Happy New Year - Mona's Eyes - Substack - Last Call for January and February 2026

Dearest Friends of New York Arts Exchange,

New Year's Greetings - I hope the beginning of 2026 has been kind to you and your loved ones.  We are already "rockin' and rolling" on the World Stage. And it's soooo cold in New York. Perhaps it's the right time to curl up with a good book and join a book club to share your thoughts about the experience.

If you are able, please join me in person at Ardsley Public Library on Tuesdays, January 13, 20, 27, and February 3, at 11 am to talk about Thomas Schlesser's brilliant novel Mona's Eyes. Here is the blurb on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It was selected as the BN Book of the Year 2025. 

Here is my review for Bonjour Paris, only available to subscribers.

If you cannot join us in person, please let me know if you would like to join a Zoom book club to discuss Mona's Eyes beginning in February.  I look forward to hearing from you about this future program sponsored directly through the New York Arts Exchange.

And, on that note . . .please join me for arts content on my new Substack website. Here is my first post. Subscribing is free to everyone. Look for the information on my Substack website:  https://bethnewyork.substack.com/

And finally - Last Call for January and February 2026.

Closing Sunday, January 11: 

Chiharu Shioto: Two Home Cities, Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, NYC.

Closing Saturday, January 17:

New Photography, Museum of Modern Art

Closing Monday, January 19:

Sixities Surreal, Whitney Museum of American Art

Divine Egypt, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gingerbread NYC, Museum of the City of New York

Closing Sunday, February 1:

Monet in Venice, Brooklyn Museum

Man Ray, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Closing Saturday, February 7:

Ruth Asawa, Museum of Modern Art

Closing Sunday, February 8:

Renoir Drawings, The Morgan Library and Museum

Best wishes to you and all your loved ones for 2026 and beyond!

With love and hugs,

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, PhD

Director/Owner

New York Arts Exchange, LLC

Last Call: Miljan Suknovic at Catherine Ahnell Gallery, through December 18th

Miljan Suknovic: Studio Visit

Catherine Ahnell Gallery, 66 Grand St, #1, NYC

Through Sunday, December 18th

Lost in a world of pure abstraction, I am bewitched, but not bewildered, by Miljan Suknovic's second exhibition at Catherine Ahnell Gallery in Soho. Suknovic knows what he is doing and always pursues it with vigor. The gallery''s website tells us that this is a new chapter for the artist "With raw linen as a base he applies his paint strokes directly on the canvas. Spontaneous gestures and random color strokes meet an uncalculated structure characteristic to Suknovic."  Suknovic has certainly become bolder in this new series and more varied in the size of his canvases.  Here, in the photo, you can see a representative sample.

  

Entrance to the exhibition

Suknovic studied art and architecture in Belgrade and then went on to Prague, Florence and Hamburg, before settling in New York. His first solo show was held at Union Gallery in 2008.  Last year, Suknovic exhibited in the elegant rooms of the Serbian Mission to the UN.  And earlier this month his work appeared along with Jonas SUN7 and Lahcen Khedim  in Catherine Ahnell's booth at Art Miami Basel X Contemporary Art Fair.  

Miljan Suknovic's work in Catherine Ahnell Gallery's booth at Art Miami Basel 2016

Suknovic's exhibition in New York closes on Sunday.  If you are headed to SoHo to shop for holiday gifts, please stop in to this upbeat and color-ific show -and then treat yourself to those delicious Christmas specialties in Little Italy. (A Nesic Tradition.)

I'll be back with more tips as the art season draw to a close - so stay tuned . . . 

Beth New York 

aka, Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com 

Beth New York Joins Collaborative Concepts at Saunders Farm September 3rd - Come Join Us on the Farm

Word Exchange –

A PerFormance

With

Beth New York and YOU

At Saunders Farm

853 Old Albany Post Raod, Garrison, NY 10523

Saturday, Sept 3, 2 – 6 pm

(Rain date: Sunday, Sept. 4)

Organized by

Collaborative Concepts

Curated by Marcy B. Freedman

Map of Saunders Farm for performances and parking:

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Happy Labor Day Weekend,

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

Last Call: Masako Inkyo and Chizuru Morii Kaplan, through April 30

Masako Inkyo, Momiji (Maples Leaves), 2015

Nothing lasts forever. We know this all too well, particularly now with the devastating effects of two recent earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador, and the sudden death of rock-star icon Prince.

Utsuroi in Japanese means transitions.  Loss forces us into transition - as shock and mourning process the irreversible.  Utsuroi Transitions is the title of Masako Inkyo's current exhibition at Anderson Chase Gallery in Goldens Bridge, NY.   Originally dedicated to seasonal change (autumn, winter, spring and,summer), today the exhibition addresses so much more.

Chizuru Morii Kaplan, Beach Lane, East Hampton III, 2016

Chizuru Morii Kaplan too invokes a sense of utsuori in her exhibition of landscapes at Hubert Gallery in Manhattan.  Here she reflects on the transience of time, nature, and perception. Breathtaking in size and scope, these paintings capture atmospheric instability, The Emergent Image (which is the title of this group show with Elizabeth Allison and Kathryn Keller Larkins). While these images seem to "emerge," the artists provide us with an opportunity to contemplate  transitional, ephemeral phenomena, such as light, clouds and weather.  We savor the fleeing in an ocular embrace.

Masako Inkyo: Utsuroi Transitions, Anderson Chase Gallery, 65 Old Bedford Road, Golden's Bridge, NY

Chiruzu Kaplan's participation in The Emergent Image: Land, Sea and City, Hubert Gallery, 1046 Madison Avenue, New York, NY. ,

Both close on Saturday, April 30th.   Please check the galleries' websites for details. 

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director, New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

https://www.facebook.com/NYArts.Exchange/  

Fall Courses 2015 and New Blogs

Michael Pupin's Birth Place in Idvor, Serbia

Happy end of summer and best wishes for the Labor Day Weekend.   I hope you all had wonderful experiences and enjoyed every minute of summer pleasures.

Please send me your list of art adventures.  Did you see "China" and Sargent at the Met?  Van Gogh and Whistler’s Mother at the Clark?

Hans Hofmann and "Pride" at the Bruce Museum?  "Alice" at the Morgan?

Did you see "Storylines" and Doris Salcedo at the Gugg?  Lots of old friends there (including a few from the New Museum Triennial we saw last May).  The Salcedo show is among my favorites this summer.

There is still time to catch them all.

This semester I won’t be able to give tours.  I agreed to give 3 courses at Purchase:

• Pop Art, Mondays and Wednesdays, 4 – 5:45 pm at RCC campus (starts today)
• Picasso, Thursdays, 6:30-9:50 pm, Purchase College campus (starts tomorrow)
• Museum History and Fundamentals, Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30 pm, Purchase College campus (starts Sept. 15) – this is for the certificate program in Museum Studies.

You are welcome to register for the credit class with Friends of Humanities – only $65 per course: https://www.purchase.edu/Departments/AcademicPrograms/LAS/Humanities/friendsofhumanities.aspx - if you are 60 years young or 60+.

If you would like to join the Museum Studies course, please let me know. This is a non-credit course and may not accept the Friends of Humanities privileges. Nevertheless, it's a great way concentrate on museum culture and have your say during our lively conversations.

Also – I started two blogs (in addition to this NY Arts Exchange blog):

"Summer in Serbia" http://summerinserbia.blogspot.com/    where I will add my pictures taken this summer, one batch at a time.

And Postmodern Mom: http://postmodernmother.blogspot.com/    where I post personal essays that have been rolling around in my brain for a while (inspired by the "Envy" exhibition at the Hudson River Museum).

I am sharing these blogs on Facebook, so if you are not on FB (or have not friended me on FB) and would like to receive these posts separately, please sign up to follow the blogs.  Many thanks!

I also started the Museum of Kindness on Facebook and have a blog for that too.

Please, please send me information that might contribute to this virtual museum. I would greatly appreciate it.

Please stay in touch – WRITE, CALL, TEXT!   I would love to hear from you.

And, please feel free to drop in to my classes. 

Love and hugs,

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours -

Thank you for 11 years of joy and friendship - 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nešić

Director, New York Arts Exchange

Last Call: Koons and the Whitney on Madison Ave.

Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog (Yellow), 1994-2000

Mirrored-polished steel, with transparent color coating, 121 x 143 inches

(307.3 x 363 x 114.3 cm). Private Collection.  © Jeff Koons

On Sunday, October 19, 2014 at 6 pm, the Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, currently located at 945 Madison Avenue, will close to the public, along with the museum  itself, after 48 years in its iconic Marcel Breuer, Hamilton Smith and Michael Irving home. Koons, of course, will continue to produce his financially successful extravaganzas, bringing joy and k'ching-k'ching to the artist, his crew of about 180 employees, his dealers Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner, the auction houses, his collectors, and the Whitney itself (which made a tidy sum for its swan-song on the swanky Upper Eastside).  

Andy Warhol said: "Being good business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art." In this respect, Koons and the Whitney made a Warholian decision to join forces to fill their respective coffers and seduce the public into believing good business makes "fascinating" art. 

"Look, it's in a museum," you might say.  "Doesn't that validate its importance!"   Well  . . . . ur . . . not quite.  Museums have to make money. Koons' art is about reflecting our consumerist society (from the vacuum cleaners to inflatable beach toys) and making products that earn plenty of money (these "recontextualized" kitschy versions). Pure and simple: Koons' products sell well - to the uber-wealthy collectors and to the scores of Whitney visitors who often waited on long lines to get into the show.  

Jeff Koons, Ushering in Banality, 1988. Polychromed wood; 38 × 62 × 30 in. (96.5 × 157.5 × 76.2 cm). Private Collection. ©Jeff Koons

Which brings to mind the whole aura of the Koons phenomenon: its Ushering in Banality, the title of his Hummelesque sculpture from 1988 (the end of the Reagan Era). Here is Pop Art without the irony or politically-charged sting.  Instead, Koons' work seems to summarized our American appetite for veneer and little else (our obsession with image, superficial beauty and fantasized sexuality).

Koons Exhibition with the "New" series - Hoovers, etc.

But you know, America, we deserve him.  Jeff Koons is the Bouguereau of our time: cloyingly sweet, intellectually unchallenging, politically neutral and easy to digest.  Pure eye-candy.  He is the master of giving us what we want, because that's his job - to please us with what he thinks brings us "joy."    

William-Adolphe-Bouguereau, The Birth of Venus, 1879

Musée  d'Orsay, Paris

William-Adolphe-Bouguereau (1825-1905) was the darling of the Paris Salons, an Ingresque academic to the max, and Henri Matisse's instructor at the Académie Julian in Paris (opened in 1868 and still going strong as ESAG Penninghen).  At the end of the 19th century, he was among the best-selling artists in France and abroad (including the United States).    In 1891, Bouguereau admitted that he painted to please his customers: 'What do you expect, you have to follow public taste, and the public only buys what it likes." (Robert Jenson, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-siècle Europe, Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 20-22.)

Sounds like Koons, doesn't it?

Bouguereau's paintings were scarfed up by collectors and La Patrie itself (France) for the glory of their/its legacy. (Take note, dear Whitney, this is your legacy too: letting money trump taste and coming up empty.) Bouguereau died as the Fauves shocked the nation with their crass colors and bizarre body-types.  Who remembers WAB? Who remembers Matisse?  I rest my case.

Installation with "Equalibrium" series

As we see in Robert Hughes' interview with Koons, the guy can't help it.  He seems to be a "Gee, gully" kind of fellow, who believes in his power to spread happiness through making "beautiful" things.  His father was an interior decorator.  (Please watch the video on the Whitney's website.)  

Jeff Koons, Moon (Light Pink), 1995–2000. Mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating; 130 × 130 × 40 in. (330.2 × 330.2 × 101.6 cm). Collection of the artist. ©Jeff Koons

The weakness in Koons' whole enterprise is that he thinks it communicates to his audience through its reflection. He believes that our images bouncing off the shiny surfaces clearly indicate that the art includes us. I doubt Koons' audience takes the time to figure this out.  Koons' work needs about a nano-second of contemplation. No more - and no less.  Even the spare installation encourages a showroom mentality, wherein we mindlessly eye merchandise for the pure pleasure of looking at pretty things. 

Therefore, all said and done: it's a surprisingly dull show, essentially a retread of so many gallery and museum exhibitions on view in recent years. Thoroughly devoid of authentic charm, this retrospective of this American celebrity artist may very be a true reflection of the auteur himself.

Whitney Museum of American Art

 Architects: Marcel Breuer, Hamilton Smith with Michael Irving, opened in 1966

So why go to the Koons show?   To say good-bye to the Whitney on Madison Avenue and wish it well in the Meat Packing District below Chelsea.  (The selections from the museum's collection is a stunning show, but lacking in a solid representation of American art in all its gender and ethnic dimensions.  Something to work toward in the future.)

I look forward to the Met's takeover and better days to come at the Whitney. Less "Bouguereauté" (as Degas would call it) and more bite. 

Farewell to an era,

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com 

Tatjana Bergelt: Slices of Life, through July 17

regret, remorse, sacrifice, 2013

Tatjana Bergelt: Slices of Life

Serbian Consulate

62 West 45th Steet, 7th floor

June 26 - July 17, 2014, Hours: Monday - Friday, 10-4 

Tatjana Bergelt seems to be searching for the essence of existence – the connecting tissues that verify reality in an increasingly complex world. To this end, she sets up tensions between images and words, bodies and shapes, figure and ground, reminiscent of Cubist collage and Dada photomontage.  These various types of collages are arresting in their beauty.  However, for all their visual delicacy (like gossamer-woven dreams), they resonate with disturbing pain and sadness as ghostly visions of dissonance.

Take, for example, regret, remorse, sacrifice (2013), a poetic vision of the human hand, bound by several multi-colored strands of yarn or thread, made inert and useless. The words “regret,” “remorse,” and “sacrifice” are almost imperceptible – so tiny and delicate – as if they are subconscious ruminations, discarded along seams and the margins. This collage seems to address the feminist struggle between duty and desire, the constraints that curtail a woman’s true self-actualization. The hand looks aged, puffy with excess work, probably at a stage in life when regrets come to pass.

ihmenin - mensch

shortsighted 

ihminen-mensch [human] and shortsighted feature female figures clothed in late nineteenth-century or early twentieth-century fashion – the former appears rather “modern” in her hat, blouse and skirt, resting her left arm on a lectern; the latter sits in a typical Victorian pose, dignified in her high-collared frock.  Yet, both bodies dissolve softly into transparent planes of flat abstraction, their faces obliterated by the title’s text.  Again, we might consider a feminist concern with marginalizing women through psychological self-destruction.

Power-grid

Once more vulnerable, a young woman confronts five policemen in power grid.  The words “self inflicted division” overlap and interact across the blurred uniforms of this contemporary riot squad.  The young lady, photographed in profile, looks from the extreme left side of the composition to the right, where a depicted image of a helmeted policeman meets her gaze.  The atmosphere is fraught with tension and fear.  What will become of this militant encounter between one female civilian and five male cops?  Dozens and dozens of lines drawn in bright or light hues energize the surface.  The combination of elements feels highly-charged.  Again, we consider existential vulnerability.

Slices of Life, 2014

Bergelt said: “The very fundamental basis for my philosophy is we are all more similar than different.  We are all afraid of death, eager to live, somehow more or less conscious, eager to love, to be loved.”  It is this awareness of universals that brings such potency to her art.

Tatjana Bergelt was born in East Berlin in 1966. Educated in Germany, Estonia, France, and Spain, she now calls Finland her family home. According to her interviews and writing, she considers herself a collage, a product of various cultural elements that intersect and overlap in numerous ways. Bergelt’s work reflects her multinational existence and rigorous training, which has produced a high-caliber of artistic expression.  But it is her provocative subject matter that captures our attention. Quietly powerful and elegantly rendered, Bergelt dares to confront us with our secret anxieties and existential concerns.

Color Theory, 2014

Mrs. Bergelt’s work belongs to many illustrious permanent collections, most notably the New York Public Library, New York; Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, Germany; Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Helsinki City Library, Finland; and Bibliothèque Nationale, Luxemburg.

The exhibition was co-curated by Zoran Budimlija and yours truly.   Please feel free to make an appointment with me to see the exhibition at the Serbian Consulate.  I would be delighted to discuss the work with you. nyarts.exchange@verizon.net

Beth New York

aka  Beth S. Gersh-Nesic

Director

New York Arts Exchange

Rosalind Solomon: Selected Works at Fridman Gallery, September 10-17, 2013

Rosalind Solomon, Bananas, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 1980

Gelatin silver print, printed c. 1980, 20 x 16 inches

Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York

Rosalind Solomon: Selected Works at Fridman Gallery, September 10-17, 2013

opening from 6-10; artist's lecture at 7 pm 

New York Arts Exchange will tour the exhibition on Wednesday, September 11, 1 - 3 pm.
Visit: www.nyarts-exchange.com for details

Solomon is not an ethnographic photographer.  She is a revealer of truths filtered through personal experience and interpretation. Her next exhibition Rosalind Solomon: Selected Works at Fridman Gallery opens on Tuesday, September 10th.  The evening will include a rare opportunity to hear Ms Solomon discuss her work with a slide presentation and a screening of her awarding-winning film A Woman I Once Knew, named the Best Experimental Short at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in 2010.

Rosalind Solomon, After 9/11, Self with Frozen Turkey, 2002

Gelatin silver print, printed c. 2003, 20 x 16 inches

Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York

Born in Highland Park, Chicago in 1930, she followed the typical conventions of her generation: married well, had two children and perfected the roles that were required for upscale middle-class American women.  Although her husband resented any careerist moves on her part, she took up photography in earnest after a trip to Japan.  At the time, she was the regional director of the Experiment in International Living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, receiving students from abroad since 1961. In 1968 she traveled alone with a few useful phrases written in a book and a camera to communicate with her host family in Tokyo.  This occasion catalyzed her breakthrough. By 1969, she began to juggle her social and family obligations with a serious commitment to honing her skills in order to become a professional photographer. 

Then she finally cut loose in 1984 and established a studio living space right on the border of the emerging experimental art scene in the  East Village. When asked about this decision, Solomon remembers her mentor, American photographer Lisette Model's advice: “Lisette had strong convictions about everything. She gave blunt personal advice. The essence of what she said is: You are an artist. You must be selfish and not give too much time to others.”(Murphy)

An insatiable adventurer, Solomon is not adverse to taking risks that might endanger her life or her career.  She is our witness to the vast diversity of our contemporary cultural communities as she travels through India, Latin America, Israel and the deep South.  Whether photographing individuals or groups, she succeeds in capturing the essence of their humanity - that spark or spirit which connects us all.

Rosalind Solomon, Catalin Valentin's Lamb, Ancash, Peru, 1981

Gelatin silver print, printed c. 1985, 20 x 16 inches

Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York

When asked about her preference for black and white photography, Solomon explains: “My challenge is not format or color, but deepening my perception and range of ideas. I am interested in making expressive pictures.  Black and white pictures work for me as poetry and metaphor in a way that color does not. I have tried color and I have tried digital. Neither gives me the sense of depth that I feel with black and white.” (Murphy)

Her allegiance to black and white print marks Solomon as a Model disciple (along with Diana Arbus, Larry Fink and many others).   And yet, she does not cultivate a signature look.  Instead she expresses her feeling for the subject through manipulating light and composition.  Sometime she works up high contrast and sometimes she diffuses the light, obscuring the imagery in a haunting web of integral parts. In this respect, Solomon’s body of work is highly original and difficult to categorize stylistically.

In 1988 Thomas Sokolowski (then director of the Grey Art Gallery at New York University, currently director of the Andy Warhol Museum) curated her solo exhibition Rosalind Solomon: Portraits in the Time of AIDS.  It took guts on both their parts to present this controversial body of work that spring.  Today the exhibition belongs to a landmark movement that also founded the annual December 1st “Day without Art,” which commemorates those lost to us from the AIDS. (In June-August 2013, Bruce Silverstein Gallery exhibited this historic series as Rosalind Solomon: Portraits in the Time of AIDS, 1988.)

Rosalind Solomon: Selected Works offers an opportunity to study the artist's range and to consider her more recent self-portraits within the context of her earlier photographs.  It's an intimate show, organized to stimulate conversations as, indeed, the works seem to converse among themselves--revealing truths on their own terms.

  

Rosalind Solomon: Selected Works Press Release

Sources:

Michael David Murphy, “Four Questions for Rosalind Solomon,” 2point8, October, 25, 2006.

Stephen Watson, “ Interview with Rosalind Solomon,” May2003.

Beth S. Gersh-Nešić, interview with Rosalind Solomon, May 15, 2010.

Thomas Sokolowski  Rosalind Solomon: Portraits in the Time of AIDS, New York: Grey Art Gallery/NYU, 1988.  Chronology, Beth S. Gersh-Nešić.

Biography and Chronology, Bruce Silverstein Gallery.

Bibliography:

Polish Shadow, Steidl 2006

Americans [1940-2006], Kunsthalle Wien, Gerald Matt, Peter Weiermair.

Chapalingas, 464 pages with 204 photographs by Rosalind Solomon, includes essays by Susanne Lange, Ingrid Sischy and Gabrielle Conrath-Scholl. Co-published by Steidl, Göttingen, Germany and Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln, Germany. 2003 (English, German and French.)

Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California, 1986, Earthrites, Arthur Ollman

The Grey Gallery and New York University Study Center, New York, 1988, Portraits in the Time of AIDS, Thomas Sokolowski

Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru, 1996, El Peru Y Otros Lugares, Peru and Other Places, Natalia Majluf and Jorge Villacorta

Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa, Bilbao, Spain, 1993, Desconnections

Etherton Gallery, Tucson, Ariz., Rosalind Solomon, Photographs 1976-1987

Ikona Photo Gallery, Venice, Italy, 1982, Rosalind Solomon, Peru, Ljerka Mifka

The Corcoran Gallery, 1980, Rosalind Solomon: Washington, Jane Livingston

United States Information Service, 1984, Rosalind Solomon: India, Will Stapp

Last Call: Robert Irwin at the Whitney, September 1

Robert Irwin, Scrim Veil-Black Rectangle-Natural Light, 

Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1977

Among New York's art cognoscenti, the Summer of 2013 will be remembered as the "Summer of Space and Light" thanks to two exceptional exhibitions: Robert Irwin, Scrim Veil-Black Rectangle-Natural Light, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1977 at the Whitney Museum (closing on September 1) and James Turrell at the Guggenheim Museum (closing on September 25). Although these artists were born 15 years apart (Irwin in 1928; Turrell in 1943), both responded to the visceral presentness of Abstract Expressionist by rejecting its materiality and choosing instead its ephemeral ingredients: real space and pure light.

Their work (along with Richard Serra's, Michael Heizer's and Michael Asher's) belongs to an ill-defined overlap of Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, wherein the simplicity of form interacts with the viewers' self-awareness in the presence of the artist's decisions. Space, scale and light play principal roles, rather than the flat canvas, the carved stone or the welded metal object.  And yet, Irwin and Turrell are sculptors, shaping a specific environment through directing the source of light and the reception of light.  Briefly stated: they are the Illuminators of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, bringing intellectual and spiritual enlightenment to a population of overstimulated, sentient creatures.

Irwin's Black Veil rewards a physical visit to the Whitney Museum's 5th Floor by confusing and surprising our visual perceptions as soon as we exit from the elevator or stairs. It takes a moment to grasp what is there and what may be an illusion. This disorientation is part of the thrill, which no photographs or videos can convey - not even close. The fact that a virtual encounter cannot achieve the real intent of the artist delights me.  For it re-enforces the main objective of today's gallery or museum: being there and not here - online.

To learn more about Irwin's work, please view this short video:

And read the digital catalog, a reprint of the original 1977 catalog with an new introduction by Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Programs, Donna De Salvo.

(Stay tuned for another post on James Turrell in September.)

Best wishes for the Labor Day Weekend,

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic

Director

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com