The Clothesline Benefit Art Sale
SATURDAY MARCH 9
7-10 p.m.
Affordable works on paper: $25 + $50
Our Clothesline Benefit Art Sales are always lots of fun, with plenty of surprising things hanging on the line. Proceeds benefit ABC No Rio in Exile.
Bullet Space/292 Gallery
292 E. Third St. between Avenue C and Avenue D
Meg
Dinosaur Hill
Cobblestones
Headdress
Elliot Mann
DL Cerney
Cloak & Dagger
Local Clothing
an.mé
9th St. Vintage
Heights Kenchi
Still House
Huminska
Vera Meat
Ibiza
The Source
Spark Pretty
Duo
Azaleas
Vintage Grannies
East Village Postal
Tailors Atelier
"My Young Life," which I acquired when I was an editor at Simon & Schuster, is a love song to a lost New York. Tuten and I grew up in the same neighborhood, though 25 years apart. Time, however, stands still when you’re from the Bronx. You’re always farther away from the achingly hip scenes in "the city," as we called Manhattan, than anyone — and it’s not just the miles, it’s the psychic distance that enforces how long and hard of a journey it will be to get where you belong.
I have always seen him as an elder statesman of the 20th-century American avant-garde and as a landsman, in the truest sense of the word, given our Pelham Parkway birthright and the shared story of finding our way downtown at an early age and making a life in the arts — precisely the opposite of what our first-generation parents imagined for us.
Sadly, we just heard from the owner, Moishe Perl, that today was its last day as the entire building has been sold. We loved this kosher bakery as everything was baked on the premises fresh every day. They were known for their challah bread, rye bread, hamantaschen, rugelach, babka and sugar kichel.
Perl is searching for new management to re-open the spot as a cafe and bakery as soon as the end of April after Passover or early May, depending how the renovations play out.
"We have a lot of options, and I'm here 49 years, you know what I mean?" Perl told Patch. "I wanna give over the management to somebody, and then I can see what kind of role I'm going to play in it."
Starting in March, customers can meet with MTA team members at any of four open houses, or on subway platforms and in train cars. There, customers can get information on:
• Updates on the proposed construction approach and progress on other elements staying the same, such as the new elevators at Bedford Avenue, First Avenue and 14 Street/Sixth Avenue (L platform) Stations
• The new proposed service plan
• One-on-one trip planning help with MTA team members
• Other service elements to help navigate the changes, such as how to know which train to board. Additionally, NYC DOT will be present at the open houses to review planned street treatments.
West 47th Street & 6th Avenue
— Citi Bike (@CitiBikeNYC) March 1, 2019
Park Avenue East & 37th Street
East 58th Street & 1st Avenue
West 30th Street & 10th Avenue
East 12th Street & Avenue C
1 Av & E 5 St
Delancey Street & Eldridge Street
Perry Street & Greenwich Avenue
West Broadway & West Houston Street
The $2 fee — waived for Citi Bike members until April 27 — has come under fire from many quarters since it was announced this week, with some foes likening it to a fare hike on what should be a form of public transportation, yet is ostensibly a public-private partnership even though the city allocates no public money. Others reminded that Citi Bike has a monopoly on service, with dockless rivals Jump and Lime only allowed to operate in small pilot zones in the Bronx and Staten Island.
The Foundation’s new building, a former power substation on East 6th Street that was once the studio of contemporary artist Walter De Maria and was recently renovated by architects Gluckman Tang, is, indeed, the proper setting. “A lot of research was done to create the moment you experience when you enter the show’s second floor,” Foundation director Allison Brant adds.
This research paid off handsomely — the show, and the space, offer a breathtaking view into the artist’s world, underscoring a resonance between the artworks and their location that brings a new layer of meaning to our understanding of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
[I]t’s hard to ignore this luxurious setting’s disconnect from its immediate surrounding neighborhood — viewable through the floor-to-ceiling windows that punctuate the galleries — and the subject matter of Basquiat’s art itself, which frequently delved into issues of racism, poverty, inequity, and social injustice.
But none of that incongruity has dampened the enthusiasm around the show—and perhaps its free admission helps counter the reality that culture is increasingly governed by the über-wealthy. Basquiat, meanwhile, is about as popular as it gets when it comes to contemporary art audiences. Roughly 60 percent of the works in this 70-piece show are fresh off the blockbuster Basquiat survey that just wrapped up at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, which [Dieter] Buchhart also co-curated, and some have never been seen in New York before.
Gluckman Tang has preserved the “bones” of the building — sturdy beige brick walls and sleek industrial staircases — and opened up rear-facing walls with windows that provide light and spectacular views of the neighborhood. The building includes four floors of exhibition space and a rooftop garden with a reflecting pool visible as a glittering skylight on the fourth floor. Nestled among old tenement buildings, the location feels very similar to Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, a new multistory foundation related to the nearby department store. Both institutions serve as emblems of the gentrification of former working- class neighborhoods, but also the proliferation of a new kind of museum.
Private collections have long histories — for instance, the Frick and the Morgan in New York — but also, at present, carry a double-edged meaning and purpose: They are private exhibition venues but also tax havens for the very rich. Mr. Brant was on the forefront of this phenomenon — both the private institution showcasing contemporary art and trouble with the IRS — when his foundation opened a decade ago across the street from his estate in Greenwich.
One of the arguments in support of the East Village space is that it offers free admission to see works that are rarely on view — although you have to make reservations, which are quickly becoming scarce. And the “free” admission to most of these private museums is the ultimate hidden-fee-economy tactic: We are all paying, in a variety of ways, to live in a system that supports colossal disparities of wealth. Museum admission might be free, but health care isn’t.
Brant could have launched with a legacy show of his own trophy holdings, but he says the space’s proximity to Basquiat’s former stomping grounds compelled him to devote the opener to the neo-expressionist painter. Basquiat’s frenetic, poetic paintings of 1980s New York are getting more attention lately from both museums and the marketplace, with pieces selling at auction for as much as $110.5 million. That record-holder, an untitled skull painting from 1982 that’s owned by Japanese e-retailer Yusaku Maezawa, is in Brant’s show.
Other heavyweights include 1987’s Unbreakable, which has never been exhibited in New York, and 1983’s Hollywood Africans, which was lent by the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Brant space in the East Village is not a commercial gallery but part of a private foundation, which may entitle it to tax benefits. Yet, to judge from the current exhibition, the new space lacks the public amenities we expect of not-for-profit institutions.
There is no catalogue for the current show, no brochure, and next to no information about individual artworks. Admission is free, but visitors are required to reserve tickets in advance; so far, according to its website, there is already a waiting list. How is Brant’s new space different than a commercial gallery? I don’t see any real difference, except that it comes enshrouded in vanity and self-promotion.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced he will not run for president in 2020 and would instead focus on an effort to "begin moving America as quickly as possible away from oil and gas and toward a 100 percent clean energy economy." https://t.co/Qqrg0HgnAR
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) March 5, 2019
Yo no runningo para el presidente por que el coñostitution only allowo dos termos.
— Miguel Bloombito (@ElBloombito) March 5, 2019
