Chelsea Visit

Today, I went to Sarabeth's on Central Park South for a celebratory birthday brunch. Ironically, I'd never heard of this institution before last Saturday - and now I've gone twice in 8 days. Although last Saturday I went to a different location (Sarabeth's on the Upper East Side) at a different time of day (tea time) after enjoying the Curious George exhibit at the Jewish Museum.

Afterward, a friend and I caught the Lego exhibit at the Agora gallery in Chelsea. I heard about this exhibit on Above the Law because the sculptor, Nathan Sawaya, was a lawyer. (Or perhaps "is a lawyer"? Not sure about the verb tense here; he may still "be" a lawyer, even if he is no longer practicing law. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer, as they say.)

It was a much smaller exhibit than I'd anticipated, and I'd already seen most of the sculptures before in photos. It was really cool to see them in person, though. There's a wonderful duality to the sculptures; on the one hand, you can readily see that they are made of blocks and that everything is literally stepped. But on the other hand, many of them give a remarkable illusion of fluidity. (Think waves vs. particles.) The contour lines or ridges in muscles, or even on the side of the head, in a work like "My Boy" (which I couldn't help seeing as a reverse Pieta) are incredibly cool. The faces are often surprisingly expressive -- even on "Think", which seemed a little glib at first, until I squatted down to look at it eye to eye. My favorite work was "Red," a brightly colored torso with arms reaching up. You'll never guess what color it was. I'm about 80% sure it's a figure rising out of the ground, although I can also easily imagine it as a figure being sucked into the ground and flailing for something to hold on to. Most of the works are sculptures, but there are also three flat, pseudo-monochrome pieces (just white, black, and shades of blue) which look like they were created from photographs. All very cool, but rather pricey.

We took a look around the rest of the gallery as well. I really liked these two works by the German painter Michael Sky:

There was something about the soft gray and the thin lines and (in the tree picture) the intricate working of the branches, like neural networks. Just beautiful.

A lot of the pieces were interesting, but one lovely work by Adriana Cora reminded me (in a very modern way) of a mille fleurs tapestry, and some of the works by VéroniKaH were particularly striking.

As we looked for a way to the highline, I admired this building:

Then on 23rd Street, this tree seemed at first to be covered with fungi, but they are flowers blooming directly on the trunk:

Afterward, I met up with U-chan and enjoyed the rooftop sculptures surrounding Madison Square Park. They are apparently the creation of Antony Gormley, as part of an installation called "Event Horizon". (The official website says they're on display from 3/26-8/15, but I saw some news items dated 3/10 advising folks that these are not real people and they will not jump.)

Supposedly there are 31 life-sized figures cast from the artist's body. (I didn't see that many, but I was primarily enjoying the sunshine & conversation.)