Unblogged in 2013

Original National Geographic Illustrations

While I’m full-throttle into the New Year, I can’t quite leave 2013 completely behind knowing that I’ve been holding out on you. Maybe it's because I only completed 44 posts in 2013, that I have a substantial backlog of unposted material.

So to clean house a bit, I've rounded up some of the visual miscillany that never made it onto All My Eyes during the last year. This is the first of at least two, perhaps even three posts.

Superachiever Josh Gosfield balancing an earlier Sweeney-Gosfield collaboration.

At the end of January, I attended a book signing at the Steven Kasher Gallery for Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield’s The Art of Doing. The bonus surprise of the evening was the exhibit of vintage illustrations and photographs from the archives of National Geographic gracing the gallery walls (online exhibit)

Let’s just say that for the shoe-obsessed, Shoe Obsession, at the FIT Museum did not disappoint. (Flickr set)

I had no idea when I visited the Mission San Miguel Arcángel, that I would find exquisite fresco painting in the church, dating back to 1821. This is the only surviving original church interior of California’s 21 missions. (Smithsonian Magazine article about the mission, with pictures.)

There was lots of hype about James Turrell at the Guggenheim. Yes, the color shifts were tranformative, but the mosh-pit crowds precluded my hoped-for transcendent experience. 

I was sick and tired of making mistakes by accident, so in May, I finally decided to learn how to make them on purpose at Laurie Rosenwald's super-fun workshop, How to Make Mistakes on Purpose. And now you can too. There's a workshop coming up in NYC, January 16th.

Can you think of a better way to start the year than with some intentionally perpetrated screw-ups?

Andy Williams had an amazing collection of Navajo blankets that was auctioned at Sotheby’s. Who knew? (link)

Nothing like a June evening at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s estate, to put things into perspective. 

Disney+Animal House+pornography. Paul McCarthy, in his restricted WS at the Armory ("This exhibition contains mature content. Entrance is restricted to visitors over 17 years of age.") was definitely onto something.

Not a conceptual-art piece (unfortunately). “The Little Shooter” onesie was for sale at the general store in Blue Hill, Maine.

Woody and Soon yi on a Sunday afternoon on the Upper West Side. 

Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800, at the Met was fascinating, but overwhelming. A small, simple map accompanying each piece, would have been tremendously helpful to visitors. Closes January 5th.

This preview of works by Les Lalanne to be auctioned, was indoors at Sotheby’s. The "aerial view" carpet, below, hanging at the Salon Art & Design Fair, is a Lalanne piece as well.

Wall constructions by American artist, Charles Biederman (1906-2004), were also at the Salon Art & Design Fair.

A sample of some of the profound wall verbiage featured at the  Christopher Wool show at the Guggenheim. Show ends January 22nd.

Late-November leaf-peeping in my own backyard.

Documentary filmmaker Therese Schecter’s new film, “How to Lose Your Virginity,” made its U.S. premiere on the big screen at DOC NYC. The film’s tag line, “If sex sells, why is virginity so valuable?” truly only begins to hint at the contradictions, and underlying issues of power, money, and personal freedom inherent in the subject.

See how young women today are navigating this treacherous terrain in the upcoming NYC screening, February 25th, at Anthology Film Archives.

Our very own Banksy on West 79th Street! (Interactive map at nymag.com)

Made in China, c. 1903

Opium-smoking group, toy figures

Executioners, toy figures

Years ago, I took my nephew to visit the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. He was five years old at the time, and already a voracious and very astute consumer. He was an avid collector of action figures (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all the rage) and he possessed an impressive knowledge of the entire toy category. So it was no surprise that en route to the Intrepid, he negotiated that we begin our visit at the gift shop. I was leaving on a trip to Europe the next day, and I asked him what country, were he to travel, would he most like to visit. It took all him of three seconds to answer, “China.” Why China? “Because that’s where they make all the toys.”

Probably 70% of all toys found under the tree this Christmas were manufactured in China, but in 1901, when German linguist and sinologist, Berthold Laufer embarked upon his three-year shopping spree for the American Museum of Natural History, China was only just beginning to modernize. American museums were woefully lacking in collections pertaining to Asian cultures and Franz Boas, the influential anthropologist of the AMNH and Columbia University enlisted Laufer, to change that. As the sole member of the Jacob H. Schiff Expedition, Laufer was charged with studying the history and culture of the Chinese people and acquiring specimens representing every aspect of ordinary Chinese life, including the home, commerce, the arts, and recreation.

Laufer sent back 305 crates containing some 7,500 objects, plus books, rubbings, photos and wax cylinder recordings. The haul accounts for about half of the Chinese objects held by the museum today. In the spirit of the season, I’ve chosen some toys, games, puzzles, etc. from among the 6,500 digitized items available on the AMNH website.

I started this post quite a while back, after attending a Bard Graduate Center symposium in 2012, Anthropology of Expeditions: Travel, Visualities, Afterlives. It was Laurel Kendall of the AMNH whose talk about Laufer's expedition in China prompted my own protracted excursion deep into the vast digital archives of the AMNH. There, you can see Laufer's own field notes along with thousands of objects you will probably never see displayed in the museum.

Box of toy insects

Toy monkey on a swing

Toy axe

Toy bow and pellets

Toy dog

Playing cards

Toy mask

European steam boat, toy

Horse drawing cart, toy

Insect kite

Fish kite

Peach of long life, kite

Two men, kite

Toy cats

Toy figure

Game ball

Magical blocks puzzle

Toy animal

Toy camel

Toy rooster

Toy monkey

Toy elephant

Toy duck

Wearing Mandela

Vlisco Java pattern fabric created after Mandela's release

from prison in 1990. (via The Journey to Batik)

Be it a t-shirt or a commemorative portrait cloth, Africa has a long, rich history of printed fabric as a medium of communication. So it is no surprise that so many mourning the death of Nelson Mandela and celebrating his memory have been doing so clad in textiles bearing his image. 

The following images are from The Guardian's "Nelson Mandela: pictures of the day" and other news sites from around the world.

Manorama Online

The Guardian

The Indian Express

A trio of Mandela commemorative cloths.

The Guardian

The Guardian

See the post about Nelson Mandela's penchant for Javanese textiles at The Journey to Batik.

Backpedaling

What a great design for a bicycle-shipping crate! I’m pretty sure that it can also double as a caddy for enormous slices of toast or as the armature of a hoop-skirt.

The Victorian-era crate (with bicycle) was sold recently at the final auction of items from the now shuttered Pedaling History Museum. It’s yet another sad story of historic and cultural preservation gone awry in Buffalo, NY.

Lots of cyclenalia(?) to ogle at the Copake Auctions site.

Shawmut racing safety bicycle new in crate (c. 1913). Never uncrated. “New old stock,” as they say.

Some modern “crates.”

Bicycle stand, 1896

Rex bicycle, c.1898

Quintuple five man bicycle, signed "Francisco Cuevas" on frame.

Rollfast ski bike, DP Harris Co. NY.

Identified simply as "Bicycle Photograph."

What will they think of next?