Guggenheim pix

To the Guggenheim With Love

Last week Marc and I went to New York for a short vacation made affordable by the fact that his mother’s apartment was vacant as she and her husband spent time in Florida. Our goal was to spend four days working remotely and to take advantage of as many arty opportunities as possible. This led us to see the big, blinking musical Next to Normal and to luck into free tickets to the David Letterman Show with guests Paris Hilton (who looks like a Christmas ornament in person) and comedian Sara Silverman (who knows how to work an audience). Kicking around the city, I found some most excellent, semi-free used vinyl records to add to the collection that's already sagging one of our floors at home.

Then there was the Guggenheim. We had an unencumbered view of the museum's interior because its spiraling rotunda walls were empty and had just been patched, sanded and repainted white. This sparseness was the backdrop for two “constructed situations” by artist Tino Sehgal. The first, which took place on the floor of the rotunda, was a three-hour session between a man and woman who, in choreographed fashion, hugged, kissed, rolled around and generally simulated third-base sex with each other. (Had they been someplace else, someone might have looked twice.) When I asked one of the museum guards what he thought of the performance, he was pragmatic. “Well, man, it’s not such a tough way to make a buck.” Looking at another V-shaped guard standing next to us, he added, “I’d do it with him if the money were right.” My imagination soared. “I’d have no problem with it,” replied the second guard, “no problem at all.”

The second Sehgal situation couldn’t be ignored. Marc and I walked onto the rotunda ramp with the intention of seeing an exhibit titled Paris and the Avant-Garde: Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection on the top floor. As soon as we were on the ramp, however, a cherubic little girl skipped over to us and said, “Can I ask you a question? What is progress?” As she led us to the next floor, we gave answers that we thought a 10-year-old would understand and then she disappeared. “Hello,” said a 20-something woman who appeared from out of nowhere, “so what do you think progress is?” Walking upward, we talked about the night sky, technology, alienation and I’m sure other topics within a span of four minutes, before she too disappeared and was replaced by a bearded Upper East Side type in his thirties. Marc got a little flustered when the conversation with our new “constructed situation” pal took on an anti-technology edge. And so it went with new companions - one older than the next – appearing and disappearing and any hope for an acceptable definition of “progress” fading with time.

Finally just outside the top-floor painting exhibition, Marc and I figured that the purpose of Sehgal’s serial conversation had been to make us think about a complex subject. Yes, but what else? Since so many people are intimidated and silent in museums, maybe the overall purpose of the exercise was to loosen people up and make them talk, period. We shrugged our shoulders and looked down to the bottom floor of the rotunda. The two performance lovers were still going at it - anonymous and alone.

Paris and the Avant-Garde was a small recap of some of what was going on in Western European art between the end of World War I and the onset of the Great Depression. Prominently featured were the topics of Cubism as expressed by Picasso, Georges Braque, Albert Gleizes and Juan Gris; and Surrealism, as expressed by Yves Tanguy and Joan Miro. The work was solid but I didn’t fully engage with the show until I came upon a small selection of Calder mobiles stuck on the opposite side of the exhibition space. Cordoned off so as not to be touched, Calder’s intentionally playful works stood still in the vacuum of art history. When the guard left the gallery, I walked around the mobiles like a doctor and determined they needed exercise. Two big breaths to the mobiles’ arms and they bobbed up and down, biomorphic shapes drifted across each other’s paths and then, once again, fell into a slumber.

For 15 seconds they were beautiful, more beautiful than any cherubic girl, bearded conversationalist or demi-lover I had encountered during the ascent.

Alone|Together Haikus

you want solitude,
but stay near so we can be
alone together.

Every day I work -
making, thinking. But I need
outside perspective.

Alone | Together

First Lights: The Miracle of Capitol Square

Business owners in East Arlington's Capitol Square are not letting cutbacks and gloomy forecasts ruin their holiday spirit.

Despite the threat of cancellation, some enterprising folks around the historic square won't see their First Lights extinguished. Reviving the tradition on their own, free events and special promotions are being planned for Saturday, December 5 from 12-4 pm.

In fact, they're so enthusiastic about what's going on in their neck of the woods that they decided to sing about it



It all started with witty Jan Whitted, from ARTBEAT Creativity Store and Studio, who likes to rewrite song lyrics (and once did so for the Boston Pops). She wrote lyrics to Let It Snow that extol Capitol Square as the best place to shop and dine, focusing on the virtues of keeping it local for the holidays.

Ever crafty, she stayed behind the scenes as she recruited American Idol wannabes from the neighborhood to inspire their moment in the spotlight.

Marc Gurton, the owner of 13FOREST Gallery, was first in line for the shenanigans. "Now more than ever," Gurton noted, "we were happy to spread some cheer and continue a tradition that folks around here clearly love. I just hope my high school chorus teacher doesn't catch sight of us."

Vanity aside, It wasn't difficult then to appeal to the inner hams of 13FOREST Gallery manager Eileen Ani, Brian Phillips from Maxima Gift Center, and Andrai Whitted from ARTBEAT to help record the ditty.

Risking their professional reputations, the hapless quartet met at the landmark Capitol Theatre to "sing" in the new ice cream parlor recently built inside the theatre's historic lobby. East Arlington resident Walter Locke volunteered to videotape the carollers, and the MTV-worthy performance will air on local cable station ACMi.TV.

The result, an a cappella showcase of collegial enthusiasm (if not actual talent), is an example of community spirit that proves that life - even with a frightful economy - is quite delightful.

For a full list of events, including free movies at the Capitol Theatre and holiday window lighting at 4 pm, check out capitol square.

Plenty: Opening Night

Pao-Fei Yang's saggar-fired ceramics

Lexington potter Pao-Fei Yang is an inspiring artist and an example of how an artist’s need to express cannot be contained. Initially trained as a painter, a serious car accident in 1983 left Yang unable to focus her eyes and forced her to give up painting. The more tactile qualities required for clay, however, proved to be the perfect outlet. Not only did ceramics provide a sense of healing in her own life but it became the channel for visually stunning and conceptually appealing work. And in a medium rarely associated with representational work, the former painter found a new brush.

Recently 13FOREST has acquired some of Yang’s pit-fired work. These pieces are produced through a firing method known as saggar firing. In this process ceramic work is placed within a larger vessel with other combustible material and then the larger vessel is placed inside a kiln. This creates a very specific atmosphere within the saggar which Yang skillfully uses to achieve her unique synthesis of abstract and representational elements.

The abstract colors and patterns come from the smoke and fire of the burning material surrounding the piece while the formal elements are created by placing a thin metal sheet on the surface of the clay. The piece of metal can be cut to resemble any form - often horses and crows appear in the work - and the metal then resists the smoke and ash to some degree leaving the form of the metal piece outlined in the clay surface beneath. This wonderful combination of elements allows for the creation of the haunting, symbolic landscapes that have become the signature of the artist’s pit-fired pieces. We’re thrilled to be representing such innovative and compelling work.

-Phil Scheer and Marc Gurton

Poetry Reading

Our second event for Queer Animals was great. Marc read some of the poems from Mortimer's Some Queer Animals and Why, and we were all greatly amused. Our thoughts were also provoked!


We had some discussion about the poems, and of how much we were over-reading into them. We're pretty sure it was a lot.


All in all, it was an excellent chance dig a little deeper into one of our most controversial shows.