April 19, 2013
A Visit to the Judd Foundation
by brian boucher
...SoHo, a neighborhood that has come to resemble nothing so much as a shopping mall since the years Judd lived there.
The five-story building at 101 Spring Street has been under restoration for seven years in order to bring it up to code, so that the public can be allowed inside. According to architect Adam Yarinsky, who was present at a press preview today, it's been one of the most comprehensive restorations of a cast-iron building in the country.
Judd bought the building in 1968, when, according to his daughter and son, Rainer and Flavin, also present this morning, there was trash up to your knees
on the third floor and machine oil dripping through some of the floors. (The real estate broker,
according to Rainer, told Judd, "You don't deserve this building, but I'll show it to you anyway.")
After cleanup, the family lived there full time until Judd moved to Marfa, Tex., after which he divided
his time between Marfa and New York until his death in 1994.
The spacious interiors have been brought back to the condition they were in that year. Artworks by
Judd as well as by John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Lucas Samaras, Carl Andre, David Novros,
Larry Bell and Ad Reinhardt are spread throughout the building, including in a first-floor gallery,
April 04, 2013
Native son sees his artwork hung in SoHo
Three weeks ago, Freeport native Cody Copeland saw something he never thought he would see — or, at least not this soon: his paintings hung in a store inManhattan's SoHo district.
The store is Treasure & Bond, which is owned by Nordstrom. Not bad for a young lad from Freeport, Fla.
Treasure & Bond describes itself as a Collaborative Retail Experiment — a retail store that donates all profits to Children's Charities in New York City. Its stated mission is to help people help people, and to do so with imagination and style.
Copeland was born and raised just outside Freeport, next to his family's hunting and fishing supply
store. He attended Seaside Neighborhood School and sang in its choir.
He has been singing and creating art since he was a little kid, he said, and the two are equally
important.
I have been playing guitar since age 13; I sang in school, in church, and then began performing in
public places such as at Cerulean's when it was open at WaterColor, and doing gigs," he said.
About the same time, Cerulean's manager, Anne Hunter, began showing his artistic creations there,
and some of his pieces were carried at Big Mama's Hula Girl Gallery when it was located in
Grayton Beach. Copeland calls his work a mixture of folk and pop art. ...Read more
By DEBORAH WHEELER for
http://www.waltonsunonline.com
August 08, 2012
Peter Blum Gallery Closes its Soho Location
The Soho gallery scene will suffer another loss next month, with Peter Blum Gallery set to shutter on September 1st. The news was announced via email on Friday.
A.i.A. spoke with Peter Blum, who described reasons behind the abrupt closing as "no big mystery"—Swiss Army knife manufacturer Victorinox has signed an expensive new lease for the building, forcing the gallery to close up shop.
Peter Blum first opened its 99 Wooster St. flagship in 1993, but expanded to a second location in Chelsea in 2006. The newer branch at 526 West 29th St will
remain open, with the exhibition "Lusia Rabbia: Drawings and Sculpture" set to open on
September 13th.In its nearly 20 years of operation, Peter Blum Soho's noteworthy exhibitions
included "Louise Bourgeois: the Red Rooms" (1994), "Rudolf Steiner: Blackboard Drawings" (1998)
and last year's "Kindred Spirits: Native American Influences on 20th Century Art."
Sarah Cascone
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com
May 29, 2012
Adventures in Interior Design
See A True Artist's Loft Used as Live/Work Space for 44 Years
Dave Hogarty
Painter Alex Katz awakens each morning and does 300 push-ups and 400 sit-ups; he is 84 years old. It's that sort of discipline that has allowed him to flourish for so long as a successful artist. His will to work is also something that makes his Soho home and workspace one and the same. Katz grew up in Queens and attended Cooper Union, but has lived in the same Soho loft for 44 years, since 1968. "It really was an industrial slum," he told Architectural Digest. "I paid for this place what one month's rent would be now." Right from the beginning, Katz cut skylights into the roof to allow more light to fill
his studio, and he covered the floor in an acrylic sealant to stop the floor from oozing oil spilled
during its earlier time as a machine shop. The large space allows
Katz to engage in his large format art, while the continuity of splitting his time between living and
working in the same Soho loft and a home in Maine gives him the security to explore his
creative range.
March 29, 2012
No Pain, No Fame
The city’s newest tattoo parlor doubles as a reality-TV set.
By Rachel Baker for NYMAG
For the New York spinoff of TLC reality series LA Ink and Miami Ink, star Ami James and producer Charlie Corwin wanted a set that would be more than just, well, a set. They wanted an open-to-the-public tattoo shop, art gallery, and event space that just happened to be under round-the-clock film-crew surveillance. So they hired a team of architects and production designers to transform a former Christian Science church in Soho into the 4,600-square-foot Wooster Street Social Club (43 Wooster St., nr. Grand St.; woostersocial.com), now taking tattoo customers by appointment, with plans to accept
drop-ins by the time NY Ink debuts on June 2. Though much of the décor is legitimately
appealing—vintage fifties barber chairs, interior windows sourced from the Flatiron Building—the
space is not without such reality-show contrivances as a confessional room and a padded boxing
ring for cast members to duke out disagreements. Basically, it’s The Real World masquerading as a t
attoo studio masquerading as art. Or, as Corwin puts it: “I think of the show as a performance-art
piece in the gallery.”
December 28, 2011
Pop artist James Rizzi dies at 61
By Associated Press
James Rizzi, a Brooklyn-born and SoHo based pop artist best known for his playful and childlike three-dimensional sculptures, has died. Rizzi, a native of Brooklyn, died Monday at his SoHo studio at age 61. He had a heart condition, Lieventhal said.
Rizzi enjoyed some of his biggest successes in Germany and Asia.
“With his art, what you see is what you get,” said Alexander Lieventhal, an executive at Art 28 GmbH & Co. in Stuttgart, Germany, which manages and sells Rizzi’s work. “Any child can look at it and understand what he’s
trying to convey: a celebration of life.” He became known for his bright, cartoon-like drawings and 3-D
constructions. In 1996
Lufthansa commissioned him to decorate a jet with pastel stars, birds and travelers.
James Rizzi applied his playful, cartoon-like art style to unusual projects worldwide, from Volkswagen
Beetles and Japanese train ads to cow sculptures in New York and the front page of a German
newspaper. His creations included images for German postage stamps and a tourist guide to New
York published this year. He was the official artist for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the
Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and soccer World Cup games in France.
In New York, he created a limited-edition of the MetroCard subway fare-paying system for the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority. His designs also appeared in “CowParade,” an exhibit of
fiberglass sculptures displayed in New York public spaces.
There, he designed the ring coat for boxer Henry Maske, china for the Rosenthal company, the front
page of a newspaper in Hamburg and some vehicular art — a toy-size fire engine and three versions
of the 1999 Volkswagen “New Beetle.”
Rizzi was divorced and had no children. Survivors include his mother, a brother and a sister.
March 28, 2011
Aw, F**k! Is The Latest Calvin Klein Billboard Cursing?’
By Garth Johnston
Calvin Klein has a history of provocative ads dating back to when nothing came between a 15-year-old Brooke Shields and her Calvins. And over the years the company's billboard at Houston and Lafayette has garnered its fair share of controversy. But if we were supposed to be scandalized by the company's latest ad, well, it didn't quite work for us.
What's the issue at hand? According to CBS the problem with the latest poster for CK One is that it subliminally spells out "fuck." Gasp! Don't see it? To help you we spelled it out for you. Basically the side of the table behind that
emaciated young woman is the "F," her black panties are the "U"
and the "CK" from CK One is the "CK." How risque, right?
Also, yawn.
But one man's kinda boring poster is another man's porn, we guess. Because naturally CBS was
able to find some offended passersby to tisk-tisk the titillating poster: One woman from Manhattan
worried that "It’s subliminal messaging. I don’t think it’s healthy or good for anyone, not even just
young kids," and Mandy, from Jersey, says that “I think it’s disgusting, they shouldn’t have that out here.”
October 20, 2010
Now Showing | ‘Jean-Michel Frank in Argentina’
By PILAR VILADAS
The French designer Jean-Michel Frank lived a short life — he committed suicide in 1941, at the age of 46 — but his interior and furniture designs became among the most influential of his century, and they haven’t lost their power to astonish. A case in point is the exhibition “Jean-Michel Frank in Argentina,” which opens today (and runs through Nov. 19) at Gallery BAC in SoHo. The gallery — which was founded in 2001 by the architect Carlos Aparicio to sell 20th-century design of the elegant, pared-down style that Frank epitomized — is showing more than 30 objects in this exhibition, the first devoted to
Frank’s work in, and influence on, Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s. (A catalog, with an essay by the
gallery’s director, James Buresh, offers plentiful illustrations.)
Argentina’s economy boomed between the world wars, and the wealthiest of its residents were
frequent visitors to Paris, often spending months at a time there. By the early 1930s, Frank was
big in Buenos Aires. His Paris shop inspired the brothers Ignacio and Ricardo Pirovano to found
the furniture and decorating firm Comte, which imported Frank’s work. By 1937, Comte was
producing his designs locally, and soon Frank was designing pieces (like a striking oak lounge
chair with doe-hide upholstery) specifically for Argentinian projects like the Llao Llao Hotel in
Patagonia, or the sumptuous Born house in Buenos Aires, the library of which was lined in Hermès
leather, and which had a three-panel screen by Salvador Dalí and lighting by Alberto Giacometti.
Argentinians “got” Frank, and among his good friends and patrons was Eugenia Erràzuriz, whom
Frank famously quoted, in a 1938 article in Harper’s Bazaar, as saying, “ . . .Throw out and keep
throwing out. Elegance means elimination.” The same could be said of Frank’s designs; an iron
and leather settee in the exhibition looks perfectly distilled — and still modern after all these years.
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/
August 9, 2010
The Drawing Center to Stay in SoHo
By ROBIN POGREBIN
After years of looking for a new downtown home, the Drawing Center has decided to stay put in its
SoHo neighborhood. “The economy made us re-evaluate what scale of project we want,” said
Brett Littman, the Drawing Center’s director, in an interview on Monday. “We’re like a nice small jazz
club — the scale of what
read more ...
July 21, 2010
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean Michel Basquiat was a Brooklyn-born artist whose brief career leaped from graffiti scrawled on
SoHo foundations to one-man shows in galleries around the world. He died from a drug overdose
in 1988 in New York. He was 27 but had
read more ...
August 4, 2009
When David Fought Goliath in Washington Square Park
Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs are the subject and the author of two of the most indelible nonfiction
books of the 20th century:
read more ...
July 27, 2009
Theater Where It’s Least Expected
It’s time for theater that doesn’t feel like theater. Performances in nontraditional settings are
commonplace in New York, no matter what the season.
read more ...
June 24, 2009
Ohio Theater Gets 14 More Months in Soho.
The Ohio Theater will remain at its longtime SoHo
home through August 2010. The highly regarded institution, which ...
read more...
April 24, 2009
40 Years of Creations, Onstage and on Paper
A GRAYING water tower breaks up the blue sky beyond the large front windows of the SoHo loft
Trisha Brown has lived in since 1973
read more ...
Linkin Park @ Apple Store Soho, NYC 2/21/08
March 14, 2008
The Drawing Center has walked away from a plan to relocate from SoHo
to the South Street Seaport. It is the third time
read more...
March 11, 2008
Prince St. mall plan provokes road rage
read more...
March 9, 2008
The sculptor Josh Hadar’s hybrid-powered hot rods and
superstreamlinedpedal cruisers bring new meaning to the word “bespoke.”
He builds the bikes by hand
read more...
February 20, 2008
THE SoHo International Arts Building at the "Gateway to SoHo"
will soon see some restoring and signage.
Retail maestro Jeff Sutton
read more...
April 18, 2007
Soho’s well-known public artwork “The Wall,” which has been
gathering dust in a basement
read more...
SoHo thrives on its artistic background and it sure shows in the numerous art openings and events throughout the year. Check in for the latest art news in the SoHo area.
Did you know that SoHo stands for “South of Houston”? That's because SoHo is the area South of Houston street.
