond stonden. Het onderschrift van Orientalis is immers niet voor niets: ‘Cultuur en religie’.

Een paar kamers verder was de tentoonstelling ‘Humor en religie’, een combinatie die niet iedereen voor mogelijk houdt, hoewel cartoonisten het laatste lustrum er een aardige boterham mee kunnen verdienen. De secretaris werd daarbij verrast door koperertsen van James Ensor, ‘De Hellevaart en de zeven hoofdzonden’. Het was Ensor op zijn best: wrang, vol symboliek, mooi in zijn angstaanjagendheid. Wie meer van de expositie wilde zien, moest daarvoor de andere nederzettingen ook aandoen, maar uiteraard behoorde dat al tot onze plannen.

James Ensor- De Luiheid. Bron:http://62.221.199.163/vkc/Home.aspx

We struinden over het bedoeienenkamp waar heuse dromedarissen (die met 1 bult) ons ontspannen toekauwden. We verkenden de islamitisch-Arabische karavanserai, waar een enthousiaste ouder heerschap ons enkele nieuwe weetjes bijbracht. Wist u bijvoorbeeld dat Joden op jeugdige leeftijd een keppeltje op het hoofd krijgen, om te voorkomen dat ze een groeispurt krijgen richting God? En wist u dat het woord schaakmat een vernederlandsing is van de Perzische woorden shāh māt, dat de koning zit in een hinderlaag betekent?

De laatste etappe eindigde op de Via Orientalis, een gezellig straatje waar enkele winkeltjes de toeristen trachten te verleiden. Wie heeft er niet zin om even bij te komen in de Romeinse herberg of zijn kroost te trakteren op een leuke snuisterij? We slenterden heel symbolisch met een Jodekoek in de mond terug richting auto, waar bleek dat de secretaris vergeten was de tankdop van het dak te halen bij het tankstation. Een auto-onderdeel armer, maar een fijne ervaring rijker kachelden we tevreden huiswaarts.

Jammer dat het moslimdorpje Tell Arab door verbouwing niet toegankelijk was, maar voor de rest is Orientalis een uitstekende dagbesteding, eventueel te combineren met het iets verderop gelegen Afrika-museum. De prijs voor kinderen is normaliter toch echt te hoog; een beetje zwak dat de website de schuld schuift in de schoenen van de regering. Toch geeft de secretaris zonder schroom 4 NUt-sterren: ++++.

EXHIBITION – artist: James Ensor, location: Musée d´Orsay Paris, date: 19.10.09 – 04.02.10 / current exhibitions at: Musée d´Orsay Paris 2009. Artistinformation and biography-text from: James Ensor Musée d´Orsay Paris CATEGORY: art, modern art, projects: TEXTPORTRAITS James Ensor by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer and Laura May. More information about James Ensor Exhibition Musée d´Orsay Paris, France.

New entries: actual 0

Joseph Beuys / Portrait (TEXTPORTRAIT).

textportraits by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

AKTUELLE AUSSTELLUNG: Musée d´Orsay Paris; Künstler: James Ensor; Betitelung: (Paintings) – Zeitraum der Ausstellung: 19.10.09 – 04.02.10. Kunstausstellungen (Frankreich) aktuell: Musée d´Orsay Paris (2009). Weitere Informationen über: James Ensor: Biografie/Biography — | Galerieninformationen/Gallery: James Ensor — Weitere geplante Ausstellungen: Musée d´Orsay Paris von James Ensor — James Ensor Kunstportal: Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org). Mehr aktuelle Informationen über James Ensor Musée d´Orsay Paris.

Beitragsforum Kunst & Kultur allgemein:

Textportrait: Joseph Beuys.

Textportraits – Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

Het zal wel aan mijn verwrongen brein liggen dat ik in een liefelijk tafereeltje met twee lieve grootouders en hun kleinkind deze groteske scène herkende.

…iată, plăsmuitorule de iluzii pertinente, că stai şi gâfâi sprijinit de gardul dărăpănat al Morii Violatos. O mulţime de indivizi te-au împresurat. Au făcut o menghină umană, un con de penitenţă. Figurile lor hidoase, ca măştile lui Ensor, te asigură că sunt o hoardă de demoni evadaţi din pivniţele roşii ale Iadului. Şi toţi au o singură întrebare:”Accepţi sau nu să vezi numai cu ochii noştri?” Apoi te ling pe faţă cu limbile lor uscate şi despicate. Apoi, rânjind, îţi arată cum gingiile lor purulente sângerează. E un chin să nu-i bagi în seamă, îţi spui, mai ales că pe frunte poartă stema P.C.R.-ului. Dar te chinui. Plouă. Şi sub imperiul ploii asfaltul fierbe ca o smoală…În faţa ta, în stânga şi în dreapta, ai vechimea caselor şi a teilor falnici care susţin cerul ca nişte coloane dorice. O atemporalitate circulară, ca o curte de castel, ermetică, circumscrisă unei fulgerătoare secvenţe de eternitate. Unul dintre cele mai eficace subterfugii estetice imortalizate în materie cu scopul precis de a face sufletul să priceapă că viaţa e o înşiruire  intermitentă de nisipuri mişcătoare. „Accepţi sau nu să vezi numai cu ochii noştri?”…Încordat ca un arc, contempli cenuşiul rugos al cerului, şi parcă ai vrea să-ţi asumi responsabilitatea, responsabilitatea sisifică!, de a scăpa de sub tirania propriei tale persoane. Dar se merită oare sau nu? Vei fi fraierit sau nu? E bine să fii fraierit sau nu? „Accepţi sau nu să vezi numai cu ochii noştri?”…Ridici mâna, dar nu printr-un gest deliberat al eului tău, ci ca şi când ţi-ar fi ridicată lent deasupra capului de o altă mână, de una invizibilă, de o putere sapienţială…şi dai un bobârnac. Boooong! E sunetul amar şi adânc al metalului. Deasupra ta pluteşte o lamă de ghilotină. „Accepţi sau nu să vezi numai cu ochii noştri?” Eeeeeeeeiii, câţi ani ai purtat-o acolo sus, dar abia acum remarci prezenţa lamei…Îţi picură sânge proaspăt de pe tăişul ei pe frunte. Pic! Pic! Pic! Pic! Pic! Picăturile se unesc, formând şiroaie care-ţi şepruiesc printre sprâncene. Pe pleoape. Pe nas. Pe buze. Pe bărbie. Şi se pierd dincolo de gulerul cămăşii…Mai devreme, chipul tău părea a experimenta hedonismul mulţumirii de sine. Însă acum, în acest fatidic moment al perturbării, nu-ţi vin în minte decât patru cuvinte gândite de Rimbaud:”Vocile instructive în surghiun…”. Dar totuşi, unde s-a pierdut seninătatea filosofică cu care ai refuzat mereu să pui la îndoială dorinţa umanităţii de a se salva, de a evada din acest abator purgatorial? Ă, unde?„Accepţi sau nu să vezi numai cu ochii noştri?”

Not feeling like blogging  - perhaps too much heady food is still being metabolised … Le Grand Macabre by Ligeti , whose life experiences are painfully tragic to read about and seemingly without much respite but  from out of his cauldron of  sensation emerged so much creativity, wit, love and subversion… and then in the same week even anticipating watching Tristan and Isolde  on Friday induced a physical vertigo.

Ligeti  has drawn me, or rather my Proustian partner who inducted me, has inadvertently drawn me to the surreal dramatist Michel Ghelderode.  I have been trying to memorize his name by imagining that I am riding a geldered stallion, along with Keats’ Bright Star, and hope that I have got the spelling right  and then galloping off  to Amazon Prime for the catalogue of James Ensor who was as fascinated by Carnival and Masks and Love and Death and Anxiety as I am, except Ensor painted them and I try to get behind them….many of his works remind me, and are I think, indebted to Goya’s black paintings. (Retrospectively, I also feel that Paula Rego must feel indebted to his visceral imaginings and teasing.) I wish I knew where those black Goya paintings are hidden as so few of them are displayed in Madrid, unless they are stored away in unnamed archives.

Even before these artists, discovered  by courtesy of my  Ligeti-trail, came  as a gift into my vision I was intending to blog about Carnival and the Death of  Tragedy, and Rio de Janeiro, and my Capoeira thrusting Berimbar drumming friend Greg Hicks whose life embodies Carnival and who next year will be playing King Lear at the RSC, and then another unexpected pleasure, to revel in the fact that Rio and not Chicago won the Olympic bid, which is what made me think of Greg because he has a flat in Rio at the foot of  the statue of Christ the Redeemer …  but for now I still need to absorb and metabolize rather than write.  And then last night – at my grandson, Dan’s direction – I watched the documentary Gonzo and discovered the death driven genius, the carnival energies, the insight and death-sight. of  Hunter S. Thompson, the beauty of Johnny Depp, and  today I am still more undone and I don’t,  after watching the inspiring and fittingly minimalist staging while listening to the frantic and god-like desires, demons and visions and woundings, or should I write wounds,  of  Tristan and Isolde – with my Wagnerian loving/ Proust reading partner – where nothing remains black or white, but returns to shadow, have much to spare.  

James Ensor: Pierrot and skeletons.

The mobility, the anxiety and the waivering of his nature explain at once the feverish searches,the steps forwards, the steps backwards, the brusque advances and the sudden retreats, in a word all the unevenness of his art. Emile Verhaearen, 1908

The Intrigue.

And Self Portrait at top of the page.

My first encounter with James Ensor at the special exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

It’s hard to describe James Ensor as a painter. He was a member of the Belgian avant-gard, most prolific at the turn of the 19th century; he studied at prestigious art schools in France; he was dark, death obsessed, funny and insulting. Walking through the exhibit gives you a sense of his basic motifs and styles. Its not that he obviously matured and evolved as a painter, but his education from the École des Beaux-Arts nearly turned him into a much more generic painter at the time instead of the darkly comedic satirist that he is famous for becoming. Ensor wasn’t exactly an impressionist, but he painted through splotches and not the more simple inference of color and light through smaller brush strokes.

Much of his earlier work focused on basic scenes that one would expect from a painter at the time, depicting regular people on the street in their natural habitat, doing whatever it is they do. His subjects included two men slouched by a table in a drunken stupor on the street. One of his paintings which he constructed in an attempt to show off his education and traditional ability depicts a woman (modeled off of his sister) eating at a luxurious dining table adorned with every type of shiny glass surface one could image (the reflection of light meant to show-off his artistic eye).

Masks Mocking Death, 1888

In the late 1800’s that Ensor really created his own style and themes for his paintings, often focusing around masks, which his family sold in a shop under his studio. One of his most famous paintings, pictured left, depicts the character Death as a skeleton in the center, being teased by people in masks surrounding him. Ensor’s playfulness is obvious, the character usually reserved for paintings of fear and drama has been reduced to the butt of a joke by obnoxiously masked bullies. Its refreshing, even as Death is depicted as a dark and scary skeleton who looks as if he is attempting to hide behind an ironically white sheet and therefore is disarmed by Ensors other masked characters.

Skeletons Warming Themselves, 1889

The exhibit note’s Ensor’s penchant for inserting himself into his paintings, and one year later painted a few skeletons inhabiting his studio (and apparently his clothing) to warm themselves by his stove. Ensor references himself as the skeleton at the bottom of the painting under a cloth, his paint palette at his boots.  There’s something very funny about the skulls, and its emphasized in the exhibit where there is a similar photograph of Ensor himself painting in this studio by the stove. The skulls look like dolls who have snuck into the real work and put on Ensor’s clothes, not to haunt or torment anyone, but to play house.  These figures playing around Ensor’s studio are his muse, and he plays back with them with this painting.

After walking through most of the space, I started getting a feeling that the dates for all these paintings are very close, yet the man lived to be almost 90 (through two World Wars).  The reason for this is because he was most prolific in the period before WWI, and subsequently receded into his more obvious ideas of satirizing current events.

The Banquet of the Starved, 1915

The above painting depicts cartoonishly painted men at a banquet table, as well as one of his earlier (and substantially more famous) paintings Two Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring at the Top as a metaphor for those fighting over food while the conquerors of Belgium eat like, well, conquerors.  During WWI Ensor stayed in his native Belgium as the Germans invaded while the citizens suffered a food shortage.

While most of the pieces in MoMA’s exhibit came from abroad, there are a few notables missing, including his most famous Christ’s Entry into Brussels, for which his sketches are there to remind you what you’re missing. Other then that the exhibit is necessary and enjoyable coverage of an artist who is far too innovative and entertaining for him to be as little known as he is.

Als er één kunstwerk is dat mij de laatste jaren heeft kunnen beroeren, dan zal het wel Maman geweest zijn.

De kolossale spin van Louise Bourgeois is op zich een knap werk, maar krijgt toch een extra dimensie door de plaats waar het staat of stond, namelijk boven het graf van James Ensor. Het graf krijgt een vorm van bescherming en Ensor krijgt het eerbetoon dat hij verdient. Zijn kunst (geest) wordt beschermd door nieuwe kunst en blijft op die manier voortleven. Zelf gebruikte hij eveneens vaak spinnen in zijn werk, dus dat is ook mooi meegenomen. Het plaatje krijgt een bizar sprookjesachtig karakter, iets wat we in de werken van Ensor vaak tegenkomen. Het werk werd er geplaatst in het kader van Beaufort 2006.
Maar die locatie is nu juist het probleem. De oplettende kijker kan in dit filmpje over Japan (met de titel ‘This is Japan’) bemerken dat diezelfde spin in een van de foto’s voorkomt. Is de spin verplaatst naar Japan? En hoe verplaats je zoiets naar Japan?

Wikipedia moet raad bieden. En volgens de online encyclopedie (die trouwens niet altijd even accuraat blijkt te zijn) zou de spin moeten staan in Ottawa (Canada) aan de ingang van de National Gallery of Canada. Ook wel vreemd, gezien het hier gaat om een Amerikaanse kunstenares.

Maar goed, dan blijven we nog zitten met de vraag waar het werk zich momenteel bevindt? Wie vertelt het ons?

James Ensor

For the past few weeks I’ve had a ton of work and lots of friends having problems and coming to me to talk about them. I don’t usually mind this, I like helping people, but I was starting to feel totally depleted, like I had a million hoover vacuum hoses sucking my energy. I decided last weekend to have a staycation- no dogwalks or drama, just doing what I wanted to do, this is such a rarity that I savored every minute of it. 

Saturday we went to Shopsins,how do I love thee, let me count the ways. One is for the cussing customer commentary coming from the kitchen. Two is for the rules like no cell phones, or parties bigger than 4. Three is for the apple ebelskivers. Dennis and I actually get up early on Saturdays to get to this family run New York institution. There’s actually a documentary about Kenny Shopsin the owner called I Like Killing Flies. Its very entertaining and illustrates the amazing breed of small business owners in NYC, which are a dying out with all the chain stores and high-priced condos moving in. Kenny also wrote a cookbook of all his crazy and delicious recipes called Eat Me: Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin. 

It was raining (like usual) so we headed up to the European Union that is MOMA to check out the James Ensor Exhibit, Fighting Skeletons. Its hard to imagine him back in the day (1860–1949) painting these dark, crazy skeleton and puppet images. What struck me was that he also had these amazingly colorful paintings of biblical stories like Christ Calming the Storm. If you are in the New York area you should really check this show out. 

Then we went to see the musical Avenue Q on Broadway. Shout out to my friend Maryann McSweeney who plays bass in the orchestra! It was hilarious. Puppets having sex on Broadway and songs like Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist and The Internet is for Porn. Unfortunately, its closing at the end of September, but they had a good run!

We headed back to Brooklyn and had dinner at Pequena which is this incredibly small and good mexican restaurant in Fort Greene. They have the amazing black bean and sweet plantain quesadillas. They are soon opening a location in Prospect Heights only a few blocks from my apartment! I overate and waddled home. 

Sunday we had a great breakfast at Rose Water in Park Slope. I had these great sweet yet sour plum  crepes. Then we went into Manhattan and walked on the Highline. The design work they did on it is great, paths flow into flowers and brush. They left some of the original tracks too. They have this area with a window over the street and bleachers where you can sit. It would be a great place for a reading. Next we went to one of our favorite museums the Rubin Museum of Art which has art from the Himalayas and surrounding areas. The Rubin is always a calm quiet place in the middle of crazy Manhattan. We looked at the Mandala exhibit. Sand Mandalas are such an interesting concept to me. The idea of creating such a beautiful piece of art and then just letting it blow away. I don’t know if I could do it. I think I have to much attachment to my creations. 

All in all it was a good staycation. Fall is just around the corner and things are cooling off. People seem in better moods and the sun is shining in the cloudy blue. I love living in New York. I could just walk around for hours and never get bored. So much too see, so much to do, never enough time.

In two days I’ll be 52. Thirty years ago July, at the tender age of 22 I moved to Washington, D.C. to begin a new life. Here I am in New York still celebrating, albeit in quite different ways than thirty years ago. I moved to DC because I was tired of the provincial midwestern attitudes, the Barco-lounger set of ideals. I was tired of living in the closet. Don’t get me wrong. Every thing I learned in those small Illinois towns still hangs with me, still informs me and keeps me on track, and I’m grateful for all of it. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for there and then. I’ve moved to New York for such different reasons: to grow, to learn, to expand my horizons, to become more culturally in tune classically and contemporarily. Where did those thirty years go?

I posted a new blog this evening, number five, dated August 9 – 13, 2009. After I posted I checked the stats on the last blog posting. I am humbled to report, and even more humbled to think that 92 of my friends and family members (and maybe some strangers?) read the blog I posted on August 9th on the day I posted it. How did that happen? How did it happen that I have that many friends who are willing to take time out of your days to read some nonsense I’ve put online. I realize it’s not nonsense. I know you want to know that I’m okay and doing interesting things out here in the big city. Maybe some of you are even worried about me being homeless, or that maybe I’ve been dumped in the East River by gangsters. Thank you. I am honored and humbled that you care. And I’m doing really well.

And I am also encouraged to continue writing this blog thing, rambling and wandering as it is. Several of you have emailed and expressed your gratitude. Thank you. Several of you want personal emails and notes and phone calls. And I wish I could give everybody everything they want and I can’t. I’m writing this blog to keep as many of my friends informed as I possible can, in one swell foop. So if I don’t answer your call Bruce it’s because I’m swamped trying to find a home, get all the things figured out that one has to figure out in a new city, and enjoy myself in this grand adventure called life.

I’m grateful too for all the help and love and encouragement and support each of you has given so freely to me, pushing me along this dream. Many of you tell of your bittersweet feelings of loss at my leaving Taos – happy I’m following my dream and sad that I’ve left. Thank you. I’m writing this to keep you informed, and to keep me sane and remembering where I’ve come from, and to keep me on track with my vision.

I have yet to find my next home, and I’m anxious about that. I am self-conscious that I’m taking up space in several friends homes until I find one of my own. I hate to be a bad houseguest, mostly because I want to be invited back, and a lot because I like keeping things in good shape. Dad taught me to buy the best tools I could afford, and to take good care of them, and when I do the tools will last a lifetime. The analogy here is sloppy but it’s something about friendship. Find and develop the best of friends, and take care of them, and they’ll take care of you, and you can keep them for a lifetime. Nurturing relationships. I warned you that the analogy wasn’t up to snuff.

I’ve seen 8 or 9 rooms for rent here in Brooklyn and yesterday while I was walking somewhere or other I was qualifying each of these places with the adverb “too”. Too far, too young, too scary, too dark, too hot, and then I realized I was beginning to get too prejudiced when I thought that the most recent place I’d seen was too Hasidic. Oops. Please forgive me. I shouldn’t write that, and perhaps I shouldn’t even think that. I have a spiritual program for those kinds of thoughts and behaviors. And I wasn’t practicing it. So there, I’ve said it. I’m not perfect. Damn, and I thought I had most of you fooled. Guess who the real fool is?

And for all this wandering around I still haven’t found the perfect room. How difficult can this be, for heaven’s sake? It seems I’m being really overly careful about choosing a place to live. I talked with Stan about it today at lunch. He says I’m being perfectly reasonable, that I need to be very careful about where and with whom I live. I don’t want to move again. I don’t even want to open a single box until I get the right place to put all the boxes. It’s a really busy big place this Brooklyn (fourth largest city in America before the Great Mistake of 1898 when Brooklynites chose to incorporate with the rest of New York!) and I need a place with three qualifiers: close to Pratt (no or low transportation costs), quiet (I’m here to study), and affordable (I have a spending plan that stretches just so far). I know all these criteria are reasonable and doable and intelligent, and I haven’t found the place that fits all of them.

The top of the current list of three is slightly too far away in a slightly marginal neighborhood but its inhabitants are both adults: an artist making a living with his art and a professional woman working in the publishing industry. And I have some intuitive sense that it’s not quite right, some red flag is flying in my subconscious that won’t let me say yes and move there. I’m waiting for that mystical sign that it’s right. Hmm. I know the right place is here and I continue searching Craigslist, writing emails and making phone calls and setting up appointments to see places and meet roommates. Am I being too critical? I hope not because my feet are tired and school is two weeks away!

The most interesting place I’ve seen was the basement of a funeral home. You know I wouldn’t lie about this, don’t you? It’s just too much for me to make up. It was actually quite a nice place, sort of close by, and the right price. The owner of the funeral home was great. He was living his lifelong dream of owning a funeral home. The tricky parts for me were two-fold. First, the place is literally beneath the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway) so quiet might have been difficult at any hour of the day or night even with three doors between me and the street. I found it odd that the guests there were really quiet but the street wasn’t. Noise didn’t really matter to those lying-in-state. Second, there is no internet connection, no DSL or wifi and I need that connection for school, for research, and for email (and for posting this blog). Apparently there is no communication from the other side there. I’d have to get my own line put in and it’s more headache than I want to consider today.

I had tea with a friend on the Terrace Café at MoMA Thursday afternoon. We had such a grand time. She’s an interior designer from New York who moved to Taos. She loves Taos like I love Taos, and she had tricky times finding clients and work. Ditto that! So, she’s moved back to New York, and still travels to Taos for clients. I like that a lot too. We had tea and shared two desserts there in Mecca on Fifth on the Fifth Floor. Such an incredible place. The languages overheard, the art to revel in, the culture at your fingertips. I feel really alive there. Invigorated. I arrived a bit early and took some time to take more photos of the Song Dong exhibit. I wanted to get close-up shots of the individual and collective items that couldn’t be seen from the long shots I took last month. Having the visual interaction of the people with the items makes things even more exciting although at times I was irritated that the people were stopping, looking, and getting in my way. Marianne arrived fifteen minutes early and I was already online for the café. We ate and chattered endlessly. Marianne and I had time for two galleries after tea; the James Ensor retrospective of paintings, many many paintings showing his prolific late nineteenth century output, and a show of furniture and furnishings by Ron Arad, a contemporary designer.

I had seen some of the Ensor show last month when I was at MoMA with Taylor my niece. We had cruised through it then, visiting with each other more than really looking at and absorbing the work. Marianne and I studied the work and I found myself liking Ensor much more than I thought I did. He started as a painter in the classical sense, working with a classical palette and he received formal training. Later in his life he shifted stylistically and began experimenting with a flattened surface treatment and brighter more playful colors. I believe he was attempting to evoke the new moods of the twentieth century. He was less concerned about showing his prowess at depicting the realistic content of the subject matter and more concerned with expressing how he felt about it, and what his subjects felt –it was a new world with new ideas. It was a typical question for turn-of-the-century artists, much like the questions we continue to ask. What is important today and how can an artist visually portray those emotional and contemporary concepts in a way that is new and exciting, a way that is stimulating for both artist and viewer?

I ask these same questions of my clients. How do you want to feel when you walk into this room? What colors do you like best and why do you like them, and more importantly, how do you feel when you are surrounded by this or that color. I find the major difference between what I’m doing with interiors and what artists do with canvases focuses mainly on the point of view. It is not so important that I get to display my skills in presenting a room, getting the colors just so, or placing the vase on the table in just the right way. The important part is how the client feels in the room long after I’m done and gone.

I remember the first time I finished a room for someone and when I returned to that same room three months later the pictures had been rearranged, and several items had been changed. I thought, “Why did they do that? It was perfect the way I left it!” And then I realized that I was no longer in charge, that I had done what I had been asked to do and that now the room belonged to the owner, not me, and that she could do what she liked with the pillows and the artwork. And besides, I had received payment and the check didn’t bounce.

Friday. I believe I did more work on Craigslist, searching for a room, and I went grocery shopping and got a few things. I just checked my notebook and find that I did see a place Friday morning, about two blocks from campus on Taaffe at Willoughby. And then I stopped at the PrattStore to see if the flash drives Jason had sent were in. No, they weren’t there but I got information on who to call to find out. Then I met up with Stan and we did some work together, hanging his bicycle on a hook from the ceiling in the entrance hall and hanging brackets that hold three surfboards high on the wall in the kitchen, out of the way.

Surfboards take a lot of space. Stan has two. One is nine feet long and about two feet wide. The other one is shorter by a foot and a half. I have not been around surfboards at all so I was surprised at how lightweight they are. The tricky part is their bulk. I think they’re basically a Styrofoam-type core covered with fiberglass or epoxy or something harder. And they have this tailfin for stability in the water. Not an easy thing to store, especially in these small apartments in New York. He had a set of wooden boards with dowels sticking out on which to shelve the surfboards. Ingenious set-up, but the walls in these old apartment buildings are not the easiest to work with. Marking the placement was not a problem, and then drilling pilot holes, simple. The difficult part is determining (without x-ray vision) what is behind the sheetrock, and then what kind of hanger/fastener to use to support these bulky surfboards. The kitchen walls were sheet-rocked at some point in the past over what might have been the original plaster walls, which might have been laid directly onto the brick of which the building is constructed. Stan and Julie are on the third floor of a five or six story building and their kitchen wall and window faces an exterior open space between several buildings. (Some might call this space a garden but most people have specific ideas about what a garden is and this space might not conform to those preconceived notions.) So, drilling in and poking around and figuring out what might work from Stan’s stash of widgets without actually going to a hardware store. He had some masonry anchors that I thought would work, provided they got enough purchase into the brick or plaster wall behind the sheet rock. We hung them. And then we put the two surfboards up and Stan took me to lunch at Cheryl’s, a home-style restaurant around the corner (sort or) from their apartment. He’s really good with thank you’s, and food always works for me.

Saturday I went to brunch with Madeline, Karin, and a new friend Dawn. We met at a place on Myrtle Avenue called Anima. It’s an Italian bistro just a few blocks from campus. Lovely interior that we passed through to get to the back patio. Karin was a bit late. Hers was the very first apartment that I got to see more than a month ago when I visited NY looking for a room. Madeline had introduced us on email and we hit it off nicely. Her apartment is a great one bedroom that I couldn’t afford otherwise I would have jumped on it right away. She was late because she had a potential tenant visiting the place, and when she arrived she came with the new tenant, Stella. Lovely woman who is in the midst of some relationship changes that necessitates finding a new place to live and Karin’s is it. We all celebrated with our waters and seltzers and Stella went off to do other business, not joining us for brunch. Food was okay, service was very slow. Not sure why because the place was deserted except for some folks sitting, drinking at the bar. Had a great time and Dawn talked about a birthday party she was attending that evening for an old friend, Newell, who’s birthday was Sunday, my birthday actually. So, I got bold and asked to be invited to the party. No problem! Dawn called Newell and got me invited and said she’d call me later and give me a ride to the party in Astoria, Queens. She emailed me the invitation later so I knew sort of where we were going. I have several good maps of the city and wasn’t about to go off at 10PM on a Saturday night adventure without a backup plan for getting home. Good thing, too.

As it turns out the party was not what I expected. It was a lovely party with great people, and all of them drank. A lot. The party was held in a lovely neighborhood bar near where Newell lives, in a regular kind of New York neighborhood, if there is such a thing. I stayed and met people and chatted aimlessly until about 12:30am, and then I said thank you and good night. Because I was in a new neighborhood, and it was late at night, I was extra cautious about the subway, not really knowing where I was or what neighborhoods I was crossing to get back to Clinton Hill. It’s about 3 and _ miles as the crow files but there aren’t any crows here to speak of, so the subway trip consisted of three trains, the N, the 7, and the G. That means that I had to figure out which side of the tracks to get on first, on the N train, so that I could then find the 7, and then figure out which direction to get on the 7, and then which direction for the G. I did pretty well considering it was my first solo trip out of Queens. Only two turn-arounds (which means I took two trains in the wrong direction and had to backtrack), and the trip took about 1 and _ hours, which put me at Madeline’s home at 2, and Stan was picking me up at 9 to head to the sweat lodge. Short night. It is New York remember, the city that never sleeps? At 52 I won’t be keeping this pace for very long…