art

‘You have an honest face’

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‘How I went home with a Turner without paying for it, and other Tales of Artistic Adventure’

‘If you get a little money, buy art. If you get a little bit more, buy food.’ I’m pretty sure it was Hemingway who said that. Although, if it was Hemingway, wouldn’t he have been talking about buying books? Oh well, it’s a good quote anyway.

And it reminds me of the time, years ago, that I took my own personal plunge (well, maybe more like a dip) into the Art World. It was back when I was the creative director for an international skincare brand based in Maidenhead, UK. Which meant I had to go to London regularly. (‘Had to go to London’. Sure, you can just hear me: ‘Oh, no, Mr. Boss. You need me to go to darned old London again?’)

I have to admit that I don’t remember all that much about what working on that brand was like. But I remember vividly how cool it was to go to London, say, twice a month. And stay in hotels like Brown’s and the Cadogan and Blake’s. On somebody else’s dime.

I mean, what’s not to like about London? For one thing, everything you do is ‘brilliant’. Seriously. You get in a cab and the driver asks ‘Where to, Love?’ (Nice, being called ‘Love’.) And when you say ‘The Ritz, please’, the cabbie says ‘brilliant’. Continue reading

Hello, Kitty

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‘It’s Art if I say it’s Art’

Okay, I said I wasn’t going to publish a new post till Monday. But I just saw the Jeff Koons Retrospective at the Whitney Museum (details here). And, well, I just can’t help myself. I simply must ‘share’. For one thing, you just might want to go see it. Not only is it ending soon, it’s also the last show that’ll be held in the ‘old’ Whitney — before it pulls up stakes and decamps downtown, where it seems everything cool in New York is heading (oops, excuse me, Brooklyn).

Here, to tantalize you, are some of the pieces you’ll see if you go:

There’s tons more. Like that ceramic sculpture of Michael Jackson with his monkey. And some racy stuff featuring Jeff himself with his then-wife, the porn-star-member-of-the-Italian-parliament Cicciolina. Thank goodness this is a family blog.

You notice that I am not even attempting to play Art Critic here. I’m pretty much in the camp of Art being whatever you think it is. The Dude, for example, thinks something is Art if Continue reading