Monday, October 6, 2008

Saturday on The Bowery

Today, I picked up m’man Chris down near the Manhattan Bridge on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.   I had taken out my board because I never get a chance to ride and he was on foot, in a tremendously shiny pair of blue kicks.  I quote my faithful young mentee, “I don’t want to skate, I have nice shoes on.”   ….Kids.

We walked up the Bowery and into Chinatown just above Canal.   We had no agenda, just taking advantage of the day, beautiful people and the nice breeze.  Throughout Chinatown and the sprinklings of Little Italy, we talked about his school (He’s a senior at Seward), the city an his plans for college.  We also talked movies, video games, music and shoes. You know, kids’ stuff.

Once we got to the Bowery,  we saw the New Museum,  so I suggested we go in.  I’m a firm believer in seeing new things and going where you’re NOT told until authorized not to do so..(?).  So, we walked in and started poking around.  I walked up to the counter, my trustee mentee in tow, and started asking questions, “what’s the admission cost, what were the current exhibits, how can we get in this piece for free..?  when a woman spoke up and mentioned that I looked familiar.  It was a colleague who I had recently run into up in the village.  Each time we see each other, we can’t remember how we know each other – Brooklyn? Stoked? Brooklyn Children’s Museum? D.U.M.B.O.? Superfine? We got to chatting and she gave us free tickets to go in that day and check it out.  

On the top floor is an outdoor deck with a view of downtown.  We hung out up there for a bit and checked out the city.  We hung out up there for a minute and then headed down to the next available floor.  It was a media center and this nice young lady explained the place to us and we took a look.  There was a history of artists in the lower east side on the wall and Chris even recognized some names.  It was cool to hear him make connections between his world and the artists who have fluttered in and out of it.

After Nature is on view on the fifth floor.  We checked it out.  Video installation. An installation on kudzu, and some strange sculptures made out of animal fat, human hair and other …material.  Let's just say, ew.  It was cool to see an exhibit about KUDZU because I remember living in Chattanooga I introduced Chris to the concept, "what is art?" and to really think about that.  

Afterwards we walked up the Bowery and popped into a temporary gallery on the corner of Houston.  It was interesting, and chris didn't like it very much. There were lots of strange pieces, mixed media, paintings, sculpture, collages, etc.  We talked about the art question and talked about local names like Keith Haring and others.  There's a recreation of one of Haring's pieces in Houston.  

We walked over to Lafayette to find the Pop Shop but it wasn't there.  Then we popped up to St Marks, got two slices, and stepped into St Marks comics to cop the Golden Age JSA book by DC and then walked up to Union Square where we ran into Simon Pegg!

Great Saturday, indeed.  


2 comments:

nereid said...

maia and i saw both exhibits that same day!! funny we didn't run into each other.

Knockout Ed said...

Me & the lady went to the New Museum a while back. We really enjoyed it. Some good, interesting art & a killer balcony. We took some great pictures there.