AguiLara

After visiting about 15 different museums, galleries and public art sites around NYC, we narrowed down a list of our favorites.  Tadashi Kawamata’s playful “Tree Huts” in Madison Square Park are juxtaposed perfectly with Manhattan’s modern skyscrapers.  Another major highlight was Kehinde Wiley’s “Down” paintings at Deitch Projects, which consist of seven beautiful monumental paintings of African-American gangsters in classical fallen warrior positions.  Catherine Opie’s show of photographic work at the Guggenheim is an interesting documentary of lesbian families in their daily lives.  Marlene Dumas’ sensitive paintings at the MOMA challenge the viewers to look deeper.  And lastly, Alexander Calder’s jewelry show at the Met and “Circus” at the Whitney continue to surprise.

Tadashi Kawamata’s “Tree Huts” in Madison Square Park

Kehinde Wiley’s “Down” paintings at Deitch Projects

Bing Lee’s public art mural at Canal Street subway station

Janet Zweig and Edward del Rosario’s “Carrying On” public art piece at Prince Street station

Chalayan Hussein’s airplane dress at the Met

New Museum of Contemporary Art

Hot Dogs from HOT DOUG’S:  Mole with queso cotija, Spinach with feta, and of course a traditional Chicago style dog.

Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate in Millennium Park.  Can you find us?

Jaume Plensa’s amazing Crown Fountain

Alexander Calder’s Flamingo in downtown

Chagall’s grand mosaic mural Four Seasons

Mexican neighborhood, Pilsen, is covered with beautiful murals.  And the wind smells like corn!

1,454 feet in the air!

Yeah!

Even the dead have returned to vote.

Anytime Rangers were peacefully hiking to Cathedral Rock when they felt the overwhelming magnetic energy of El Vortex.  Although the charged vortex tried to suck their powers away, the Rangers used their New Age techniques to save themselves and the town once again.

Taos Pueblo is the only Native American community designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site and a National Historic Landmark. Fortunately, the Starbucks empire hasn’t been able to set up shop here.

The current Biennial, Lucky Number Seven, at Site Santa Fe presented some interesting works of art from around the world.  We enjoyed walking around the town to find all the different installations.  But we also noticed the noncommissioned works by graffiti artists and skaters that helped balance out the snobbishness of the galleries.  We hope to see in future biennials some of the low-rider and graffiti art that these tough kids from neighboring Espanola are producing.  Although Turkish artist Ahmet Ogut tries to portray Espanola culture in his work, nothing can compare to the real thing.

We visited our friends Noel and Isaac in Albuquerque.  They love Frito Pies so much that we had to stop at Five and Dime to eat one for lunch.

We met an artist named Charlie one year ago here in New Mexico who told us all about Gallup.  As we were driving through the town, we spotted his large installation of a freeway road.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t take a picture because of traffic.  But we managed to stop at our friend Barbara’s favorite shoe store, City Electric!