NYC Gallery Hopping: Skarstedt Gallery

Last week I was in New York and as I was strolling down Madison Avenue from the Guggenheim, I kept seeing banners for a gallery show featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georg Baselitz. I had a little time, so I looked up the address for the gallery, which is called Skarstedt. I had never been there.

Well, the gallery is quite spectacular, in a beautiful building--a mansion, really--on East 64th Street.  When I opened the door, I was so awed by the imposing architecture that I timidly asked the young women at the front desk whether the gallery was free for viewing. They said yes, so I entered and wandered about, flanked by a friendly security guard the whole time.

I was most delighted by the Basquiat paintings. His painting Early Moses especially amused, with Passover is coming up.

Basquiat's work has long intrigued me with its combination of apparent messiness, glorious color, frequent humor, and persistent interestingness. I found the Baselitz work only moderately appealing in comparison, though I could see some commonalities.

I haven't spent a lot of time browsing galleries in New York, but I may do it more in the future.  So many treasures!

FB Diet Ambivalence

For the past several months I've been off Facebook, mostly.  I haven't officially left, and I still wish folks a happy birthday (I get email reminders for that, which I value--I'd never remember otherwise), and on those occasions I visit, I strew "likes" and "loves" as liberally as ever, but I don't post, I've removed the apps from my phone and iPad, and I've un-liked and un-followed people and organizations even remotely political.

This has pluses and minuses, of course.  On the plus side, I no longer daily slide into a dark spiral, spurred by someone's posting of bad social or political news (or my perusal of the adjacent comments section).

(I have to say this does happen whenever I visit, though.  Even in my pared-down FB world, folks post political-social stuff, and other folks say mean, stupid, ignorant stuff.  And I just never get over my dismay at meanness, stupidity, and ignorance.)

Also on the plus side, I avoid a lot of advertising I don't need to see, I spend less time on a lot of trivial crap, and (related) I don't sit around wondering why more folks don't "like" or respond to my posts.

On the minus side, I feel somewhat less connected to friends and family.  I miss sharing special experiences on FB and miss the feeling of knowing at least where folks are  by what they are posting on FB. 

I am hoping to do more reaching out to folks individually (with letters and postcards, imagine that!) and writing more here to share special experiences, and doing more of my own creative work in general.  That is always an ambition, but not so easily realized.  We'll see.

I also feel like I miss part of the zeitgeist--what folks are thinking and talking about, what's interesting, what's funny. 

For example, today I went on FB (to wish someone a happy birthday, natch), and a distant friend posted a link to this excellent Pixar video, which I am so glad I saw. A member of a cooking interest group I belong to posted a link to this fabulous interview with Samrit Nosrat.  The interview reminds me of why I was so crazy about her book and love her whole personality.

So by avoiding FB, I also avoid this kind of stuff.  On the other hand, I've been sitting at my desk for more than an hour and haven't gotten any work done, so maybe it's really best to keep my FB interaction to very small doses.