This weekend I visited several of them dotted around the Lower East Side; the noise of children jiving at birthday parties in the gardens rang in two different plots. These are an oasis of beauty and a pleasant place for meeting amidst our overly-manufactured city and selves and our very human habit of running ourselves ragged. Real Estate, Retail and Industry are not the only things worth buying:

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell;
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for the Spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Give all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.

‘Barter’ a poem by Sara Teasdale.

And another iteration of this:

8-9 … whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things… And the God of peace will be with you.

Both of these architects are women, and both have recently exhibited as part of the group show elles@centrepompidou at the Pompidou Center in Paris. The question that occurs to me is whether there is some connection between a masculine psychological tendency towards straight linear planes, and a feminine fascination with curves and organic modules. In her book ‘Knowing Woman‘ Jungian psychologist Irene Claremont de Castillejo speaks of the female psyche’s tendency towards ‘diffuse awareness’ and the interconnectedness of all living things. She contrasts this with the male tendency towards rational and logical ‘focused consciousness’. In an aside to this the comparison of the sexes has recently undergone a candid, humorous and at times passionate online debate on the subject of Male leadership versus Female leadership – you can follow that thread of debate here.

Andrasek’s practice works under the studio title ‘Biothing‘ in which embodied feelings are entwined with abstract relationships. The creation of ideas for Biothing are based on this relationship and harnessed by the use of digitally generated diagrams. Taking for example the formulation of skin, a mathematical algorithm of skin-surfaces is fed into a computer to produce physical, structural formations. They are developing a built environment in which ‘the organ’ and biological elements are becoming tangible structures to live and work within, and are echoing the very nature of the organisms that inhabit them.

I recently heard an esteemed male designer lambasting the curvilinear structures of Zaha Hadid as unsympathetic to the built environment. However, the counter argument to a generalization of male and female architectural tendencies can be found in the form of Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, or Renzo Piano’s Aurora Place – also in Sydney. Both provide magnificent and acclaimed curves in the skyline; and both were designed by men.

I had an opportunity to tour the Gobelins factory back in 2007 and see first hand this esteemed workshop and rooms filled with weavers threading looms. Les Gobelins has it’s own artisan school of apprentices and a 4 year study program, along with its own gallery and archive. That the knowledge within it’s walls has been handed down through the centuries is remarkable.

Remarkable, but not exclusive to France of course. Tapestry weavers proliferate the world over. Melbourne, Australia has it’s own Victorian Tapestry Works fulfilling commissions for artists; the late great Arthur Boyd’s tapestry in the New Parliament House being one example. Touring the South Island of New Zealand in 2005 I happily stumbled across Marylin Rea Menzies weaving tapestry in her studio in the Arts Centre on Worcester Boulevard, Christchurch. Just one lone weaver in a studio surrounded by looms and partially finished cloth. I sat watching the ‘painting’ grow thread-by-thread for some time as she talked me through the process and her latest piece.

Daniel Arsham’s work at this year’s Armory Art Fair caught my eye. In his mid 20s this artist, based in New York, creates works that explore the effects of nature on the built environment. The new realities these create are novel and futuristic. Where once the built environment was encroaching on the natural world Arsham’s works show a reversal of this with the natural world ‘biting back’. His images play with this by way of nature reclaiming monumental architecture; birds biting nibbles in white walls; humans landing in the ceilings of white cubed rooms; a bow that has been made by drawing the surface of two walls at a corner.

Have we lost reality? Have we lost nature? And in so doing where does wisdom sit? Wisdom in the shape of a large snowy owl, hovering over the desolation and perhaps seeking to return simplicity and reality to what is a world of concocted human ideals.

Arsham’s work will be showing in a solo exhibition, opening at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris on 20th March, 2010.

Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin. ♦

Another view of the Caroll Christmas windows at Bergdorf Goodman.

And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing ♣

♦♣ Alice; Lewis Caroll ‘Alice in Wonderland’ [D. Appleton. New York 1866].

Where: NYC East Village 14A Orchard St. (bet Hester and Canal Street)  New york, NY 10002

Dates: 12th until 20th  December 2009

map and directions

Artists on view:

1988/2009
Frame Drag
archived VHS,HDV and animation
duration 3.57min
Image ©Ms and Mr

I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!  *

The wonderland in this decoupage-filled window is dominated by a disconcerting grin and a Cheshire cat. Every inch is covered with flowers, trees, animals and Victorian paraphernalia. Most of the digital canvas print cut-outs flap in competition for surface space. Another view of the Caroll Christmas windows at Bergdorf Goodman.

Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin; but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever say in my life! ≡

* Spoken by Alice; Lewis Caroll ‘Alice in Wonderland’ [D. Appleton. New York 1866].

≡ ibid.

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see? ≡

It is Caroll season! Yes, it is also carol season, and Bergdorf Goodman’s window displays for Christmas are celebrating both the single and double ‘L’ varieties with another spectacular array of windows into other worlds, specifically the worlds from the celebrated children’s classic ‘Alice in Wonderland‘ by Lewis Caroll.

In a delightful throwback to the Tim Burton exhibition at MoMA, and the upcoming release of his latest directorial work, Alice in Wonderland features in all the glory of characters, events and environments.

The windows are so full for this presentation I am posting them in installments. Here the work of Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs thrill on the marble tiles of the palace of the Queen of Hearts [and Clubs], and in the staircases and journey portals of Alice herself.

≡ Spoken by Alice; Lewis Caroll ‘Alice in Wonderland’ [D. Appleton. New York 1866]

The environments of the material world and those of digital production often overlap in the artist’s attempts to draw power from the video data-verse (the digital realm). The difference between the singular camera eye (the lens) and the bifocal human gaze is a central theme in the show.

Smith utilises the mechanics of cinematic production and special effects technologies to form parallel universes in which the rational behaviour of matter is displaced by a realm of digital possibility. Using montage, multiple exposure and digital compositing Into The Void (2009) builds a tangent narrative. The artist searches New York for works of international Klein blue and a location that mirrors the site for Yves Klein’s Le Saut dans le Vide (The Leap into the Void, 1960). Once the IKB works are found the artist extends his arms into the pigment, delving into the blue screen void. This culminates in a time-based recreation of Kleinʼs famous jump. The artist hovers not only in space but also in time, suspended in a digital loop.

In the sculpture Control Structure (2008) the artist’s head is modeled larger than life from plywood, fiberglass and resin. A large digital video zoom lens extrudes from one eye socket, while the other eye is caved in and blackened. The back of the skull is broken open to reveal a LCD monitor looping a video where a film set becomes a doorway between two worlds. From the set emerges a single hovering lens imbued with the power of a parallel cinematic data-verse. As the artist comes into contact with the lens, his world is transformed, causing images to change orientation and play in reverse. This is emblematic of video’s ability to transport, reconfigure, and essentially render the contents of the world malleable. The video is presented as fragments of memory lingering inside the lifeless head with the scenes of the video fading between sequences of black.

The sculptural head itself can be seen as a substitute for a camera body, the brain of the video camera apparatus. The viewpoints of the eye and the lens are juxtaposed – both are receptors of light but they represent the difference between analogue and digital. The geometry of the skull is broken down into component parts that parallel the process of digital sampling where a series of discreet units are used in place of a linear whole.