Personism

Paris When it Shivers

Paris was much colder when I was here for Paris Photo not so long ago, but our first couple of days in this lovely apartment were without heat and hot water so things got off to a shivery start, in spite of the more temperate weather. Fortunately the fixer of these things showed up this morning and I enjoyed a steamy leisurely bath before setting out for the day.

Sweet!

Yesterday was jet-lagged and meandering but an absolute pleasure nonetheless. I can (and have! and will!) wander Paris for days on end with no particular agenda and be perfectly content. Which seems rather obvious I suppose. I'd be suspicious of someone who saw tedium in the prospect of such a thing.

A visit to a local bonbonnière (above) was très amusant. An older woman with braided hair and sensible shoes took us through the inventory in great detail, enthusiastically explaining which producers made what and where. There were gorgeous tins of all kinds of candies and some amazing looking nougat which is apparently made only during the few months of the year that the honey is just right. I am going back for presents before we leave, so I only took away a small square of dark chocolate filled with caramel and some kind of sublimely crackly cookie. (Sampled this morning before coffee even, yum.)

As for this morning's breakfast, well, we had duck. For breakfast. Technically it was lunch, for everyone else at least. We were getting a characteristically late start, made later still by jetlag and the wait for hot water and so our first meal commenced at 1pm. My traveling companion went for the gusto, devouring foie gras and cassoulet. It was a bit rich for my taste, my palate was hankering for more of the aforementioned chocolate, or croissants, if anything at all. I picked a bit and visualized the chocolat chaud that was a core mission of the day.

Then we hopped on the Metro and met with a few gallerists. Topics of conversation included Euros, Dollars, art fairs, and Lumas, which is a hot topic here in Europe but hasn't yet made a huge impact in the States and yes, of course I have more to say about them but not now, it's past 2am and I should be sleeping. Another scintillating topic of conversation was the possibility that I may be curating an exhibition here in near future. Seems like a fine thing to plan a Spring time trip around, non?

All that talk took up more time than I expected (A. was counting the minutes I fear, sorry and thanks.) Suddenly it was dusk. We made our way to an international magazine shop and then not at all on purpose over towards Notre Dame, which I'd never gotten close to before. Those flying buttresses really are something. Looking at a pictures can't compare, nor can a million diagrams in Janson's. Looking up at the impossible architecture of those things, from a certain angle, in the gathering evening - I was suddenly immobile, a stubborn (and likely irritating) impediment to the tourists streaming around us.

Île de la Cité as viewed through the window of a cafe on Île Saint-Louis.

After that we made our way across the Seine and stopped at a cafe on Île Saint-Louis for a chocolat chaud. (Not the sublime chocolat chaud I have been promised and am craving but a more than serviceable one nonetheless.) The view poorly captured above by moi, was superior and I performed poorly during an impromptu French lesson. (The accent stymies me, and in general I hate being wrong which makes it hard to even try.)

The evening went on, we were eventually led back to the same cafe where we'd spent the evening before in different company. And there's more to be told, but again not now, because really I do think I'm supposed to sleep a bit even though I don't want to.

Groceteria

God, I love the interwebs where you can find experts on every little thing... Via The Food Section's links feed I present to you Groceteria, "a site about the history of the American supermarket, from both an architectural and a business perspective. As a general rule, the site covers events and stores of the 1920s through the 1980s."

There's loads of text and lots of photos - my one quibble is that the photos are mighty small. Bigger would be nicer because I'm specifically interested in the architecture/design stuff.

What Was in Store

Shop America:Midcentury Storefront Design 1938-1950 is a recent addition to my Amazon wishlist.

Turning The House Upside Down

15 Putnam Street in Buffalo, NY

I love this story, found via Archinect. Working under the leadership of Frank Fantatuzzi and Brad Wales [scroll down for bio at that link] architects/professors at Buffalo University, a graduate studio class came up with a concept that evolved from demolition to deconstruction to full-blown art-project.

Open House, a story in Art Voice, describes how a derelict property that was on track for demolition was turned into a test lab for this group of architects and students:

Once Fantauzzi and Wales examined the house—a solidly built, three-story structure whose cramped rooms disguised abundant space, with an empty lot beside it that would accommodate dumpsters and serve as a construction staging area—they hatched a more ambitious plan. Instead of demolishing the 107-year-old house, they would save it. Instead of a transient work, a piece about the processes of deconstruction that ended when the last timbers were carted away, they would make a permanent piece of public (for the neighborhood) and private (for the owner) art...

In addition to returning the structure to a single-family dwelling, opening up the interior to reveal its hidden space and stripping away the siding to the original clapboard and shingle—big projects by themselves but hardly radical—the students would saw off the entire front façade of the house, disengaging it completely.

They would then put rollers on the bottom of the façade and place it on a lateral track made of heavy steel I-beams, so it could be pushed from side to side, opening the interior to the street.

When that was accomplished, they would attach the façade to a vertical track of the same fabrication, and lift the entire façade about six feet, using a handcrank from a turn-of-the-last-century, manual industrial elevator Fantauzzi harvested from the basement of his building on Main Street.

Then they would attach the façade to an axis and spin it 360 degrees.

The project is still in progress... If you watch the video that accompanies the piece you can see the sliding façade in action. Architecture students busting their asses on some insane project is hardly out of the ordinary, but I love that this is real world stuff that addresses community issues of blight, preservation and urban life and the teamwork that went into realizing it is inspiring - the graduate class came up with the concept, but its execution has involved two additional undergrad classes as well as skilled expert advisers and sponsorship from local businesses. I'm looking forward to seeing the 360 degree spinning action!

Night Skies + Kimchi

The utterly delicious Kunjip serves Korean 24/7 and as of tomorrow, the observation deck at the Empire State Building stays open til 2am seven nights a week, Herald Square suddenly seems like an appealing late night destination. Who knew?

Paddy Reviews the Brice Marden Exhibition

Brice Marden, Cold Mountain 6 (Bridge) 1989-91, Oil on linen

I know that Paddy and I are like the sick-making mututal admiration society and wouldn't we just shut up already, come on... but I freakin' love her smart, sharp and insightful review of the Marden retrospective at MoMA. I wish that there was more criticism like this in print medai. What's the dealio, yo?*

An excerpt, which was particularly interesting to me because as a gallerist I obsess over presentation and don't find this type of discussion mind-glazing at all:

I know it sounds like the ultimate in tedium to discuss such matters as exhibition display and framing quality, but you really can’t avoid talking about it when it lends such weight and authority to the drawings and prints section of the exhibition on the third floor. I won’t bore you all with the technical details, except to say that work is all housed in the same cream frames and float mounted, and hung using a method used by the collector and curator David Whitney which involves hanging the bottom third of the work at 43 inches (which is low). I’m quite certain Marden would not appreciate the analogy, but because the works are hung at roughly the same height as the dividing Venetian trim on a wall, the viewer has a much more intimate relationship with the work, and is forced to consider the each drawing and print individually.

You should read the whole thing, because it's great and because it makes you want to go see the show even though it's not a resoundingly positive review. (Which is refreshing unto me as Mr. Marden has received oh so much slavish coverage about the retrospective to date.)

* I have a lot to say about this issue, with print media criticism and the moribundity thereof, and I'm going to say it at some point soon even though it's probably ill-advised. But you know, I am a woman with opinions and I've got some ideas about solutions because I'm the sort to speak up about issues and do something about it too.

Glass House

Metropolis has an extensive slideshow of Philip Johnson's Glass House and its surrounding buildings. Many of the photos were shot specifically for the feature, but there are lots of amazing vintage shots too. The house is opening to the public in April.

The photos are the meat of it, for me at least, but there is accompanying article: Extending the Legacy is available on the site as well.

(Via Youngna's delicious)

The List, It ' s Hot

Who moved my list? It's now over here, so as better to live on in Google infamy:
List of Women Speakers for Your Conference

Looking at Old New York

I was over at a friend's place the other night and we were browsing the The NY Public Library's Digital Archive. I posted about it a while back on Unbeige, when I was thrilled to find their layouts of Classic Six NYC apartments.

The other evening we spent a lot of time looking at other NY-centric images and prints. The first two images here are from their Moving Uptown print collection. You can see a bigger image and full information about the lithograph above here. And for the stencil below, have a look over here.

We also spent a good deal of time poring over photos of the construction of the Holland Tunnel. There are 10 pages worth of thumbnail images from The New Jersey Interstate Bridge & Tunnel Commission. We went through every single page because that's just how geeky we are. The image that stuck with me most is the one below (more info on that specific photo here).

There's such a vast array of information and images, I could see where it's hard to keep everything straight interally. My guess is that prior to the Digital Gallery launch, a million different departments built myriad web-based projects and did them their own way for lack of an overarching structure to work within. Now with the Gallery and the archives both searchable on the site, it's pretty confusing at times - They are so so so not integrated!

The Digital Gallery is a step in the right direction, but I can't even fathom the task of integrating it all into one coherent chunk. Their search is very poorly indexed. (It took me forever to relocate the asylum image on my own, and then it was by pure happenstance that I found it.) I found myself wanting to have the ability to tag images a la Flickr to make the hunt a bit easier on future explorers. All in all though, it's not a bad place to get lost. So if you're suffering some Monday inertia and your Inbox seems entirely too daunting, hop on the NYPL site.

Gehrymandering

In regard to this:

I present to you this:

Or perhaps if you're feeling girlie, this: