NYC Journal: Louise Bourgeois

We kept seeing the art of Louise Bourgeois at a variety of venues in New York. Two galleries at the Freize art fair carried her work.

Look Up, 2009 by Louise Bourgeois.

This must have been one of her very last works. Watercolour and coloured pencil over four full sheets of watercolour paper.

At the Frieze we also saw these metal hanging pieces by Louise.

Louise was at the MOMA (Museum of modern art) above is one of her prints from The Puritan series, 1990, and below is a detail of sleeping figure, 1950.

Still more Louise Bourgeois art was at the PS1 gallery in Queens and at the Dia foundation in Beacon. She has left a real legacy.

NYC journal: Isa Melsheimer and Alice Channer

Vorhang (Ewle) 2012 by Isa Melsheimer. We attended Freize New York and it was very exciting to see so much fine art made with cloth and stitch. This piece by Isa Melsheimer from Germany was almost the first thing I saw at the fair. It reminded me of my own new work with large single layers of fabric and that was so affirmative.

(detail of the embroidery) Online research on this artist shows that she works in a wide variety of media, but large pieces of stitched cloth are very important in her fine art practice. I've selected just a couple of the many installations on her website to share here.

Tiefes Rauschen 2007 by Isa Melsheimer

Vorhang 2008 by Isa Melsheimer. Click here to see more. To see the cloth installations, scroll down until you come to a block of text and then click on FABRIC .

(detail of embroidery)

We were both interested in the work of Alice Channer. These pieces are made from digitally printed spandex fabric stretched over aluminium.

EYES 2012, by Alice Channer.

I became more interested in this young British artist's work when I visited her gallery's website and saw how important large pieces of cloth that drape onto the floor are to her practice. These images are from the installation Out Of Body that showed at South London gallery in 2012.

Cold Metal Body , digital print on heavy crepe de chine with hand carved marble.

NYC journal: Ernesto Neto

Another highlight of the Chelsea galleries for us was the Ernesto Neto exhibit at the Tanya Bonakdar gallery until May 25.

Neto is a Brazillian sculpter who works with soft materials and gravity to create skin coloured fantasy immersive spaces that involve all our senses.

"Let the children, let them play. Let the children play" he sings in this video.

On entering the gallery space, we had to walk through an archway of crochet and air, causing bells to ring. It was uplifiting.

Joetta's post about this exhibit has many more beautiful photos. Also, Roger Atwood's profile of Ernesto Neto gives more information about this artist who creates with surprise, light, nature, biology, and fun.

mother daughter

Hearth rug for Hestia, procion mx overdyed string quilt, by Judy Martin, 1998 number ten of one hundred quilts

April and I are leaving Montreal today for New York on the Amtrak train. On our list for galleries we want to see: The Brooklyn museum, the Fisher Landau, the MOMA, the MAD, the highline park, the Chelsea gallery area, the Whitney, the Gagosian, we want to attend Frieze, we want to make a pilgrimage to Dia Beacon so I can see the Agnes Martin long term display. Too much, we know that...

I can tell that it is going to be a beautiful memory we both will have.

The back of me

When April was about ten or so, she was surprised to find out that I had never been to New York.

"When I'm 25, mom" she said. "Let's go to New York." So we made a date. A promise. A pinky swear.

I still haven't gone....she's turned 25...so we're leaving Montreal for New York on Wednesday.

I am very excited, but still it is very hard to leave my quiet. All images have to do with urgent deadlines.