The Rest of the Art I Saw in 2022

So I made that Katz post about my favorite art show of 2022, but now here’s a post about all the other great art I saw in 2022. Every museum or gallery visit I took last year is represented here as briefly as possible. I feel very fortunate to have access to world class art all over the place here in New York, but also saw some real cool stuff in states like Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois this last year. And Mexico, too, of course.

Art #1: The Sacred Feminine in LDS Art & Theology at the Center Gallery

Art #2: An afternoon stop at Christie’s to look at the old art they were auctioning off.

Art #3: A visit to the Met to check out the recently reopened European Paintings galleries

Art #4: Carl Arrington’s Jame Joyce art at the Center Gallery

Art #5: A visit to the Met with Emily

Art #6: Just a little bit of time passed at a few Chelsea galleries

Art #7: The Whitney Biennial!

Art #8: Birthday visit to the Indianapolis Speedway and you know what? I say those race cars are art!

Art #9: Popped into the Larrie Gallery on the LES to check out a little show of Daniel Arnold photographs.

Art #10: On my next Columbus trip, Liz takes me to the Aullwood (All wood?) Audubon Center to see their trolls. Trolls are art! (and you know I can’t resist posting an Eastern Box turtle)

Art #11: a nice Saturday afternoon visit to the Cloisters

Art #12: a quick stop into the New Museum

Art #13: a nice Chelsea gallery walk including a big Barbara Kruger show.

Art #14: Find an opportunity to go back to the Chelsea Galleries to check out a Devon Turnbull sound system. Anyone remember Nom de Guerre, the store that used to be in Noho that you’d go under the sidewalk to get to? Well now the guy that made that store makes these monstrous sound systems.

Art #15: Art Institute of Chicago — took a little Chicago trip, Liz came over too, Mom and Dad took us to the Art Institute.

Art #16: And then Liz and I went up the street to the Museum of Contemporary Art to check on their big Nick Cave show.

Art #17: then a day or two later we all went to Cantigny to see their alebrijes

Art #18: Went to the Columbus Museum of Art to see their show about Raphael tapestries as well as other nice art.

Art #19: Big Chelsea Gallery crawl with Rebecca and Paul

Art #20: And just a few days I went to the overwhelming Wolfgang Tillmans show at the overwhelming Friday night MoMA.

Art #21: There was a new Billy Childish show at the Lehman Maupin gallery in Chelsea. Billy is my #1 favorite punk musician and now he’s an art star. We’ve “met” twice! But it’s been a rather long time.

Art #22: On my way to one of my visits to the Katz show I popped into the UES Gagosian to see the Anna Weyent show. Anna Weyent is a downtown NY art darling AND she’s dating the owner of the Gagosian? Funny how that works out. I enjoyed her paintings and drawings, though.

Art #22: And right before going to a Christmas Party I popped into the new little Kerry James Marshall show at the Jack Shainman gallery (I’ve “worked” there!). Great stuff. I’m nuts for Marshall.

And that’s it! That’s all the art. Although now I realize I should have included Other World in Columbus. Oh well. Nice to always have something else to post about.

OH! You know what? I also went and saw the Edward Hopper show at the Whitney. Hmmm. I wonder where those pictures are?

Ok, found them!

Bonus Art: A December trip to the Hopper in NY exhibit at the Whitney. I had been dragging my feet about getting to this one. I don’t know why! It was a treat! (Also: appearance by hamburger guy statue)

Alex Katz at the Guggenheim

2022 was a great year for art in New York, and probably the number one highlight for me was the Alex Katz retrospective at the Guggenheim (which runs through February 20th so you [and I!] can still go see it [or go back!]). I had become particularly aware of Katz within the last, hmm, 5 years? And by great coincidence I read a whole Katz monograph late last summer (this is an activity I began in 2022: checking out art books about artists that I like and not just looking at the pictures BUT also reading all the words…turns out you can learn a lot!) so I felt really ready and enthused when I heard he was getting a gigantic Guggenheim show. I was able to get tickets opening weekend and met up with Patricia and Derek and was able to share everything I remembered about Katz with them during our visit.

What did I remember? Katz is from Queens, or Brooklyn, and went to Cooper Union. He was a peer to all the abstract expressionists and pop artists but he decided to focus on “realistic” work. He likes his paintings to catch a moment, be fixable in time. His paintings are meant to capture a very quick instant in time, like a camera set to a fast shutter speed. He often paints very quickly. He’s 95…or older? He met his wife Ada at a party in the 50’s, married her a few months later. She has been one of his primary subjects through the years, painting so many portraits of her. They’re both still alive! Katz thinks he is the best artist of his generation and it’s nice when an artist finally believes in themselves instead of being so doubtful or self-effacing.

Ok, pictures from the First Visit, let’s go!

On Visit Two I came with Liz. It was October 29th. Halloween was creeping across New York and into its museums, too. I brought my 90mm lens to get some closer, different-looking pictures of the Katz stuff.

Visit Three : Now here’s a twist…a major Nick Cave show (which Liz and I had seen in Chicago) opened at the Guggenheim in some of its other galleries. So here’s photos from visit three, none of which are of the Katz works but the Katz works were also enjoyed. Of note: I made visit three with Victoria five days before engaging myself to Liz and was trying very hard not to reveal anything of the plans I had.

A note: Cave is a Chicago artist that New York sure seems keen on appropriating, what with the new Cave tunnel between the Times Square Shuttle stop and 6th Avenue subways and his performances at Grand Central a while back. The show was bigger and better in Chicago but, if you hadn’t seen it, this New York one would seem pretty big and good itself.

Also: The Guggenheim show has given the city a touch of Katz fever and I’ve been to two galleries holding Katz exhibitions. One of just a few pictures at a small gallery on the UES and then a fairly large show at the Marlborough gallery in Chelsea. Time to buy a Katz! Or better yet, sell one!

Best Thanksgiving!

You may have heard the news about my Thanksgiving in Ohio so I thought I’d post all the details here for everyone…

Yes, it’s true. Liz and I went to the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky. And it was amazing!

The Ark Encounter is a…theme park?…where they’ve built a “life-size” or “Biblically accurate” replica of Noah’s Ark and it is Quite the Place!

When you get there you board a bus from the parking lot that whisks you away to the nearby park. At the parking lot you learn that the Encounter’s mascots are a family of cool giraffes who wear sunglasses and headphones…more on them later…

Arriving at the park for real, we started by orienting ourselves at the Answers Center. Inspected a pile of books by the Encounter’s mastermind and had a look at its big theater. More on that, later.

And then we walked over to the Ark. It’s gigantic! (But not as tall as the neighboring zip line tower). As you approach there’s these “ancient” “carvings” that catch you up on the story of Genesis so far. It has a switchback line like it was Disneyland but fortunately we were able to walk right on. There were a lot of people at the Ark and some of the sections of it were fairly congested so I can only imagine what it must be like when they have to run people through the switchbacks.

When you board the Ark it’s a lot like being in line for a Disneyland ride. It’s dim and they’re playing rain sounds that give way to storm sounds while you walk by some wall text and the cages for smaller animals and then the first of several showpiece animatronic dioramas that tell the story of Noah’s family. First impression was that it was pretty cool and MUCH higher quality than I had expected.

From there the little cages gave away to big cages with big animals in them. And you may jokingly ask if there were any dinosaurs and I will seriously tell you: there were SO MANY dinosaurs on board the ark! There was some signage explaining that Noah didn’t bring any giant dangerous dinosaurs, he could just pack up some juveniles that were much less of a hassle to take care of.

There were also “normal” animals on board, too. And if any of these normal animals (or the less normal ones above) look a little abnormal to you, that’s because these are the animal Kinds that all other animal species descended from. More on that later…(but actually probably not too much since I don’t understand the idea about kinds super well).

The rest of the first floor of the Ark: bat cages, wall text, models, and a ramp up to the second floor:

Up on the second floor: the exhibits start to take over! Via wall text and diorama, we learn about the story of Genesis up to this point so far, including arena gladiator fights between humans, dinosaurs, and Nephilim and baby sacrifices to a snake god.

Then there was this Spooky Animal Encounter. It wasn’t very spooky. There was just one animal.

Then some more animals and dioramas…

And then we arrived at what turned out to be the Encounter’s most provocative exhibit: The Fairy Tale Ark which quickly went from going “wow look at all these cute Noah’s Ark children’s books” to “Oh! Cute Noah’s Ark stuff is BAD?!” (…and if cartoony Noah’s Ark animals are a dangerous tool of the devil…then what’s the deal with the Ark Encounter’s giraffe family mascots?)

The grand finale, after a few more dioramas and wall texts, is the big door to the Ark with a cross shining on it. Families patiently lined up for a turn to take their picture at the door. Here is the door during a rare no-family moment.

Up to the 3rd floor! Here we see dioramas of Noah’s family’s quarters on the ark and Noah finding out that the flood was over (more on that later) followed by exhibits explaining the evolution is fake, the Earth is only whatever several thousand years old, catching us up on what followed the Ark (the Tower of Babel! Here just a little diorama, but the Ark Encounter is BUILDING A REPLICA of the Tower of Babel on its property. What could possibly go wrong?!?!)

And then, after a few more exhibits about the history and usefulness of the Bible in general, you’re done with the ark and it’s just back down the ramps and exit through the gift shop with you and THIS I think was a major error on the part of the Ark people. After the dramatic boarding of the ark with the spooky darkness and rain sounds you should definitely like, end by going outside and having a dove fly down to you beneath a rainbow made of lasers or something. Not just a “Ho-hum, guess we’re done” walk by souvenirs that aren’t even very fun since we all now know that fun representations of the Ark are Very Bad. Anyway.

I know many of you have been wondering how many cubits tall Liz is so here you go. Isn’t she cute? But also beautiful? And smart and nice?

And here’s Me!

Post-Ark we had a little snack of these tacos from the Ark Encounter taco stand and maybe I was just very, very hungry but I thought my taco was absolutely delicious. I miss it. I crave it. There are several eating options at the Ark Encounter, the crown jewel of which is “Emzara’s” which turns out to be an all-you-can-eat buffet. Had I known beforehand that there was an AYCE buffet at the Ark Encounter I would have planned/prepared accordingly. Oh, and who is Emzara? It’s Noah’s wife! Don’t recognize the name? That’s because the Ark Encounter named her! (and they own up to this)

After the taco we hurried back to the Answer Center to hear Ken Ham give his daily lecture. Which is actually pretty cool, having the brains behind the operation give an hour long presentation. Imagine if Walt Disney had held an information session every day at Disneyland! The first thing I learned from the lecture was that Mr. Ham is Australian. Then I learned a lot about the genetics of species evolving from Kinds and how purebred dogs are a genetic mess that can be killed by a cold but you could run a mutt over with your pickup and it would walk it off.

Turns out there’s a Merry-Go-Round at the Ark Encounter that is included with Admission so we had to take advantage of that opportunity.

And before leaving we paid a little visit to the Ark Encounter’s little zoo which was actually a pretty great little zoo. They have a kangaroo pen you can walk around in with the kangaroos and there are lots of other great animals there including both a zdonkey and a zhorse…not sure which one is pictured here.

Then it was time to say Goodbye to the Ark and the Ark Encounter which really I liked quite a lot. Since attending first and second grade at San Gabriel Christian School I really haven’t spent much time in Christendom and it was nice to pay a visit and see what they’re up to. I would certainly go back to the Ark Encounter (after I have a chance to visit their Creation Museum) and if I lived nearby I’d get an annual membership.

Oh and also, Thanksgiving morning Liz accepted my proposal of marriage and I’m the luckiest fellow of the postdiluvian era!