We saw this painting at the Metropolitan Museum’s El Greco exhibit yesterday. Among the best works in the show, this was one of the few I had never seen before, even in reproduction. It’s haunting and so human, not “iconic” even though it was inspired by his early career as a Byzantine icon painter.

The show ends on the 11th, and is definitely worth a visit. Take a day off and do not try to go on the weekend. It was pretty crowded even on a Tuesday afternoon with a crowd of all ages. I really liked hearing all of the secular Jewish New Yorkers asking each other questions. Given that El Greco’s career was mainly spent in Philip II’s Spain, it is mostly religious and filled with Catholic themes. Not exactly the area of expertise for a lot of people in the crowd. I wasn’t raised Catholic, so most of what I know about Catholicism is from European art too.

Go read what James had to say on the exhibit.

The Morning News has a sweet interview with Witold Riedel, accompanied by a gallery.

We went to a preview today of Big Art Group’s House of No More at P.S.122. Disclaimer: I got comp tickets from Andy at P.S.122, as someone who attends a lot of shows there. It was sort of a friends/press/tastemakers kind of preview event.

I chose my post’s title from the fact that Big Art Group uses technology in a way that makes me think of the Wooster Group, but their work is even more about mediating reality. You can see the actors working on stage, doing what you watch on the three screens, but you’re supposed to watch just the screens, sort of. In a world where New Yorkers used TV to confirm what was happening before their eyes on 9/11, it’s an approach that makes sense. I referred to the Glamericans, with whom I marched on February 15, 2003, because some of the them are involved in the production, including Machine, who did the costumes.

Like Wooster Group, and many other interesting theatre groups, their works are “works in progress” basically forever. When I asked a question about one of the more baffling characters in the talkback afterward (moderated by the lovely Mike Albo), I was told, “she’ll make more sense on Thursday.” As in a lot of theatre that interests me, I was confused by the disjointed aspect of the work for the first third or so, but I was really into it, and the mystery of the plot, by the end.

I’ve been known to go to Wooster Group productions more than once during a run to watch how things evolve. I suspect Big Art Group warrants a similar approach.

When I mentioned Godard’s Contempt in my earlier post, I forgot to say the reason we watched it recently was to be prepared to see Javier Cambre‘s show of the same name at *sixtyseven. It was a cool show, but it’s closed now. Cambre was the one that did that wonderful beach shack in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

On an unrelated note, I love the new awning at Foxy Production.

I’ve been doing more work on Meredith‘s web page as the “guinea pig” for my artist web hosting business. Now that she can add her own stuff, there are a lot more images.

lisa + robert at black betty
c-print, 2002

That image is from her Williamsburg/Greenpoint snapshots. It’s Lisa Schroeder of Schroeder Romero gallery, plus one of their artists, Robert Boyd.

I really love her latest series. She has been taking photos of her mother’s Beanie Babies collection. They are all wrapped in plastic bags, to preserve their market values. I think they are quite beautiful, and the background information about her mother and the perversely commercial aspect of the items only makes them more interesting.

b.b.#1 (blue bird)
c-print, 2003