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Even If You're Not a Motorcycle Junkie...

Having been obsessed with both design and motorcycles all my life, one exhibit I was not going to miss was "Chicara Liquid Chrome," a show by Japanese graphic designer-turned-motorcycle master Chicara Nagata of four of the most beautifully crafted pieces of design on two wheels ever created.

Upon entering Chelsea's Ippodo Gallery for the opening last week, my friends and I were immediately greeted with Asahi beer and traditional Japanese snacks -- but my only interest was to see these moving metal sculptures that Chicara has created, which meld both the futuristic and traditional worlds of design.

Each (totally functioning) Chicara motorcycle is comprised of almost 500 individual parts and took the artist approximately 7,500 painstaking hours to create. The end result is some of the most exquisite and tasteful pieces of industrial design I have ever seen. This is the first time Mr. Nagata's machines have seen in the U.S. and they will be on view at until the January 31.

The price, you ask? $1.5 million each. Enjoy!

Top left: Hiromi Yoshida, President Dentsu USA (left), with Chicara Nagata. Top right: Spectators marvel at the craftsmanship.

Photographs by Rena Ohashi

By Eddie Leida

November 12, 2008

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Michelle Obama at the Museum

Yesterday, the W magazine-commissioned portrait of Michelle and Sasha Obama by Elizabeth Peyton was put on view at the New Museum as part of Peyton's retrospective, "Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton." Laura Hoptman, the curator of the show (which opened October 8) eyed the portrait after its completion and decided that, as a nonpartisan institution, the museum would show the painting only if Barack Obama won the election.

Hoptman says that Peyton's portrait, which depicts Michelle seated at the Democratic National Convention with Sasha resting on her lap, has "particular significance." Explains Hoptman, "Elizabeth is such a current artist, a contemporary artist. She tells us about the world as it is at this moment." Hoptman describes the work as a "wonderful painting" of a worthy subject, adding that the newly elected first lady will become "an icon for women" in the years to come.

The show is on view in New York until January 11, after which it will move to the
Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis.

Above: Michelle and Sasha Obama Listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention August 2008 2008 Oil on MDF 14 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

By Maura M Lynch

November 6, 2008

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Bill Eggleston's Big Night

The eminent photographer William Eggleston celebrated his first major New York museum show since 1976 with an intimate dinner at the Whitney Museum of American Art last night. Looking dapper in a bright green bow tie, Eggleston, legendary almost as much for his partying as for his spare, off-kilter images, imbibed as fans like Juergen Teller, Dennis Hopper (below left) and Patti Smith (below right) paid tribute. Brooke Garber Neidich, co-chairman of the Whitney's board of trustees, was tickled that when introduced to Eggleston, who was raised on the Mississippi Delta and lives in Memphis, Tennessee, he called her "darlin'" and asked her to get him a drink.

The show itself is no less charming. Large but well edited, it hits all the high points of Eggleston's career. One guest was overheard telling Hopper with ironic understatement, "There are some nice pictures here."

Read the William Eggleston feature from our 2008 Art Issue here.

All photos by Steve Eichner.

By Julie L. Belcove

November 6, 2008

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Freaky and Fantastic

The corridors of the offices of Studio Museum in Harlem have the expected institutional feel: fluorescent lighting, chipped linoleum floor tiles. But dreariness comes to an abrupt halt at the entrance of Saya Woolfalk's studio, which, when I visited in September to interview the artist, was chock-a-block with her latest works, which included funky costumes made from felt and a gold-colored cardboard sculpture Woolfalk described as a portal between our world and the imaginary realm she's constructed in her art. Here's a quick 360 video of Woolfalk's creations:

My story about Woolfalk for W's Art Issue is here.

Top: An installation view of No Place: (pre)Constructed, 2008.

By Timothy McCahill

October 27, 2008

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The Little Documentary that Could

Will Herb and Dorothy, the uber-charming documentary about New Yorkers Herb and Dorothy Vogel—a working-class couple who managed to build one of the most important collections of 20th century art -- be 2009's answer to Spellbound? At this past weekend's Hamptons International Film Festival, the movie, which first time director Megumi Sasaki financed largely on her own, relying on personal loans and credit cards, picked up both the audience and the jury prizes for Best Documentary.

The film, which also won the Audience Award at the 2008 Silverdocs festival, is not yet scheduled for theatrical release but let's hope all the festival attention changes that soon. Our story about the Vogels appears in the November issue (read it here).

Below, the trailer for the film:

Portrait by Ben Hoffman

More…

By Jenny Comita

October 21, 2008

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Niki & Kiki 101

If you're having trouble keeping your deceased-French-female-artists-as-fashion-muses straight, allow us to shed a little light on the situation. After all, with these powerful gals informing spring collections on both sides of the Atlantic, it's tres important to know your Nikis from your Kikis.

In New York, Vera Wang drew inspiration from Niki de Saint Phalle (1930 - 2002, n�e Catherine-Marie-Agnes Fal de Saint Phalle), whom she cited in her show notes as a "woman and artist of extraordinary imagination, individuality and spirit." The painter and sculptor first gained fame for her Shooting paintings, which she created by firing a 22-caliber rifle at containers of pigment laid out on a wooden base board. Next came the Nanas, life-sized papier-m�ch� depictions of women in myriad girl-power situations, including giving birth. Today, Saint Phalle is perhaps best known for The Tarot Garden, an immense sculpture park in Tuscany featuring impossibly groovy interpretations of tarot symbols.

For Raf Simons at Jil Sander, Kiki de Montparnasse (1901 - 1953, n�e Alice Ernestine Prin) was the driving force. A major multi-hyphenate, she posed as an artists' model for some biggies (Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, and Alexander Calder among them), belted cabaret and appeared in several short films before turning her hand to painting. Of course, today, most younger fashion-hounds only know Kiki de Montparnasse as the hip lingerie-slash-sex toys label of the same name. Ceramicist Jonathan Adler also named one of the vases in his Muses collection after Kiki.

TMI? Perhaps. But at least you'll be prepared with a little handy cocktail party banter should the topic of fashion muses arise.

Photos: Top left, Niki de Saint-Phalle on the cover of Vogue, courtesy of Niki Charitable Art Foundation/ Nikidesaintphalle.org; top right, a look from Vera Wang by Giovanni Giannoni. Bottom left, Kiki de Montparnasse by Julian Mandel, c. 1920; bottom right, a look from Jil Sander by Giovanni Giannoni.

By Dana Wood

September 29, 2008

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Maximum Security at Lever House

It seemed fitting to visit Liza Lou's new installation Maximum Security Fence, currently on exhibition at New York City's Lever House, while the U.N. General Assembly was in session last week and midtown Manhattan was transformed into a kind of mini-police state. (Read W's profile of Lou from the September issue here.)

Walking up Park Avenue--past the Jersey barriers and phalanx of dark-suited Secret Service agents--toward 53rd Street, I couldn't help but feel the uneasy moment Lou conveys in the work: her inspiration came from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, as well as the ubiquitous metal fences in Durban, South Africa, where Lou lives part-time and made Maximum Security Fence with a group of local artisans. Built from four sections of steel fence, every inch covered
with sparkling glass beads, the piece is dark but completely mesmerizing; it's impossible not to feel, as Lou told W's Chris Bagley, that Maximum Security Fence is "big enough to love anyone, forgive anything."

Lou's other recent works are also on view at L&M Arts through Nov. 15; Maximum Security Fence is on display at Lever House until Nov. 29.

Photos by Scott Rudd.

By Timothy McCahill

September 29, 2008

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The Closest We'll Get to Winning a "Genius" Award

I just got off the phone with artist Tara Donovan, who--it was just reported today--is the recipient of one of this year's "genius grants" from the MacArthur Foundation. "Isn't it kooky news?" she said when I congratulated her on winning. Donovan (whom I interviewed for W's September issue) was in Boston, "buried in crates," she explained as she prepared to install her first museum survey at the Institute of Contemporary Art. But she sounded happy. Very happy.

I asked her how she got the news. "I got a phone call last Tuesday from someone at the foundation," she said, "but missed the call because I was in the bathroom. There was a message saying it was urgent that I call and that I shouldn't mention it to anyone. I was so panicked and my husband kept saying, "Call them back!" She had to wait 20 long minutes before she finally connected with the caller, who asked her, "Are you sitting down? Are you alone?" When Donovan replied that no, her husband was in the room, she was advised to ask him to leave. "Then they asked me if I'd heard of the MacArthur Foundation. Of course I had. They really drag it out and I kept thinking, Just get to the point!" The caller eventually did--she gets $500,000 over five years--which "gives me a sense of security in a very shaky economy," said the artist, who just celebrated her first wedding anniversary and moved into a new house in Williamsburg that she designed.

At the end of the call, Donovan was told that the news of her prize was embargoed until this morning--but she admits she couldn't resist telling her husband and "everyone I know," she said, laughing. "But don't tell anyone."

Photograph by Anna Bauer

By Diane Solway

September 23, 2008

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Philip Johnson's Glass Act

A few weeks ago I was invited as a friend's "plus one" for a Saturday afternoon tour of famed architect Philip Johnson's Glass House, nestled in the hills of preppy enclave New Canaan. Turns out I had one of the hottest tickets of the year; the friend had bought them in 2007, right before the tours sold out for all of 2008. Ten of us piled into a van across the street from the Metro-North train station (immortalized, I suddenly remembered, in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm) and drove up to Johnson's rectangular glass abode, which he built in 1949 and used as a weekend retreat until his death in 2005, at the ripe old age of 99.

Our peppy tour guide, a seventy-something art historian from Greenwich, led us down the driveway, past the Donald Judd concrete circular sculpture (Johnson commissioned it so car headlights wouldn't hit the house), pointing out the various buildings he had built on the sprawling property: his Gehry-esque office, a short walk across the meadow from his doorstep; the bunker-like art gallery; his squat brick guest house (that's where he watched TV, she told us). "It's not that much bigger than my apartment," one person -- a New Yorker, obviously -- sniffed as we tip-toed into the open, 1,700 square foot digs, which is, amazingly, just as Johnson left it. There was his bed, his Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chaise, the table at which he had his morning coffee and stared out at the trees. (We even got to walk around his bathroom -- great lighting.)

I'm not sure how Johnson would feel about the fact that 7 For All Mankind jeans used the property in its fall 2008 campaign (courtesy of a generous donation to the House's trust), but there's evidence the man liked to have a good time. The art gallery, where he and partner David Whitney housed a staggering collection of works by Warhol, Stella, and Johns, boasts a wine closet. "They had a lot of parties," our guide giggled.

Go see it for yourself: tickets for 2009 tours go on-sale tomorrow at philipjohnsonglasshouse.org.

Top image: Philip Johnson's Glass House
Below: 7 For All Mankind ad shot at the property.

By Sarah Haight

September 22, 2008

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Michael Vollbracht's Designs On Painting

An off-the-grid fashion show on Monday, held at the Wally Findlay Gallery in New York, was the perfect setting for designer Michael Vollbracht to merge his two raisons d'etre: his tastefully feminine duds and his languid palette-knife paintings. His new "Ladies Painted" collection, which lined the walls of the space the models drifted in and out of, will open to the public tomorrow following a bash at the gallery this evening. And while "Ladies Painted" represents Vollbracht's official New York premiere, Findlay's Palm Beach staged an another exhibition, "Ladies and Gentle Beasts," at the end of last year. "They've been selling my paintings for a while now," said Vollbracht, as he hugged well-wishers after his fashion show. "That's how I eat."