http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com Robert Ayers in New York City Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:26:59 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_1232" align="aligncenter" width="324" caption="Mickalene Thomas"][/caption] No one walking along West 53rd Street on the way to MoMA this summer can miss Mickalene Thomas’s remarkable installation Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires in the window of The Modern restaurant. What may come as a surprise to many MoMA visitors ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1230 [caption id="attachment_1198" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Marina Abramović performing "Lips of Thomas" (original 1975) as part of "Seven Easy Pieces" (2005)"][/caption] I really don’t think I have ever met a more inspiring artist than Marina Abramović. She is only a few years older than me and I have followed her work like an ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1197 [caption id="attachment_1210" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Clayton Price, "Unheeded Warning" (2001) at Verge"][/caption] This is the busiest – and many people would say the most important – week in the New York City art calendar. The Armory Show itself, on the west side’s Piers 92 and 94, is one of the world’s most significant ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1181 Many readers of A Sky filled with Shooting Stars have asked me about getting behind the scenes of the New York art world in the same way that I am able to.  This year’s Armory Show week offers an ideal first opportunity to make this possible, with a series of ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1173 [caption id="attachment_1170" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Katelijne de Backer"][/caption] This Wednesday, March 3, sees the opening of the twelfth edition of the Armory Show, the biggest yet, with almost 300 galleries exhibiting. Of course the Armory Show’s arrival in New York City each spring is not simply about one of the world’s most ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1168 [caption id="attachment_1155" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Richard Smith, 2001 (Photo: Rose Smith)"][/caption] Had I not stumbled upon performance art in the early 1970s, it is very possible that I would have dedicated my artistic efforts to abstract painting after the particular example of my compatriot Richard Smith (born 1931). When I was a ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1153 [caption id="attachment_1129" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Kiki Smith, 2009"][/caption] Many readers of A Sky filled with Shooting Stars will know that Kiki Smith is an artist for whom I have enormous regard. Back in 2006 I named her Whitney retrospective "A Gathering" as ARTINFO’s joint-best New York museum show of the year (tying ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1128 [caption id="attachment_1110" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Man Ray, "Self-Portrait" (1924)"][/caption] When I predicted the top museum shows of 2009 for ARTINFO back in January, I remember being particularly excited about this one, Alias Man Ray: The Art of ReInvention that opens at the Jewish Museum on Sunday (and runs through next March). Now ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1106 [caption id="attachment_1092" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Paul McCarthy, "Shit Pie (White Snow)" (2009)"][/caption] If there’s a less polite exhibit than Paul McCarthy’s White Snow in New York presently, I certainly haven’t seen it. Pretty much throughout his entire artistic career – certainly since I first saw him perform in England in 1983 – Mr ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1090 [caption id="attachment_1072" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Thomas Allen, "Shooting Stars" (1996)"][/caption] Thomas Allen has been a favorite photographer of mine since I first saw his work at the Foley Gallery in 2004. He describes his work quite simply: “I work with vintage paperbacks, mainly 1950s pulp novels. I cut them with an Exacto ... http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/?p=1070