DAN GRAHAM on the roof of the Met, New York

The sun shone, the sky was blue. It was a perfect day for the inauguration of the latest Roof Garden Commission at New York's Met.

 This idea began in 1999 using "a leftover space' now popular for summer art, lunchtime sandwiches + breathtaking views of Central Park or martini cocktails on romantic weekend evenings.

Previous artists have included Jeff Koons & Andy Goldsworthy. This time it's Dan Graham's turn, with a stylish S-curve steel & glass Pavilion.

            Dan Graham

Admired for his wide ranging multidisciplinary practice - video, writing, performance. photography & sculptural environments of mirrored glass- this self-taught artist is a hero to many, especially in Europe. In 2007 he collaborated on "Don't trust anyone over 30." (He's now 72! ) 

When I first went to NY in 1982 DAN GRAHAM was a key name. I first saw one of his 'Pavilions' in the early 1990s on the Dia roof in Chelsea when there were only 3 other galleries there. Since then he has made a career out of freestanding walk-in Pavilions - lots in France, Belgium (where, he tells me, his work is fabricated,) London, Japan, Brazil & Vienna.   Tom Campbell

This one is special as it relates so well to its surroundings of Central Park, which soon, (leaves very late this year due to the Siberian winter NY has endured) will be an oasis of green. In addition the Met's roof is covered with lush green lawn (actually 2nd generation astroturf which is amazingly real) and the pavilion (strangely no roof to this) has high ivy walls.

Graham wanted boxwood which takes years to grow, so collaborator Gunther Vogt suggested ivy. "How did he do it? How will it survive Manhattan heat? "I don't know. Ask Gunther!" How did u come to this design? "It just happens! I'm an Aries. I don't calculate."
Graham began using hedges in the 1980s, " I am fascinated by banal suburbia & by ancient Chinese gardens. also by English gardens like Stowe." He also quotes artist Larry Bell as a major inspiration. No surprise; Bell's use of glass is exciting.  He also loves "the convex & concave - and the psychedelic.""My pavilions derive their meaning from the people who look at themselves and others, and who are being looked at themselves," he says. "Without people in them, they might look a bit like minimal-art sculptures, but that's not what they're meant to be." He ad-libbed,"It's a fun house for kids & a photo op for parents. Little girls dance in front of them; boys pretend to be superman. My work is child-friendly. It's playful!"      

This was immediately proved by the adults present who dotted in & out of Graham's huge glass walls, both transparent & reflective simultaneously. I'm not convinced it "create a different space which disorients the viewer'. But, yes it's fun. It all alters as sunlight changes, & will be much less interesting on a dull day. But visitors can still have fun viewing each other superimposed on reflections of Manhatten's famous skyline.

His pavilions, originally rectilinear, are created for public experience, & blur the line between sculpture, architecture & art. With its elegant curves of steel & glass, the structure has overtones of sleek skyscraper facades & modern office towers. As the Met's British duo, director Tom Campbell, (ex Courtauld) & Chairman of Modern & Contemporary Art, Sheena Wagstaff (ex Tate Modern) explained, the work was a collaboration with many fabricators led by Swiss landscape architect Vogt, professor at Harvard & Zurich, who designed for Fifa, London's Olympic Village & Tate Modern. For a small structure it sure took a long list of folk to create               Sheena Wagstaff
The event is accompanied by a lovely little book containing a great interview between Graham & Wagstaff, plus a small show of his projects downstairs. 
                 
P & C on the Roof

NB. Any artist commissioned for the Met's roof has a BIG problem. 
The view.  Can't be beat! 

BALTHUS & INDIANA.  Which to tell you about first??

For 2 weeks in NYC there is an important exhibition opening event every day - sometimes 2 or 3,  plus the Christies & Sotherby auctions plus performances, art book fairs, art fairs, United Nations causing traffic standstill. Where to start?! So I will entice u with 2 images, both well known but one perhaps the most iconic, famous image of the 1960s - 

                                                            Indiana's Love from 1966
"Some people like to paint trees. I like to paint love. I find it more meaningful than painting trees." —Robert Indiana, 

                                                                         Balthus

ROBERT INDIANA IS AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM & BALTHUS IS AT THE MET. http://metmuseum.org

INDIANA, born the same year as Warhol, is that most American of Pop artists. Inspired by highway signs, pinball machines, roadside neon and flashing slot machines, his big, bold. hard edged, colourful graphics are mesmerising. 

This is the largest ever show of his work. I wrote about Indiana's 2004 show, "Peace Paintings" for the Financial Times, financial times . Politics often inspire his work, in this instance the Iraq war produced a heartfelt cry WHY OH WHY in strident hues around a CND logo. The last oil there was HOWL, SHRIEK, SHOUT, SCREAM FOR PEACE. Nothing changes. He is still a master of of eye-catching mottos & slogans.

Sadly the show lacks any drawings or note books, which I am told by Simon Salama-Caro who is doing Indiana's catalogue raisonne, are beautiful. But the 100 works here - many large 8 ft paintings and lots of little known obelisk totem sculpture, fill an entire floor with vibrant 60s Pop style colour, design and stencilled lettering:  HUG EAT SIN DIE.  And of course LOVE with its slanted O, an image ubiquitous from millions of mugs, key rings, T shirts, even doormats.

Whitney Indiana installation 

Big surprise is the number of vertical wooden columns or herms and constructions of wood n' metal which start early - in 1959. Lacking cash for paint & canvas he began collecting old metal wheels and rubbish from the NY warehouses being demolish for Wall St's expansion. He said he made "The Lost into Found. Junk into Art. Neglected into Wanted. Unloved into Loved." He was soon putting short everyday words onto these via found stencils. At this time text like this was unprecedented, and says Barbara, "Audacious."

PS. For Scots - Indiana learnt to set metal printing type at Edinburgh College of Art in the 1950s. 

Director Adam Weinberg & eminent curator Barbara Haskell

                                   Simon Salama-Caro, director of the Indiana catalogue Raisonne

Back in Scotland it's  Open Doors day in Edinburgh - http://www.doorsopendays.org.uk. 127 places. Take advantage. I will report on Glasgow's events later. 

FOLLOW ME this week as I tour MAJOR NEW SHOWS IN NYC.

FOLLOW ME this week as I tour MAJOR NEW SHOWS IN NYC.

                                          1200 year old Feathers from Peru.

Today NEW YORK's Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org from top to bottom; ground to roof.

                                         Imram Qureshi's painted floor on the roof of the Met.

How wonderful to live 7 minutes from the Met. Their new slogan is One Met. Many Worlds.
All exemplified by 3 new shows opening today: Masterpieces from Tibet and Nepal; Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim, Germany, and Feathers from Ancient Peru! Let me tell you it's a long 4 block walk from Peru to Nepal. I had almost forgotten how huge the Met is - and how breathtaking. And how busy!

The Peruvian feathered hangings date from c 750 AD yet its by far the most modern exhibit. Think Sean Scully. Here 12 rectangular panels - divided exactly into quarters of blue and yellow made out of thousands of Macaw bird feathers - make an impressive 88 ft long wall installation of bold minimal art. The hangings, related to a shrine or ceremony, were found in 1943 rolled up in large ceramic jars, themselves richly decorated. Back then feathers were, I'm told, luxury objects and the birds were carried over the Andes! Dead or alive? We'll never know. The Wari people did not write.
Max Ernst owned one of the panels. That says it all.

Next 50 medieval ecclesiastical treasures: gem and pearl encrusted crosses, silver cruxifixes, metalwork, carving, and copper and opulent gold statues from Lower Saxony where Bishop Bernward was a busy patron. The Golden Madonna has lost her head but is still amazing. And I was glad to see one special Reliquary for St Oswald, King of Northumbria, was probably English.

With all this 10th & 11th century European creativity, how to follow that?

Well, try 13 ancient Himalayan iconic paintings just acquired from a pioneering couple who started collecting in 1964. Buddhas, goddesses, Indian saints in vibrant colours hang along with a rare fierce  copper mask which has a hole in his mouth for beer drinking during the festival processions!

Last The Roof Garden.
Each year the Met commissions a project for its Roof Garden, usually sculpture. For this year, (May to October,) young Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi painted the floor with blood red foliage and ornamental flowers influenced by Islamic art combined with abstraction. Normally a miniature painter, his recent site-specific works in Sydney, Berlin, Istanbul have been political and on an architectural scale.  Here his splatters and stains among the flowers reference the recent Boston bombings, made more poignant by their faded aspect from a summer of feet and baking sun. http://metmuseum.org

close up of roof painting. 

TOMORROW MAGRITTE at MoMA www.moma.org  All you have to do is read. I am the one with sore feet!