Hakone Open Air Museum

Arriving in Hakone, I was cold, tired, cold, fed up and cold. We had taken the Shinkansen (high speed train) out of Tokyo with all our stuff, planning to leave it in a train station locker for a couple of days while we went into the mountains to our Ryokan. I expected “lockers” like you find in Europe where you are essentially checking your luggage into a giant locker with a person and a 24 hour guard…not the case… not the case. When all we could find were crappy, regular train station lockers, we went to the info center to ask for help. The guy helping us brought us over to the same lockers, and then got really confused when I didn’t want to leave my suitcase in one of them. I expressed that I was worried that someone was going to steal all our shit, and he just… started to laugh. He actually said to me: “there are no thieves here in Japan… if you left your phone right over there no one would touch it unless they were giving it back to you or if it was a police to keep it safe.” Of course I was skeptical and told him we were from New York… more laughter. I locked up my suitcase.

After (yet another) insanely delicious train station lunch, we took a second Shinkansen, then a subway-type train, then a cute little scenic train through the mountains, and THEN a cablecar. I was chilled to the bone because the rain was on and off and the fog was like nothing I had ever seen – you couldn’t make someone out standing three feet in front of you. I was about to lose it when we got off the cablecar and set foot into the most jenky little station (very un-Japan-like), and then had to run through a sideways rain downpour towards a building we hoped was our Ryokan. Luckily, we were right and it was nothing short of MAGICAL. They met us with umbrellas and took our shoes and coats, then we were escorted into the lovely (and sparkling clean!) living room where we were given delicious red bean and green tea. Just with that, they basically made all my dreams come true and from that moment on, Hakone was better than anything I could have imagined.

The open air museum was something I had read about in passing and didn’t have very high expectations for. We didn’t know if we were going to make it over there at all because, sideways rain downpours, but when the sun came out the next afternoon, we ran over to check it out. We were lucky that the weather was nice just long enough for us to have a few perfect hours at what turned out to be one of the most insane museums I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen some museums). It’s definitely a trek to get there, but I would recommend taking a day trip from Tokyo just for this… like actually, it’s that good. Mind. Blown.

 

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Spring/Break Art Show 2015

I love seeing the variety that people create to stand out in a dizzying week of art when the art world is out in full swing. The Spring/Break Art Show couldn’t be more different than The Armory or the other big fairs. Of course, the setting etc. differ but, for those of you that aren’t familiar with this fair, Spring/Break is curator and artist focused rather than dealer-centric. This means that booths (or rooms, in this case) are set up by curators and artists rather than by galleries and this dramatically changes the whole environment and feel of the fair. Granted, Spring/Break tries to play up the scrappy feel it has created for itself but aside from that, each room is like a mini exhibition and the organizers are more than happy to talk to all the visitors, not just a select few. It’s a great place to go if you want to learn something new or even just talk about art – I definitely found that most people were willing to get into a lengthy discussion about the work on display (and even work that wasn’t on display) even on the last day of the fair. Also, if you’re looking to get into collecting, this is a good place to start. Prices are more than reasonable, sometimes even surprisingly low.

Read more about the fair HERE in an article I wrote for TOOVIA.com

The Armory Show 2015

I think it’s safe to say that out of all the years I’ve been attending The Armory Show, this year, was by far the most fun. I was lucky to be covering the fair for TOOVIA, the online magazine I write for so, armed with my awesome little press pass, I set some goals, mapped out a route and took my time walking around the fair with a very dear (and very patient) friend to make it feel even less like work than it already did. The fairs are no joke and are always a very stressful time for dealers who, inevitably, pass that stress down to their staff. So, in past years, even if I wasn’t actually working at the fair, I was running through quickly and half blind in a stressful art haze. It was nice to finally be able to slow down and take it all in, talk to people and actually have a second to sit and enjoy the chocolate babka from the Breads Bakery that set up shop at the fair.

 

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Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is everything is anything at MOCCA

I’ll keep this short and sweet. This is the other part of Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is everything is anything – this time, at Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA). While, of course, the aesthetic is similar to the works at the ROM, this part had a very different feel. I left this show feeling more Canadian than ever, as if I was in on an inside joke that Coupland was telling and that would, inevitably, leave non-Canadian viewers with a different sense of the exhibition. As you can see from the images, there were also several references to other, more famous works of art only this time, they didn’t bother me. On the other hand,  I felt like they really contributed to the dialogue of what makes art “typically Canadian” and the pre-conceived notions of art from the true north in other parts of the world. While Coupland makes it perfectly clear that he intends to be a part of this dialogue, I’m still wondering if nature and landscape in art as a Canadian trademark is something that the artist feels we should be moving away from but if it is then this turns into a Catch-22. In re-opening this conversation, he is once again introducing Canadian art with what has become known as stereotypically Canadian imagery into the contemporary canon even though he is referencing the ultimate examples. Personally, I find these works beautiful and evocative of the Canadian spirit, tradition and the wider dialogue but there is something to be said about changing the perception of visual art from Canada in the rest of the world and not going overboard with this sort of imagery or even using it as a clutch. I won’t name any names but a few years ago at The Armory Show in New York, I was so excited to stumble across the first booth from a Canadian gallery and was devastated to find that their entire booth was made up of photographs of trees.

Ok, so maybe not so short and sweet after all but since I could pretty much go on forever, I think I did alright for a blog post.

 

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Space Jam at Marlborough Chelsea

I FINALLY made it out to see “Space Jam”, artist Devin Troy Strother’s second solo exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea and it was everything I thought it would be, and more. Before you start to wonder, the title of the show does, in fact, reference the 1996 movie starring Michael Jordan and all of your favorite cartoon characters. Strother looks at the title conceptually, as a feeling of his youth, and literally – by thinking of “space” as the challenge he faced to fill all three rooms of the gallery, and “jam” as the feeling of rushing and moving forward very quickly. The works reference art history and, of course, pop culture – he definitely looks at basketball more as an aesthetic and less as an actual sport.

I’m sad to say, however, that the exhibition is only up for TWO more days!! I know, I know, I’m sorry but it took me long enough to get down there and I’m sad to have only gone once. I seem to have a weakness for art that is actually fun and of course, globs of colorful paint… so… basically “Space Jam” is my jam. Am I a cheeseball? Sure, but you can’t fight true love.

 

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