We started with a pre-breakfast visit to the Notre Dame Basilica a couple of blocks from our hotel in Old Montreal. The original church dates back to the 1600s, and its current interior was inspired in part by the exquisite Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

Divine colors and design.

Afterwards, on our way to a cafe to grab a croissant and coffee, we spotted these eye-catching goodies:

Just add a bow on top and these Canadian mailboxes would look like presents.

A rare Fisker Karma electric hybrid sports sedan.

We then took the clean and quiet metro downtown and got off at the Peel station.

Me likes this cool graffiti near the metro exit.

We stopped at Ogilvy’s department store on Saint Catherine Street. Major crush on the orange-and-gray jacket at the Rebecca Taylor boutique. (And the chandelier trompe-l’oeil reminded me of the graffiti sign.)

We arrived at our main destination, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts:

This is the entrance on one side of Sherbrooke Street. Officially known as the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion, it was designed by Israeli/Canadian “starchitect” Moshe Safdie.

This Beaux-Arts building across the street is also part of the museum. An underground concourse connects the two.

Upstairs, downstairs: pathways to different exhibitions in the modern pavilion.

Andrew strolling through one of the galleries. I especially loved the painting by Québécois artist Serge Lemoyne of legendary hockey goalie Ken Dryden.

More to love: the decorative arts collection housed in the museum’s Liliane and David M. Stewart Pavilion blew me away—an overwhelming visual delight. Whether you’re a design buff or a casual fan of shelter magazines, you will enjoy this place.

Squiggly lines as seating, including the orange “Corallo” (Coral) Chair by Brazilians Fernando and Humberto Campana.

The green “Floor Fan” made from lacquered synthetic clay is by German artist Maarten Baas (I’m wondering how he balanced the weight so it doesn’t tip over). He also did the black “Zig Zag” Chair.

The “Miss Blanche” Armchair by Shiro Kuramata—very Prada, no?

Mother and child: Gaetano Pesce’s “La Mamma” Armchair and Ottoman simultaneously looks like a baby on its back with its feet in the air. Piero Gilardi’s “Mela” (Apple) Chair is cheeky.

“Poltrona di Proust” (Proust’s Armchair) by Alessandro Mendini reminds me of Pointillism and pixels.

High chairs: furniture suspended on the back wall, including Philippe Starck’s “Louis Ghost” Armchair for Kartell. (I long for one, or maybe four.)

Taking a break outside on the terrace of the Stewart Pavilion. These patio chairs resemble laundry baskets.

Taking a break inside on a stark and sleek black leather banquette.

The featured exhibition was a site-specific installation by renowned glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. Billed as the artist’s “first major show to be presented in Canada,” it was sensory overload and more Vegas than Montreal. Still, I’m glad we saw it. As a fun and exuberant tour de force, it was great birthday fare!

Honestly, this was my favorite part of the show: the line drawing that served as wayfinding signage. (Its style is similar to the “WhatIsAdam” graffiti art above. Do you sense a theme?)

“The Boats.”

“Flowers.”

“Glass Forest #6.”

Around mid-afternoon, as we were leaving, this installation adjacent to the museum drew our attention:

Follow the red-and-green brick road?

I think it’s the handiwork of the Montreal Tourism Board.

For a late lunch, Andrew thought I’d want to try a raw vegan restaurant. Eating spaghetti squash instead of pasta and a flaxseed kale wrap in lieu of fish tacos? Hell no! Give me some butter and meat. Give me some hot cooked food! So we hoofed it several blocks to a hole-in-the-wall Japanese joint called Kazu. (I told you Yelp was our savior.) I had the pork belly ramen with a super-flavorful broth while Andrew had their famous salmon and tuna bowl. Now we’re talkin’!

To burn off our meal, we trekked to the 500-acre Parc du Mont-Royal designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The park includes part of Mount Royal and the highest spot in the city. We climbed what felt like a million stairs to reach the Kondiaronk Lookout, a semicircular plaza with breathtaking views of downtown Montreal and the St. Lawrence River. The perspective was gorgeous and refreshing!

Andrew’s head in the clouds. (And you can see the leaves beginning to change color.)

A sparse crowd admiring the scenery.

We were tired, sweaty and hungry by the time we returned to our hotel. I had made a dinner reservation at Les 400 Coups, the nicest restaurant we ate at during our stay. It was located in Old Montreal but away from the main touristy area. They seated us at a cozy table  in front.

My celebratory kir Quebecois. Santé!

The place was packed on a Wednesday evening. The decor was stylish yet warm. Our waiter was friendly. I had the squash soup with smoked herring, cranberry and celery; roasted guinea fowl breast with parsnip, mushrooms and smoked paprika; and the pear, coffee and caramel dessert. A delicious end to our day…and beginning of my 40th year.

Info:

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts | 1380 Sherbrooke Street West | Montreal, Quebec | H3G 1J5 | Canada | 514.285.2000 | mbam.qc.ca

Kazu | 1861 Sainte Catherine Street West | Montreal, Quebec | H3H 1M1 | Canada | 514.937.2333 | kazumontreal.com | Yelp review

Les 400 Coups | 400 Notre Dame Street East | Montreal, Quebec | H2Y 1C8 | Canada | 514.985.0400 | les400coups.ca | Yelp review

Coming up next: The Plateau and Botanical Gardens!

Previous post: Bonjour Montreal!

October 2007: the two of us at an event about four months into our relationship. (Why does Andrew look just slightly bemused?)

Six years later, we’re still stuck together. In the lobby of our hotel before venturing out for some sightseeing.

Reflections at the 9/11 Memorial

After breakfast at the hotel, we jumped on the subway to Lower Manhattan. Noisy and nonstop construction surrounded us as we emerged onto the street at Fulton. The cranes and jack hammers actually created a stirring backdrop—proud reminders that gleaming skyscrapers and new landmarks are being built.

Looking up at One World Trade Center (a.k.a. Freedom Tower). The 104-story skyscraper will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. It is 1,776 feet tall, a symbolic reference to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The 9/11 Memorial was peaceful and not too crowded. It features twin reflecting pools that “sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood.” Each pool is nearly an acre in size with “the largest man-made waterfalls in North America.”

Tickets and brochure for the 9/11 Memorial.

Even though the sun was sparkling on the water and the site was serene, I wasn’t inspired to take a bunch of photos. It sounds corny but I put away my iPhone and thought about where I was on September 11, 2001. I was working at Morgan Stanley’s branch office right near the FBI Building in downtown DC. My boss and I were watching CNBC in his office when the Today Show cut in with reports of a plane flying into the North Tower. I remember saying, “That poor pilot must have had a heart attack.” Then we saw the second plane crash into the South Tower. We had several colleagues who happened to be in New York for training at our firm’s offices in that building. (Morgan Stanley was one of the World Trade Center’s largest tenants, occupying 25 floors. Our co-workers thankfully all survived, due in large part to the heroics of Rick Rescorla.) The panic really set in after we saw the Pentagon on fire. We were convinced that the White House or the Capitol was next, and our office was right between the two.

“The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the Memorial pools.”

Battery Park

From the World Trade Center site, we walked down West Street to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. With a light breeze blowing, it was relaxing to stroll near the water.

Panoramic view towards the Statue of Liberty and New Jersey.

Zooming in on the Statue of Liberty.

Andrew is an overzealous shutterbug, and I am his reluctant muse.

Distraction over head: at the Esplanade near the South Cove.

My outfit matches the trees. (Yes, it’s the J.Crew green shorts again.)

Framing Lady Liberty from Castle Clinton, a sandstone fort built in 1808. It was America’s first immigration station (before Ellis Island) where more than 8 million people arrived in the U.S. from 1855 to 1890.

Brooklyn Museum

Next, we crossed the river and headed to the Brooklyn Museum for lunch and three memorable art exhibitions.

The museum’s admission tag.

Wayfinding signage for art. (It looks 3D but is actually printed on a flat wall.)

The two main exhibitions that drew us to Brooklyn.

Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui

This was the first solo exhibition in a New York museum by renowned Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. My friend Marilynn first told me about him during the 2007 Venice Biennale. He had turned a bag of trash—liquor bottle caps discarded from a local distillery—into the most stunning tapestry! Vogue magazine described it as “both entrancingly beautiful and historically complex, transforming the refuse of an impoverished continent into something uniquely luxurious. It seemed at once ancient and worn, yet also opulent and radically new.”

Well, I had to see El Anatsui’s work for myself. Behold these monumental masterpieces:

Astonishing ethereal beauty.

“Drifting Continents,” 2009, aluminum and copper wire. According to author Susan Vogel, “themes of exile and loss are woven through his work, but also art’s alchemical powers of transformation.”

Close-up detail. The artist and his team have apparently created more than 30 different types of patterned “fabrics.”

One of my favorites pieces. “Ink Splash,” 2010, aluminum and copper wire.

“Waste Paper Bags,” 2004-10, aluminum printing plates, paint, copper wire.

This showstopper looks like Kente cloth.

From scraps to the sublime: “Black Block,” 2010, aluminum and copper wire.

“Peak,” 2010, tin and copper wire. This sculpture is made from stringing together the tops of milk cans.

John Singer Sargent Watercolors

My high school art teacher Mr. Li always said, “Watercolor is the most difficult medium because you can’t cover up your mistakes.” It’s true: no matter how much you saturate your paper with water and then try to soak it up to get rid of a brush stroke that’s not quite right, the mark will remain. So you can understand my deep appreciation for these Sargent paintings. And since the process behind any product fascinates me, I loved the part of the show that scientifically revealed his pigments, underdrawings and paper preparation.

“Bedouins,” circa 1905-06, opaque and translucent watercolor. This photo doesn’t begin to capture the richness of color and brilliant technique.

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

I had been dying of curiosity to see this iconic installation ever since Marilynn mentioned it to me eight years ago. (Like an elephant, I don’t forget.) It “comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with…thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history.” The names of another 999 women are inscribed on 2,304 hand-cast and gilded porcelain floor tiles.

My reaction at finally seeing it for the first time? [Speechless.]

“The Dinner Party,” 1974-79, mixed media.

The Dinner Party is obviously ripe with symbolism and significance. It celebrates traditional female accomplishments such as weaving and embroidery which had been devalued as “craft” versus “fine arts.” The table’s triangular shape represents the female. The thirty-nine final women are arranged in “three groups of thirteen… Thirteen represents the number of [men] who were present at the Last Supper.” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Many of the plates feature “a butterfly- or flower-like sculpture as a vulva symbol.” The completed Dinner Party took several years to complete. More than 400 people, mostly volunteers, contributed to its creation.

Selfies at Prospect Park

In the late afternoon, we visited nearby Prospect Park for some fresh air. We sat down at a bench overlooking the Long Meadow and took some silly selfies:

Funny face: Andrew being arch.

The lighting makes Andrew look like he shaved half his head.

Anniversary Dinner

We were tired and hungry pups by dinnertime but still wanted to celebrate at a cool restaurant near our hotel. Brasserie, located in the Seagram Building, fit the bill perfectly. We were in “starchitect” heaven! The building was of course designed by Mies van der Rohe. Philip Johnson designed the original restaurant, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro later redesigned it after a fire.

The current incarnation of Brasserie. Photo by Michael Moran via arcspace.com

Even without a reservation, we were seated promptly and opted for the prix fixe menu (a very reasonable $35). Andrew ordered their famous onion soup, hangar steak with fries, and goat cheese cheesecake with poached pears. I had the soup, barramundi with cauliflower puree, and chocolate sampler. The food was divine, and the atmosphere was fun and surprisingly unpretentious. Overall, a wonderful evening

Sorry to disappoint. We didn’t take photos of our food and didn’t ask our waiter to capture the moment. Consolation prize? A lame shot of the restaurant’s business card and sugar packet.

Info:

The 9/11 Memorial | 212.266.5211 | 911memorial.org

Brooklyn Museum | 200 Eastern Parkway | Brooklyn, NY | 11238 | 718.638.5000 | brooklynmuseum.org

Brasserie | Seagram Building | 100 East 53rd Street (between Park & Lexington) |  New York, NY | 10022 | 212.751.4840 | patinagroup.com | Yelp review

Up next: Thursday in Soho!

Previous posts: 

Monday in Midtown

Tuesday on the Upper East Side

Well, the Upper East Side beckoned Andrew and me with its promise of prime real estate too—its famed Museum Mile!

So here’s a recap of our art binge on Day Two:

Ticket to Ride

We took the subway uptown. It was great—we never had to wait more than a few minutes for a train, and the cars were mightily air-conditioned. (DC metro, please take note!)

The Supermodel

While crossing Fifth Avenue to get to the Met, I spotted supermodel, Helena Christensen, hailing a cab. Wearing slingback heels and a slouchy knee-length navy dress with her black lace bra exposed in the back, she’s just as otherworldly-gorgeous in person as she was in the 1989 “Wicked Game” music video. (She’s 44 years old, people! Must be the Danish genes?) Andrew was brave enough to snap this quick photo as her taxi was pulling away:

She acknowledged that it was okay for Andrew to take her picture and then cracked a smile.

Whew! We had to take a moment to recover from the Helena sighting. It’s not everyday that a creature strides in front of you who looks like this:

Photo from Elle Spain, May 2013.

“PUNK: Chaos to Couture” at the Met

We arrived at the Met shortly after the doors opened at 9:30 am.

Banners lining Museum Mile.

After paying the suggested donation (skimping on art brings bad karma), we made a beeline to the exhibition “PUNK: Chaos to Couture.” No photography was allowed in the galleries, and I didn’t want to test the surveillance skills of the security guards. Overall, although the New Yorker had written a scathing review, I thought it was a fun and frivolous spectacle—good summertime fare. I liked its focus “on the relationship between the punk concept of ‘do-it-yourself’ and the couture concept of ‘made-to-measure.’” And I loved the pieces by Comme des Garçons, Versace and Viktor & Rolf, among others:

Members of the press had been granted a sneak peak in early May and obviously were allowed to take photos. So here’s a shot via Women’s Wear Daily (wwd.com). From the left, looks by Yohji Yamamoto, Viktor & Rolf and Chanel.

No, it wasn’t a sweeping tour de force like the Alexander McQueen retrospective in 2011. Then again, I wasn’t expecting it to be.

A couple of sidenotes:

1) On our way to the Punk galleries, I walked passed the daughter of “Real Housewife of New York” Jill Zarin. (How did I recognize her? I may have watched an episode or ten—and lost a million brain cells in the process. Definitely not worth scrambling to get her photo.)

In case you’re wondering who I’m talking about: RHoNY Jill Zarin on the left, her daughter Ally Shapiro on the right. (photo via bravotv.com)

2) Andrew, as is his wont, struck up a conversation with a bubbly, petite twenty-something girl who turned out to be a writer for Elle Poland. She had moved to New York a year ago and works part-time at the Antiques Garage. All of the city’s vibrant energy was channeled through this one beaming, fresh-faced girl whose words tumbled out about everything from Polish model Anja Rubik to taking the BoltBus to DC. She was amazing!

The Petrie European Sculpture Court at the Met

We stopped for a respite in one of my favorite spaces in any museum anywhere:

Breathing room.

I like how the perspective in this shot looks really exaggerated. #NoFilter

Boys Will Be Boys

Andrew was entertained by the punk exhibit (especially since he had been to CBGB when he was a lot younger), but what he really wanted to see was armor, swords and guns. (This may or may not have induced some major eye-rolling on my part.)

What the hell is up with all the male fascination about this stuff?

Andrew Get Your Gun.

Upon exiting the Met, we threw our light-blue metal admission tags into the designated recycling box. Had I known that only six days later the Met was going to do away with them altogether, I would have saved them as keepsakes!

How the 0.001% Live

On our way to Sarabeth’s for lunch (where I had the most delicious seafood salad and Andrew was the only straight man in a sea of social x-rays), this gorgeous house on East 92nd Street was preening and begging me to take its photo:

Look at the lush tidiness. It reeks of Birkin bags and Damien Hirst paintings inside.

The Guggenheim

After lunch, we were off to the Guggenheim, mainly to see the James Turrell installation that I had been hearing and reading so much about.

View of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “temple of the spirit” on Fifth Avenue.

I won’t even attempt to describe the site-specific installation better than someone like the New York Times’ Roberta Smith. You just need to know these two things: 1) “the ravishing ‘Aten Reign’ [is] an immense, elliptical, nearly hallucinatory play of light and color that makes brilliant use of the museum’s famed rotunda and ocular skylight.” 2) you must go and experience it for yourself.

Artist Chuck Close has described Turrell as an “orchestrator of experience.” I love that quote, and it’s so true!

I snapped this photo looking towards the skylight before realizing that photography is forbidden. I was chided by the security guard and hung my head in Asian shame. (But hey, I got the shot, right?!)

 Maurice Sendak

The final stage of our art-filled day was perhaps the most rewarding and unexpected. I had read somewhere about a Maurice Sendak exhibit at an obscure little museum located not far from our hotel. Thank goodness we ventured there because it turned out to be an extraordinary collection of more than “two hundred never-before-seen Sendak originals…[including] rare studies, sketches, photographs, and ephemera, [plus] previously unpublished artwork from Where the Wild Things Are.” It was beyond delightful.

Meticulous drawings and warm memories.

Master of his craft.

Dinner at Tao

Our friend Rachel suggested nearby Tao as our dinner destination. It was a loud and fun atmosphere filled with tacky young women dressed to the nines in short spandex dresses accompanied by cologne-dipped, greasy older men. (Trust me, it wasn’t a brothel!) I ordered pad thai, Andrew ordered Singapore fried rice, and Rachel ordered sushi. And there wasn’t an ounce of Lycra or Drakkar Noir among us.

The dining room was one ginormous double-height space featuring this imposing statue.

Since match boxes are becoming increasingly rare at restaurants, I was pleased that Tao still offered them.

P.S. The Loot

Shockingly, I didn’t build in a lot of time during this NYC trip to do major shopping but still managed to pick up a few mementos. I think postcards make some of the best souvenirs—they’re inexpensive, lightweight and packable.

These two beauties are from the Museum of American Illustration.The one on the left is by Steven Stipelman. The one on the right is by Yuko Shimizu.

Punk rocks. I can’t wait to pin these up in my office.

At the Met, I also splurged on this t-shirt because it’s the only piece of clothing by Rodarte I’ll ever be able to afford. I plan on pairing it with my spiky necklace by Fallon. #PunkforLightweights

Mad for punk plaid.

Info:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art | 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street) | New York, NY 10028 | 212.535.7710 | metmuseum.org

Sarabeth’s East | 1295 Madison Avenue (at 92nd Street) | New York, NY | 10128 | 212.410.7335 | sarabeth.com | Yelp review

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum | 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street)| New York, NY  10128| 212.423.3500 | guggenheim.org

Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators | 128 East 63rd Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues) | New York, NY 10065 | 212.838.2560 | societyillustrators.org

Tao Asian Bistro | 42 East 58th Street (between Park & Madison Avenues) | New York, NY | 10022 | 212.888.2288 | taorestaurant.com | Yelp review

Up next: No Sleep Till Brooklyn!

Previous post: Monday in Midtown

I won’t bury the lede: we had a fabulous time! It might have been even better than two years ago. It never rained. It was warm with a light breeze (i.e. none of that soupy, melt-the-oil-absorbing-powder-right-off-your-face humidity that mars summers in the nation’s capital). We had two random celebrity sightings! We ate well. We walked a lot (hello NikeFuel points!). And we absorbed the vibrant energy of Manhattan that’s like nowhere else on earth.

A little background: I enjoy working within constraints because they streamline decisions—whether it’s the small-screen real estate of iPhone apps for my day job, or a count-on-one-hand number of days in the sleepless Big Apple. The set parameters for this vacation were viewing several must-see art exhibitions over the course of four weekdays. Since different museums are closed on different days (although the Met and MoMA are now currently open seven days a week), I easily came up with a general itinerary.

Without further ado, here’s my chronicle of Day One:

We arrived at our lovely hotel, the Elysée, in Midtown East in the early afternoon. (If you’re looking for a quiet hotel with Old World European charm, fresh flowers everywhere, friendly service, free wifi, an incredible complimentary breakfast, then this is the place for you.)

Along West 55th Street on our way to lunch at La Bonne Soupe bistro, we literally passed by Chris Rock (Yes! Chris freakin’ Rock!) who was walking while talking in his unmistakable voice to two dudes who were flanking him. He was wearing a white dress shirt and black slacks, apparently shooting a movie in the area. I was too starstruck to grab my phone. (I bet I looked like this.) You’ll have to take my word for it.

After lunch, as we headed towards MoMA, I saw this orange scaffolding that looked like Christo’s “The Gates” installation in Central Park.

At MoMA, we saw the museum’s first major exhibition on the work of Le Corbusier. The architectural models were my favorite part, but photography was forbidden.

Another highlight for me was Ellsworth Kelly’s “Chatham Series,” fourteen paintings that have not been exhibited together since 1972.

As Roberta Smith wrote in the New York Times, “Mr. Kelly made shaped paintings using a brilliantly obvious method: abutting two ordinary rectangles to form an inverted ‘L.’ The looming vertical paintings evoke giant rulers, or details of architecture, especially posts and lintels.”

The exhibition was in celebration of the artist’s 90th birthday last month. Andrew commented, “Isn’t ‘Ellsworth’ a fitting first name for the creator of these inverted ‘L’ shapes?”

No two works have exactly the same measurements.

These are from Ellsworth Kelly’s series “Line Form Color.” Ink on paper and gouache on paper.

More from Mr. Kelly. Clean lines, geometry, strong colors. Love.

We spent the rest of our visit happily wandering through MoMA’s permanent collection.

Iconic: Jasper Johns, Flag.

Donald Judd, Untitled (Stack), 1967, lacquer on galvanized iron.

I didn’t catch the name of this sculpture but I thought it worked well with the Donald Judd piece above.

Mark Rothko, No. 3/No. 13, 1949, oil on canvas. (Btw, do you like these green J.Crew shorts? Oh good! ’cause I wore them a lot during this trip.)

Tom Wesselmann, Mouth, 7, 1966, oil on shaped canvas.

Andrew capturing Jasper Johns’s “Target with Four Faces.”

Andrew taking a photo of Jackson Pollock’s “One: Number 31.”

Me posing in front of “Gun with Hand #1″ by artist Vija Celmins. (Btw, my comfy lavender-striped top is Saint James for J.Crew.)

Winding down the afternoon in MoMA’s serene Sculpture Garden:

Alberto Giacometti, Tall Figure III, 1960, bronze.

Stark lines: facing Giacometti’s sculpture.

Panoramic view of the blissfully uncrowded garden.

Leaving MoMA, I couldn’t ignore this Sol LeWitt installation.

We returned to the hotel to freshen up, relax in the lounge and enjoy the complimentary happy hour and hors d’oeuvres. Our next stop was dinner at nearby Angelo’s Pizza, a casual neighborhood restaurant which served the best pizza I’ve ever had. We ordered a large pie with sausage, peppers and mushrooms. It arrived with a blistered, charred crust that was the perfect combo of chewy, crispy and thin. No soggy greasiness. Super-fresh ingredients. Good ratio of cheese to tomato sauce. I would have snapped a photo but we were too hungry. You’ll have to take my word for it.

To aid digestion, Andrew suggested we stroll east towards Sutton Place Park. (I had never been there.) It was a picturesque ending to our first day in New York.

Andrew looking towards FDR Four Freedoms Park located on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island.

The 59th Street Bridge at dusk.

Info:

Hotel Elysée | 60 East 54th Street (between Madison and Park) | New York, NY 10022 | 212.753.1066 | elyseehotel.com | Trip Advisor reviews

La Bonne Soupe | 48 West 55th Street (between 5th and 6th Ave.) | New York, NY | 10019 | 212.586.7650 | labonnesoupe.com | Yelp review

MoMA | 11 West 53 Street | New York, NY  10019 | 212.708.9400 | moma.org | NYTimes review of Le Corbusier exhibition | NYTimes review of Ellsworth Kelly Chatham Series

Angelo’s Pizza | 1043 2nd Avenue (between 55th and 54th) | New York, NY 10022 | 212.521.3600 | angelospizzany.com | Yelp review

Up next: Tuesday on the Upper East Side!

What’s the crisis, you ask?

[Deep breath.]

I am three months behind reading Vogue.

You’re aghast, right? Yes, I hang my head in shame and should forfeit my fashionista card. Here’s the ugly (or pretty?) truth: April 2013 with Michelle Obama and her toned deltoids is collecting dust on my nightstand, while the month of May with cute-as-a-button Carey Mulligan sits untouched in my dining room. But this past weekend, I decided enough was enough! I just had to start down the road to redemption by tackling March.

B’Day: finally time to enjoy Vogue, March 2013.

I got nestled on my sofa with the 618-page tome and started flipping pages.

That’s when I saw this ad:

Knockout color punch: beautiful powdery pattern and texture on the Fendi jacket.

For whatever reason, the vibrant spray of colors anchored by black caught my eye. And then I kept noticing the same palette repeated throughout the issue:

Similar color mix: illustration for the The Academy of Art University.

No shrinking violet: painterly brushstrokes in this Escada ad.

A sight for bored eyes: stunning Proenza Schouler dress embellished with grommets and paillettes.

Visual feast: a sumptuous flower and home décor shop in Paris.

The bright pastel combo wasn’t limited to Anna Wintour’s fashion bible. Look at the latest cover of Runner’s World:

Powder power: celebrating the Color Run 5K series.

Apparently, Vogue‘s June issue is coming out any minute with blond bombshell Kate Upton on the cover. You know what that means, right? I’ll still be three months behind. But since my savvy color observation didn’t register on any of the spring trend reports, maybe I’m actually ahead of the curve!

Musing #1

In late December, I saw this cool crescent-shaped house in the NY Times real estate section:

Check out these curves: minimalist house designed by architect Shigeru Ban in Japan.

My immediate reaction was that it looks like Leo Villareal’s light installation at the National Gallery of Art:

The “Multiverse” LED installation turned upside-down.

Musing #2

During my commute into DC from Virginia, my train goes over the Potomac River and runs parallel to the 14th Street Bridge. And everyday, we pass by this little lighthouse:

Part of my morning routine is staring out the train window at this hexagonal structure in the middle of the bridge. It’s apparently the control room where, back in the day, a worker would raise and lower the drawbridge so boats could pass underneath.

Here’s a closer-up photo that I managed to capture as my train whizzed by:

Kind of odd, right? What the heck is it? Some kind of psychedelic disco light?

Preparing this post forced me to Google it, using the search terms “colorful lighthouse 14th street bridge dc.” Lo’ and behold, an enlightening (sorry, couldn’t resist!) Washington Post article came up as the second result. In 2009, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities asked landscape architect Mikyoung Kim to create a “unique artistic enhancement” to the structure. The public art project involved the installation of dichroic acrylic in the tower’s six windows, creating a kaleidoscope effect. OK, now it makes sense.

And then last week via Flipboard, I saw artist Bahar Yurukoglu’s recent work, including this similar geometric beauty:

Ms. Yurukoglu “uses blocks and shards of acrylic…to create temporary installations of floating color fields, dense with pieces of refracted light.”

Musing #3

This past November, as I was paging through Flipboard yet again (I love that app!), I came across this story about a short film by multimedia artist Jeff Frost. While its esoteric premise remains beyond my grasp, this was one of the screen grabs in the article:

The film “The Flawed Symmetry of Prediction” features a time-lapse of “perspective-bending optical illusions” in the American West. Huh?

That image reminded me of these die-cut colored cards that I had bought at the Hirshhorn (I also have a set in black-and-white):

The Color Game by Naos Graphics.

You can create new, seemingly 3D designs by changing the order of each panel in the stack.

* Title also refers to the stellar Foo Fighters album containing one of my all-time favorite songs, “Everlong.”

My mom’s traditional living room and “vintage” sofa.

It reminded me of some pieces we saw a few weeks ago at the National Gallery’s “Masterpieces of American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection, 1700–1830″ exhibition. On display were examples of Federal Style (1780 – 1810), a restrained Neoclassicism which is characterized by “sober mahoganies, straight tapered lines, and modest carving,” as well as French-inspired Empire Style (1805 – 1830) which featured “antiquities-inspired carving, gilt-brass furniture mounts, and decorative inlays.”

What caught my eye the most? The variety of yellow chairs:

Armchair, New York, 1795 – 1810, mahogany.

Side chair, Boston or Salem, 1790 – 1800, maple; paint.

Side chair, attributed to John Finlay and Hugh Finlay, Baltimore, 1815 – 1825, maple; paint; cane seat.

Side chair, Philadelphia, 1810 – 1820, mahogany with mahogany and rosewood veneers and ebony inlay; brass. This chair is a variation on the ancient Greek chair known as a klismos, which has a horizontal, tablet-shaped top, deeply curved back, and curved front legs.

Grecian couch, attributed to John Finlay and Hugh Finlay, Baltimore, 1810 – 1830, walnut and cherry; paint; gold leaf.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a jenrocksfashion post if I didn’t relate the yellow embroidered upholstery to a visually-similar designer look, so here it is:

Stella McCartney dress, Resort 2013 RTW Collection.

Runway images via style.com

Masterpieces of American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection, 1700–1830 is currently on view.

National Gallery of Art | 4th and Constitution Avenue, NW  Washington, DC 20565 | 202.737.4215 | nga.gov

Update on October 18, 2013: Cute interactive on the history of fainting couches.

In the same spirit, after a long stretch where Andrew and I didn’t set foot into a single museum, we happily ended up going on a mini art binge last weekend. It was great! No calories, stress-free and culturally rich! At the Hirshhorn, in contrast to the eclectic pieces in Ai Weiwei’s oeuvre, we experienced conceptual artist Barbara Kruger’s site-specific installation “BELIEF+DOUBT.”  The official description explains it best: “The entire space—walls, floor, escalator sides—was wrapped in text-printed vinyl, immersing visitors in a spectacular hall of voices, where words either crafted by the artist or borrowed from the popular lexicon address conflicting perceptions of democracy, power, and belief.”

The strong, clean visuals envelop you like bold, in-your-face advertisements taken to the extreme. They become one gigantic mass communication.

Upstairs, downstairs: Andrew passing “Don’t Look Down on Anyone” on his way up to the Ai Weiwei exhibition.

Questioning sanity. (And forgive the blurriness–I took a photo of a postcard of the installation, since I couldn’t get a clear shot of the whole thing myself.)

Pensive: a visitor contemplating Doubt.

Bizarrely, I had to think long and hard about this one. It’s such a simple question but my mind went blank!

Since Ms. Kruger’s work often “questions the viewer about…consumerism,” it might be ironic (or perhaps intentional) that I thought about fashion while walking around. The messaging reminded me of those “Frankie Say Relax, Don’t Do It” t-shirts from the ’80s, and the color palette and linear designs conjured up looks from Marc Jacobs’ Spring 2013 Ready-to-Wear Collection.

Thick red stripes speak loudly.

An overpowering aesthetic? Does the wearer get lost?

Barbara Kruger: BELIEF+DOUBT is currently on view.

Hirshhorn Museum | 7th Street and Independence Avenue, SW |Washington, DC 20560 | 202.633.4674 | hirshhorn.si.edu

P.S. Regarding some of her earlier pieces, Ms. Kruger’s Wikipedia entry describes how she juxtaposes imagery with text as commentary on sexism and consumerism.

To wit, these are a couple of postcards I bought (with my commentary in parentheses):

Untitled. (Apropos for a society who believes that we should “shop our way out of the recession” and in which “fast-fashion” has become the norm.)

Untitled. (To me, this shows the sinister pressure and unrealistic expectation to be happy all the time. It’s like Facebook where you can easily become convinced that everyone else’s life is one big party or vacation.)

Update on Nov. 23, 2012: In the New York Times Opinion section, Ms. Kruger “illustrates her impression of the shopping season.”

Since it was a balmy 60 degrees in DC yesterday, I decided to drag Andrew to the Hirshhorn to see the exhibition “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” I’m sort of fascinated by the [in]famous, larger-than-life Chinese artist/activist. Having missed the acclaimed documentary “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” earlier this year, I was determined to make it to his first American museum survey. Whether you believe he’s over-hyped style over substance or one of the world’s greatest living artists, the show was indisputably engaging. Most of all, I was blown away by his ideas and imagination.

Here are highlights from our visit:

Two Hirshhorn gallerinas in conversation.

Snake Ceiling, 2009, backpacks. Requiem for the tens of thousands of schoolchildren who died in the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Immersive experience: photos show the construction of the Beijing National Stadium (a.k.a. the Bird’s Nest) on which he collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. Sculpture made of huali wood.

Moon Chest, 2008, a series of seven chests in huali wood.

Through the “view finder”: circular openings in each chest align so they create the effect of showing the phases of the moon.

Grapes, 2010, forty antique wooden stools from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

[background] Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995/2009, Lambda prints. [foreground] Colored Vases, 2007-2010, Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) vases and industrial paint.

Close-up of Colored Vases.

Bowls of Pearls, 2006, a pair of porcelain bowls and freshwater pearls. (You’d almost think these were enormous bowls of rice.)

He Xie, 2010-, 3,200 porcelain crabs. As Roberta Smith writes in the New York Times, Mr. Ai gave a dinner at his Shanghai studio as a “sardonic nod to its imminent destruction by the authorities. The dinner consisted of piles of river crabs, partly because they are a seasonal delicacy, and partly because the Chinese word for them, ‘he xie,’ also means ‘harmony’…and a code word for state censorship.”

Straight, 2008-2012, steel rebar (38 tons) that was recovered from the rubble of collapsed schoolhouses in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Close-up of the rebar. They look like textiles or cinnamon sticks, but knowing their grim provenance is chilling.

A security guard stands watch among Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads installation. It’s the artist’s first major U.S. public art project.

Framed view of the Zodiac Heads. The sculptures are “re-envisioned versions of the original 18th century heads that were designed during the Qing dynasty for…an imperial retreat outside Beijing which was pillaged in 1860.”

I left the exhibition inspired, bemused and convinced that “art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.”

Ai Weiwei: According to What? runs through February 24, 2013.

Hirshhorn Museum | 7th Street and Independence Avenue, SW |Washington, DC 20560 | 202.633.4674 | hirshhorn.si.edu

*from a BBC profile of Ai Weiwei.

The serene ambiance and light grayish-blue walls called for something romantic.

Before: bare bedroom wall.

After: the poster of the showstopping wedding dress from the Gaultier exhibit at the De Young Museum was the perfect fit.

Closer-up: I had my frame shop cut off the text about the exhibit from the bottom margin.

The ornate frame has a Baroque-like feel.

The windows originally featured cheap aluminum mini-blinds and heavy linen drapes. We ended up removing both in favor of a more minimalist and low-maintenance treatment. (You may or may not agree with our decision.)

Before: dingy mini-blinds and dust-bunny-collecting drapes (which you can’t really tell from this photo, but trust me!).

After: honeycomb shades in “Rain Cloud.” They provide soft, diffuse light and privacy. Even though the drapes are in storage, we’re leaving the hanging rods in place for now.

A close friend did the delicate botanical drawings in colored pencil.

Parting thought: As with almost everything in life, presentation counts! I’m a big proponent of investing in quality frames and glass to protect and enhance artwork for the long haul.

There are several factors to consider when deciding how much to spend on a frame and which type of glass, among them:

• Is the artwork an irreplaceable piece?
• Where are you hanging it? In the basement? In a highly-visible area? Exposed to sunlight?
• What other artwork is in the same room?

The folks at a reputable frame shop can advise you and make inspired suggestions. I use a local place in Arlington, VA–they’re wonderfully consultative, have a wide selection, will respect your budget and give you a good deal.