Even if you don't ...

Tom and I went to Chelsea galleries Saturday. We've perfected a route of visiting them, over the year, without really trying; we start at Bellwether and wind through 22nd Street like we're on a board game, stopping in places, until we end somewhere usually on 24th Street, like Charles Cowles, usually my favorite.

This past Saturday, after Charles Cowles, we crossed the street to Galeria Ramis Barquet, a gallery I'd never visited. I still have the show there, Steven Giué's Even if you don't…, on my mind.

The show is comprised of over 20 photos that document a relationship, the young couple doing nothing more extraordinary than buying groceries or saying goodbye to his mother, sleeping on their futon or bathing. But the intimacy of the photos, together in a quiet gallery, telling a story with no real beginning or end even though you know there was one of each, is so powerful you're lost, in that best way art enables. The photos are extremely confidential but welcoming, like a good club that's not exclusive.

As Tom said, the show is also a capturing of a Bohemia that is rarely found anymore, especially in the Design Within Reach-infected citysters of New York today. The gentle mess; the beer bottles; the organic shampoo; the warped linoleum; the handmade sushi; the oil paints. The details spill and you know this couple cared nothing for possessions and status, in the conventional senses. The photo where the woman is dragging her finger in a creek convinces you.

According to the gallery's press release, the show is autobiographical, based on a relationship the photographer was in. Which is interesting but which doesn't change at all the impact of the show, which I think is important. Because it makes the context unimportant, the story of the show so complete, but still a tender mystery, on its own.

The show is up until February 18. I recommend a visit.

ramisbarquet.com/home.asp

KMOCA & B&H & Other Capital Things

Tom has an opening at KMOCA, Kingston Museum of Contemporary Arts, in upstate New York this Saturday. It's the gallery's opening show, and Tom's first solo show. It's part of a gallery walk occurring in downtown Kingston for the weekend.

Here's the map to the gallery walk. I like the paragraph about Tom.

http://www.askforarts.org/galleryguidenew.pdf


I met Tom at B&H Photo tonight, to buy more frames for his photographs, for his show. A thousand people can say it, but there is no store in the world like B&H Photo. I marvel at the store's efficiency. My marveling is approaching pious adoration.

We had called this morning, to reserve some frames in advance, and after the clerk looked up our order he stood for a minute, tapping his keyboard, not looking at me. Tom went away and looked at other frames. I played with the bowl of Goi Goi kosher candy on the counter and waited. After five minutes I asked if something was wrong.

No, the sweet Hasidic boy told me, they just can't find the last three frames of our order in the basement. "Op!" he said, "they just found them." A moment later, a green crate carrying our twelve frames burst through a hole next to his computer, fresh from the massive B&H subterranean storehouse. It was like a birthing. Almost.

I smiled, thinking of the basement workers efficiently scurrying amongst the aisles of products - I knew without knowing that there were monstrous metal gray shelves - digging through merchandise for our last little frames, maybe irritated that they weren't in their proper place. The triumphant message up that they had been found. The swift movement to the next order.

They have free seltzer at B&H too, and cola. Today they even had straws.


Goi Goi candies:
http://www.peccin.com.br/principal.php?id_menu=inicial



um
someone else's b&h receipt

A Ray of New Year Light

Watch the videos, all of them. Remember when you were 12 and 14 and got home from school and sat in front of the television, on the blue plastic chairs that when pushed together made a couch but usually just slid apart the further you slid down on them. They were always sticky, those seats.

Remember watching VH1 and MTV, waiting - waiting - for that Madonna video you cherished - cherished - to make an appearance. Then how, after it was over, you danced in the television room, trying to be lady who only gets hotter as she gets older, eating the last cookies your mom made before your brother came home and finished them off and you didn't even have a chance. Maybe you'd perform the dance with your sister when your mom came home. Maybe she'd say it was good, nice, as she poured a glass of wine and pulled the crackers from the cupboard.

madonna.com