A Desk For Every Season, Part II
It wasn’t until I started this Substack in January 2021 that I realized what is meant by the question “Who is your ideal reader?” I want to take this opportunity to thank all my previous and new subscribers. You are my audience. I am very happy to keep sending you posts on sources of inspiration and the life of the mind.
I am beginning three new sections. ART MOMENTS takes me back through a lifetime of looking at art, from galleries, to art fairs, to studios. The point of them is that the experience of art, from a critical standpoint, is inherently personal, and not just a function of the business end of things. They are about the encounter and its resulting memories, which can last for years. MONOGRAPH is a long form investigation into work, life, and historical significance of specific artists, arranged into multiple posts. The first series will present the experimental photographer Nolan Preece. NEW YORK DIARY presents my own takes on New York City, my home and place of origin: talking with people who I feel embody the city and its complex character, talking about favorite haunts, and showing you the city from a unique and varied perspective.
I am also writing exploratory essays on different art mediums and genres in their most contemporary models, putting today’s artists into the historical narrative. The first of the is “The Seduction of Selection: Appropriation Art Today”-- talking about Dada and Pop artists, like Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Rauschenberg, Arman, Haim Steinbach, Amanda Mathis, and Gregory de la Haba.
I am excited for the new art season, and here are a few exhibitions to which I am especially looking forward, each in a different neighborhood. On the Upper East Side, at one of two locations for the Meredith Rosen Gallery (11 East 78th Street) are new works by Carla Accardi and Tam Ochai, on view Jan 5 to Feb 10. In far off but now bustling Tribeca, at Klaus Von Nichtsssagend (87 Franklin St), are two artists I worked with in the early days of my curatorial career, Keiko Narahashi and Lizzie Scott, on view Jan 12 to Feb 17. Hop on the L train for the next two recommended exhibitions, a solo exhibition for stereoscopic photographer Carlton Bright at Brooklyn Film Camera (855 Grand St, East Williamsburg), on view Jan 4-Jan 31. Then outward to Bushwick for new works by Abby Goldstein and Jeanne Steiner at Transmitter (1329 Willoughby Ave, Bushwick) on view Jan 6-Feb 14.
Keep an eye on your inbox for all the great writing that’s coming your way!
—David Gibson