Although I have been here for before, I am always busy in this hottest of all cities. I live and work in NJ and pearl always to NY. My daily routine looks the same each day: I get up, make a tea, go to the Bulls Ferry Studio of Guttenberg Arts, 10 minutes away and work until I take the bus to Manhattan or Brooklyn in the afternoon or evening.
The studio I am working is madness! It is huge, has the best light I've ever had in a studio and is extremely well equipped. I would love to have such a studio in Vienna! The staff is all friendly, it is quiet and everyone has enough space ...
Since the part of NJ where I live and work (Guttenberg) lies on a cliff, I have the best view on Manhattan during my half-hour bus trips to Manhattan. It is amazing in these different moods and even if the weather is not so good, people still make wedding photos in front of the mega-scenery. Looking from the other side of the cliff, it looks the complete opposite. There is New Jersey State, it is so pure America: roads, houses, shopping malls, trade, industry, almost no public transport and smoke always rises from somewhere, yes I can hear the fire brigade very often ...
Back in Manhattan the district, where there are countless galleries and I personally like it most for the art is the Lower East Side. There I just did an extensive gallery tour - not for the first time.
I was already on some openings but I was especially pleased to meet my friend Tariku at his opening again. I met him on my last NY trip, when we shared a studio in Bushwick… In this exhibition, he didn’t limit himself to pictures on the wall with his cool small-format painting, but didn’t stop painting his sweater. He is also on show at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Apropos: There I’ve been, of course, already. Together with the Irish artist Elaine Byrne, who has been working for some time in NYC at the ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program). I went through the rooms and was very amazed as there are many paintings on display. Furthermore, many artists have been given very generous space. Several very inspiring works are on view.
To know Tariku is really great. Because he studied at the Parsons - The New School, he knows a lot of artists in NYC. We met some of the colleagues at the opening of the Curators in Residence of the Whitney Independent Study Program in the exhibition room The Kitchen in Chelsea. Very conceptual show, Afro-American and feminist topics end up in a very high quality of the exhibition. Afterwards there was a cool after party in a shitty bar, as a colleague said but it was big fun.
Another after party at an extremely beautiful place was celebrated the exhibition opening of my German colleague Anne Neukamp in the Marlborough Contemporary in Chelsea. Anne I met as well during my last NY stay, she also had a studio at the ISCP. The gallery is really great and Anne’s pictures are technically perfect and an interesting combination of opposites like colored and black / white, painterly and graphic, representational and abstract. Countless people were at the opening and the party was in the rooftop bar with terrace of the Janes hotel with a view on NJ.
There was also a closing reception at Guttenberg Arts and we had even visitors from Austria and Germany, for what I was very happy. Another Austrian woman is also super in touch with the New York art world - Laura Welzenbach, she is Director of Residencies at Eyebeam, an institution for art and technology. Their space is situated in the so-called Industry City in Brooklyn, really cool and with a view onto the sea, Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. Especially the washbasins that they have are technology-like…
A highlight of music had also already taken place. A solo concert by the pianist Anthony Coleman in the club founded by John Zorn - The Stone. It was a real NY atmosphere - dark, cool and weird. Anthony put some things into(!) the Piano, asked for small money in the audience and also this he stretched between the sides, he has remained true to his experimental jazz tradition…
