Jean Dubuffet: Theatres de memoire at Pace Gallery 2018

Jean Dubuffet: Theatres de memoire

Pace Gallery Chelsea, NYC, 5/18 to 6/29 2018

                                    Jean Dubuffet preparing for Theatres de memoire.

Seeing Theatres de memoire at Pace Gallery was a great pleasure.

I had never seen Dubuffet’s wonderful large layered acrylic and collage on paper mounted on canvas before.

Thanks to Arne Glimcher, the founder of Pace Gallery and the curator of the exhibition and I believe an early supporter of Dubuffet, do we have this rare exhibition in NYC.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit Glimcher’s garden with Dubuffet’s expanded polystyrene sculpture house (picture included with Gigi and H7L ).

In 1984 I had an installation in Paris and I was trying to invite Jean Dubuffet as I admired his work a lot and some find we have things in common,but he was not well and died 1985.

 

 

                 Dubuffet’s expanded polystyrene sculpture house in Glimcher’s Garden.

Published by http://www.NowJournal.com H7L editor http://www.H7L.com

East Village Artist Displays Her Work at Eco-Friendly Design Store Coco-Mat

ARTIST H7L EXHIBITS AT COCO-MAT

Hanne H7L relaxes among her art and Coco-Mat furnishings

H7L and Coco-Mat manager John Colligan

NowJournal recently visited an interesting exhibit of work by the artist H7L in the Eco-friendly household furnishings company Coco-Mat in the DDBuilding on the upper east side of Manhattan.

Hanne’s whimsical painting and sculpture Installation at Coco-Mat complimented the sublime offerings of Coco-Mat as also expressed by many visitors to the installation..

I spoke with Hanne ‘H7L’ about her work.

Hanne H7L: 

 I draw in all media.  My paintings, wire sculptures, collages, manipulated digital prints, etc.are all essentially drawings  that I use in my installations.

I often use animals as symbols of nature and partake of the cycle of life and death by using recycled and healthy materials whenever possible.

My Wolfman, which you just saw gliding through the introduction at www.H7L.com, is part man, part animal, a composite figure intended to remind us all of our frequently forgotten connection to the natural world.

With modern technology in danger of going too far, I feel there is a great risk of becoming too slick. Even in my digital drawings I try to show the distinctive touch of a human hand, often by juxtaposing or superimposing my Wolfman mark on my work.  All of my art is rooted in ecology and is about nature, health and life versus artificiality, disease and destruction.  

I strive for a sane and healthy world. Growing up in Denmark I just naturally preferred what is healthy such as not white bread but dark (Rugbroed), fruits especially apples, and I never really cared about sweets.

When I moved to USA  San Francisco in 1970’s I was shocked seeing all the garbage all over that was when I really started getting into ecology. Further more when U.C. Berkeley changed my life from Pharmacy to Art.

I was from the very beginning concerned about the materials we artists use in our art. Starting out with oil paint I realized that everybody were using terpentine to clean the brushes which is carcinogenic. I quickly changed to acrylic paint, but here most people used somethi

ng in a nameless container called Rhoplex to mix into the paint. which is also carcinogenic. I decided then to try printing. Later on I went into Installations and I went so far in my search for healthy materials for making art that I created “The Onion Universe” Installation in 1983 in La Jolla in CA where I mostly reused archival print paper and the skin of onions see www.H7L.com Installations, as that at least could not hurt the environment or anything living. The Museum Of Modern Art in New York City

has my “Onion Universe” Artist’s Book in their Collection.

When I arrived in NYC Fall of 1983 I “Onionized the Big Apple” www.H7L.com Performance, I planted onions around seven buildings where I found there were pollution like Con Edison and the Stock Exchange which was polluted by RACKETEERING AND SECURITIES  FRAUD by the Gang or wolf pack of wall street in 1980’s the leader, was the epitome of wall street GREED,  Michael Milken ‘the Junk Bond King’ was sent to prison 1989–Ivan Boeski one of the pack.

NYC was still in the 90’’s full of garbage and drug dealing and when I was selected by the Cultural department of NYC for an Artist’s studio in East Village I did what I could to clean up. I painted a mural on our House I called “Good Against Evil” (see www.H7L.com Paintings/Installation) and three months later 29 drug dealers from our block was caught and imprisoned for life. It changed the block a lot and all the graffity disappeared and I felt it was caused by the effect of my mural.

Working with the City, I also got 12 trees planted on our block.  Now in 2017 NYC has been able to get the garbage organized and recycled which I am happy about.    

I am so pleased to be working with Coco-Mat, an environmentally positive company with great product design, and hope to collaborate more in the future.

MC Anton

NowJournal.com

 

NowJournal.COM

Linda McCartney / Mary McCartney:    Mother Daughter  

Posted on November 22. 2015

                      November 21-December 19,2015

Gagosian Gallery 

976 Madison Avenue New York NY 10075 212.744.2313

Photos and commentary by Hanne H7L http://www.H7L.com.

“My mother shaped my view of the world and inspired me to embrace spontaneity and capture the unforced. To show with her is such and honor for me and validates my journey as a photographer.” – Mary McCartney

It was a pleasure to meet and talk to Mary at the opening. She is a very nice and friendly person like Paul.

It was very interesting to see how Mary’s work often was an extension of Linda’s work as seen in Linda’s Cherries, Antigua 1970  and Mary’s  Tea and Rust, London, 2000.   Hanging next to each other, each piece is enhanced by the other.

Mary McCartney and H7L

Paul by Linda

The Downtown Decade: NYC 1975–1985

September 10 – October 10, 2015

Photos and commentary by Hanne H7L http://www.H7L.com.

If you want to get the feeling of the activity and communication there developed between all the Arts in the Lower East Side in the Downtown Decade you should go and visit the exhibition at Rare on 17 West 54 street.

There are plenty of original photographs and books to look at,  sounds to listen to plus the following events coming up:

Book Signing: Jeannette Montgomery Barron

Date: Wednesday, September 30th, 6-8 pm 

Location: GHB Penthouse, 20 West 55th Street

Screening: Downtown 81, with Glenn O’Brien

Date:  Wednesday, October 7th, 6-9 pm
Location: GHB Penthouse, 20 West 55th Street

Reading: Basquiat, with Author Phoebe Hoban

Date: Friday, October 9th, 6-7:30 pm
Location: RARE, 17 West 54th Street, ground level

John and Yoko by Allan Tannenbaum

2015 GoTopless New York

NowJournal’s Giselle Eve and Rachel Jessee from GoTopless NYC

by MC Anton, NowJournal.com

Sunday August 23, 2015

National GoTopless Day arrived at a time in New York City where the topic of public toplessness is current news.   The proliferation of character performers in Times Square   has caught the attention of new outlets and City Hall.  The characters pose for photos for money and are sometimes aggressive.  The latest manifestation of this trend is nude body painted women posing for photos with tourists, including children.

Under consideration is making toplessness in public forbidden except at beaches, for women – and men.   The courts had previously ruled that if men could take their shirts off in public, then women had the right also.  Since rights can’t be unequal, City Hall is planning on taking the right away from men, in order that those rights could be taken back from women.

Given the uncertainty about the laws in the future, this could well be the last GoTopless Day in NYC, so NowJournal decided to cover the event, which consisted of a parade from Columbus Circle to Bryant Park where more bodies were painted and speeches were made.

You can find out more about the movement at GoTopless.org

Giselle Eve with Phoenix, a speaker at todays event.

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971 at MOMA

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971 at The Museum of Modern Art, May 17- September 7, 2015. NowJournal Photos and commentary by Hanne H7L  www.H7L.com

In late 1971 Yoko announced an unauthorized exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern (F)art as she titled it.  She advertised it in a magazin and on a limousine and it was stated that Yoko had released a multitude of flies which

the public was invited to follow their flight within the museum and across the City.

Yoko being an optimist believes that no effort is wasted even if it at the time could seem like that, now so many years later she has a well deserved One Woman Show at MOMA.

It is always fascinating to see and hear what Yoko does and did create years ago as she has her own way with things. She often get the audience involved and at times tries to improve the World like in John and Yoko’s Bed-IN for Peace in 1969

and Imagine Peace in Iceland.

The show starts with her very popular top floor Chambers Street Studio she rented in 1960. It quick became a center for innovative ideas in Art and Music.

At the end of the show Yoko goes back to ideas there started in her childhood from watching the Sky and the Stars “To See the Sky” 2015.

c

The New Whitney Museum on Gansevoort street.

Photos and essay by Hanne H7L,   www.h7l.com

Renzo Piano the Architect and Adam Weinberg Director of the Whitney Museum

The new Whitney Museum

“One of the most important reasons for the architect’s work, which keeps us going and gives us the strength to continue our projects, is the idea of not creating buildings indifferent to the city, but meeting places, where people will get together and share their values.           Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano is the architect of the new Whitney Museum by the High Line in New York City.  Going through the museum it is enjoyable visiting the outdoor galleries as well as the indoor galleries. On fifth floor is a site specific installation

Mary Heilmann

“Sunset” created by Mary Heilmann which include a group of forty sculptural chairs to be used by visitors. Likewise most of the other floors have comfortable places to sit and enjoy the art, fresh air and the view, that is different from most museums.

It is very refreshing the way the art is exhibited in “America is Hard to see” (quote from Robert Frost) with paintings, photographs, collages, sculptures, videos and installations all mixed together. Also that, that famous artists and lesser known artists are hanging next to each other. I do hope that is a trend there is going to continue.

Bill Traylor’s water color of “ Walking Man”

I enjoyed Bill Traylor’s water color “Walking Man”,1939-42, Elizabeth Peyton’s painting of “Michelle and Obama”, Stan Vanderbeek’s photograph, probably from a Happening, and Jonathan Borofsky’s wall painting “Running People”, but also many others.

Man Ray

The opening of the Whitney will be marked with several events such as May 1 : Art from the exhibition will be projected on the Empire State Building and May 2 there will be a block party 10:30 AM to 9 PM.

 

Stan Vanderbeek

 

Elizabeth Peyton. Michelle and Obama. 1985, Oil on Canvas.

Ron Galella at Clic Gallery New York City 1.15.15

Book signing with Ron Galella at Clic Gallery New York City 1.15.15

“THE STORIES BEHIND THE PICTURES”
“A Guide to the Paparazzi Approach”

Ron Galella, Paparazzi Extraordinaire

The Book contains 230 pages of many of Galella’s favorite iconic images and with the story behind each one.

Galella became famous for stalking Jackie Onasis

“My greatest photograph” says Ron Galella “about Windblown Jackie”.

Jackie had no make up or special hairdo it is just natural beauty.

Jackie Onasis was Ron Galella’s obsession. She was his Mona Lisa. Galella
even did a photo collage of Jackie as Mona Lisa.

Ron Galella stalkinig Marlon Brando wiith a football helmet. Brando had knocked out 5 of Galella’s teeth in a previous encounter.

It was not always easy to photograph celebrities such as Marlon Brando who without warning knocked out five of Ron’s teeth which cost Brando $45 000.  After Brando’s attack Ron started wearing a helmet with nose and mouth protection.

There was also less concern about security — this was before the murder of John Lennon— so celebrities employed fewer security guards.

As Ron Galella recounts, “The PR would set up a picture for you backstage —
… Afterward l got John and Yoko together in the corner, bounced light, beautiful.”

Ron Galella now 84 years old is still going strong and one gets the feeling
of a happy person who enjoys his life.

Hanne H7L

NowJournal.com 

Istanbul this Fall

Capitalizing on it’s East-Meets-West status, Istanbul (Not Constantinople) has become a major center of arts and culture events rivaling the traditional venues of Rome, Milan, London, and Paris.

I recently returned from 3 terrific weeks in Turkey, which included an unexpected invitation to a “Forum Fashion Week” reception.    Turkey?, Fashion Week ?  Yes Turkey has one, and it’s not all Burkas.    Browse the Istanbul Modern calendar,  or read about the current Joan Miro exhibit and other Istanbul events.   Turkey is my favorite destination.  The people are friendly, and the history is so vast and layered. It is the center of the world and the history is everywhere.   I hope that the current challenges are met and don’t spoil this wonderful country.

MC ANTON Blending In in Istanbul

MC ANTON

Diane Keaton at Book Hampton in East Hampton

Diane Keaton at her BookHampton book signing. Here with Hanne H7L

It was a wonderful summer day so nobody seemed to mind standing in a line with hundreds of people waiting to see and hear the fabulous Diane Keaton reading from her new book, “LET’S JUST SAY IT WASN’T PRETTY”. Diane, dressed in her own style, did not disappoint.  She spoke straight out in a humorous way about her life experiences and men in her life like Jack Nicholson and Woody Allen who both taught her a lot.  Beauty starts with being true to who you are, Diane writes, and she is certainly an individual. I personally enjoyed a lot seeing and listening to her. It was also nice that she chose Book Hampton for her book signing as one always finds a great atmosphere here.