Last Days of a Legend...

Photos by Mark Wiener

Vodka Soda

Mark has being going to Gino since he was barely tall enough to reach the bar. The Lexington Avenue fixture, with it's green and yellow striped awning on the outside, and famous red wallpaper (Scalamandre just re-issued it in a range of colors) crowded with zebras on the wall with, will open and close for the last time Saturday, May 29th.

Bruno at the bar

A mecca for so many New Yorkers (and often for their parents and grandparents before them), those hungry for the rich red sauce - a secret recipe - and some signature tortellini, or thirsty for a stiff cocktail and lively conversation, Gino will be missed by old and young alike, and probably by those to come who will hear the stories, from family traditions to 60 + years of celebrity sightings -  and wish they had been there. The account book - Gino never accepted credit cards til recently, is a piece of history.

It's always Christmas...

As for us, we will miss the place and especially all of it's people. So will so many others, naturally Gino is now packed with those there for a last taste, hug, or handshake...maybe we will see you there Friday or Saturday. (780 Lex @ 61st Street, cash only under $30)

Art Illuminates Life

Beaming in to the Chelsea Art Museum this week is artist Raphaele Shirley's latest installment in her series of light based media work,  "0910 Light Shots (Shooting Squares)". Once again I could not resist looking behind the pre-show wrappings, and listening to part of technical planning session between the artist and museum staff Tuesday afternoon was truly a lesson on the state of art and technology in the second decade of the 21st century - it takes a tech-savvy artist and skilled team of experts to engage your senses and transform your awareness.

photo by Mark Wiener

The photo above shows the artist measuring the space on this the first day of installation, and the space is truly a void, lit only by the flash from the camera. Using light beams to draw lines and planes in space, Shirley is transforming the black box of the Project Room for New Media into an ephemeral object - visitors will interact with the installation as they move through the space, experiencing the evolution of the composition's color and perspective with their changing POV - as well as a few surprises.

Raphaele Shirley, "Shooting Square" 2010 mixed media - Studio test

"The stiller it is, near frozen in a configuration, the more we become aware of its movement and permanent immobility, traveling at the speed of itself, of light. And as this super-fast thing is now somehow slowed down, through the tension between the drawn geometry of its path and itself, as we can now see its trajectory, and can almost touch it somehow - controlled nature - one can take pause, rest the mind and look. And then continue to look at it, it does not go away. This is the thing that moves but does not leave. The friend you wish for, the one that never goes away yet always fascinates you." - Raphaele Shirley May 18, 2010

The exhibition, curated by Nina Colosi, opens Thursday, March 20th, with a reception from 6 - 8 PM and runs through June 19th. More at  http://chelseaartmuseum.org/  and http://www.raphaeleshirley.com/

EXHIBITIONISM

Pen Pair (c) Linda DiGusta

Funny, when I first conceived this blog it was to be a place where someone at my technical level could post my images, writing,  come out to play, but I realized I would just have to write about everything I enjoyed out there as well. Maybe an alternate definition of exhibition-ism should be, "the delight in and exaltation of the showing of works of art."

Untitled Packham Pear (c) Linda DiGusta

This post I swing both ways (yo, keep it clean!) - amidst a few images of my latest works, in which, by the way, none of my models wear clothes, you'll find 2 literally HOT picks - exhibitions that bare all in the name of art - of shows opening tonite!

Untitled Packham Pear (c) Linda DiGusta

A special exhibition within the Great Nude Invitational opening tonight at the Roger Smith Hotel with a reception from 6-9 ($20), "Corpus Hermeticum" presented by the Nerdrum Institute, features works by Odd Nerdrum alongside those of 3 emerging artists in the same spirit -  Adam Miller, Fedele Spadafora, and Richard T Scott. Curated by Leah Poller - more at http://www.thegreatnude.tv/invitational/index.html

Downtown and open late (6:30-10:30), Hous Projects (31 Howard Street) presents The Naked Truth, "a photographic and video visual survey of 50 years of Voyeurism, Nudity and Sex, from Bert Stern's Marilyn Monroe 1962 ''Last Sitting'' to the 2010 Jen Davis- Skype/Webcam series" -  curated by Ruben Natal- San Miguel. Info: http://housprojects.com/exhibitions/upcoming.html

Plums 2 (c) Linda DiGusta

Hope this warms up a chilly spring night!