Well it should be obvious by now that I was just in New York City. Yea it’s still there and cooler, kinder and tastier than ever.
About 3-1/2 years ago my intro-to-blogging opus was a day-by-day recount of my vision quest in the city. Halfway to another transcendental outing I will break my trip down to categories this time. Or at least one or two categories. File this under Fine Art.
In my copious planning, ie what to eat each day, I thought I might go over to the Whitney Museum for the Biennial Exhibit – I think it only happens every two years – otherwise it would be bi-annual.
But that day was raining and I had to ” Stay up for hours in the Chelsea Hotel, Writin’ “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands for you.” Then catch the path train to Jersey to listen to a house painter tell me why not to go into business with your dad.
This change of plans might have been partly to do by a 4-page insert I pulled from a paper in the airport. One of my quirks it to read discarded newspapers if I am waiting for a plane, a great score is the New York Times.
It seems my old friend Gigi’s dad’s Levi’s store from Berkley (something called “The Gap”) was having a tie in with the aforementioned biennial. Artists from the exhibit, including A-listers like Jeff Koons and Chuck Close, had designed shirts to coincide with the exhibition.
It was cool enough that I had to snag the ad, but then I got thinking.
Andy Warhol would say like me. “Save the $15 and cab fare and just go to the Gap and buy a T-shirt.” So I tried to. However I’m pretty picky about the shirts I wear and their was nothing that was just right. Though Europeans were quickly buying them up – I’m not sure if they fully understood the novelty of the offering.
I decided that I liked the one that Kenny Scharf did. It was the most akin to a good shirt design. Different than his other work but the one most cognisent of fashion. What you might hang on your wall is not neccessarily what you want to wear. Scharf was a big name to anyone who knows the 80s New York art scene, A leading pop artist and colleague of the late Keith Haring.
But they only had his shirt in a women’s cut, so I was disappointed, but still glad I made it to the Whitney er Gap. I snapped the picture above.
A couple days later as I went down to the street to get a beer. As I exited the Chelsea I looked over . . . I said that’s got to be him . . . Kenny Scharf. Now this is interesting because a few days earlier I was walking up from St. Mark’s place and similarly met the gaze of Rik Okasek, leader of the 80s wunderband The Cars.
It’s like how many people in the world look like Rik Okasek (or Steve Jerman,) but you really don’t know unless you are in the beer line at a bluegrass festival or can you turn to the guy next to you and he says “Yeah, he lives in the neighborhood”. Damn and I had a really cool Candy-O Journal.
And I had seen Sharf in a documentary or too, I thought, but it was the poster I remembered. So I did the same thing I did when I gave my first T-shirt to Phil Lesh. Went up to the room grabbed him a journal. I then looked at my digital camera and returned to the lobby. I felt I was right.
When I showed this tall guy the shot he smiled charmingly, “Yeah that’s me” He accepted the journal, which was one of five I had with me, a spot perfect Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirty Cowboy; an classic Elton John cover that emulates if not pre-dates Scharf’s curvy creatures. He seemed to love it.
I guess the lesson is why go to Whitney, or the Gap. Just go to the Chelsea Hotel, or walk the streets of New York. You will see the best artist’s in the world, at work, in the flesh.
Art is a process not a product. (The offer at the Gap was for a limited time only.)
