Scott McCarney “Bible For Terry Jones” at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York
Scott McCarney’s beautiful new show, “Reversing the Catastrophe of Fixed Meaning,” opened last night a Visual Studies Workshop. An ambitious title that for me actually succeeds in the incendiary piece, “Bible For Terry Jones.” There is something of a “Boy’s Life” nostalgia in Scott’s work but he manages to shatter the stereotypes. His “book art” rewrites the museum tags on this dying medium.
And then there is Robert Frank’s shoes, the ones he wore while shooting photos for “The Americans.” He donated them to Visual Studies after a workshop here in the seventies. I had heard they were here but I wasn’t prepared for their dandyness. It puts a whole new spin on these classic images.
“Untitled” by Philip Guston from Small Panels show at McKee Gallery
We got out of town ahead just ahead of the other day and drove to my brother’s place in Montclair, New Jersey. We kept his kids up way too late, talking and listening to Christmas records from his vinyl collection. We had breakfast with the kids, who were already late for school, and said goodbye to my brother as he raced off to work. The last thing he said was, “I left part of the paper here for you”. So I dove into the Friday’s Fine Arts section and spotted a Philip Guston painting with a review by Roberta Smith of a show at Midtown’s McKee Gallery. We instantly had an agenda for our New York trip.
We found our way to Brooklyn and parked the car for the weekend near Duane’s apartment. More coffee and the F train to midtown Manhattan for this eye popping show. Philip Guston is my favorite artist and these small panels blew me away. This was a sensational show. Only four of these pieces were for sale. You could pick up all four for 1.3 million.
Even the Metropolitan Museum could not top that show but Robert Frank’s “The Americans” was pretty incredible. The prints were so much richer than the old book I bought at Light Impressions when they upstairs in Midtown Plaza. It was like seeing these by now familiar photos for the first time. We had an eggplant sandwich and a corn muffin at the museum café and then Duane and Peggi went up to see the “Velazquez Rediscovered” show while I wandered off to the Roman art section and to photograph some busts. I can’t get over how contemporary these heads look, like people you know or wish you knew, even though they were sculpted around the time of Christ.
Duane is the perfect NYC guide. He wears an orange hat and Peggi and I just shut off our navigational instincts and gawk and follow the hat and try not to walk into a light pole or something. We took a couple of trains back to Brooklyn and hung out for bit in pad before heading back out to the Front Room Gallery in Williamsburg for an art opening. It was a “Multiples and Editions” show and the curator was a friend of Duanes. The thirty five artists all had small, very reasonably priced (for the holidays) art in every nook and cranny of the two funky rooms. Duane bought a pocket sized “Kodak Guide to Photographing Your Dog“.
After the opening we went next door to the Flying Cow, a saloon style Argentinean restaurant. We shared octopus salad and then a beet salad, a bottle of Spanish Rioja and two vegetarian dishes called, “Shangrila”. I spoiled a perfect meal by trying a Morcilla sausage appetizer. I’m a sucker for those Spanish delicacies. The bartender played the whole “Between The Buttons” record and then some Neil Young. We complimented him on the way out.
