One of my favorite aspects of living in New York City was that inspiration was everywhere. It was not on demand, but was easy to find. You could consistently replenish you creative juices with visits to the Met, the MOMA, the Cloisters, PS1, Shakespeare in the Park, or Shakespeare in the Parking Lot. Inspiration was omnipresent and usually affordable. That was a decade ago. Last weekend I learned that nothing has changed. In one weekend we saw a group of blockbuster museum and gallery shows of depth and the highest quality.
FORM
At the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, we saw an amazing installation, "Fragments", on the work of Italian architect Renzo Piano. Twenty-four projects were presented on a grid of square tables, with drawings, mock-ups, animations, and wood models so exquisite they were like the works of skilled master craftsmen. Then we walked the High Line and got hot and iced coffees, respectively, and reflected on Piano's work, career, and broad geographical coverage. We've been lucky enough to see many of the works showcased in "Fragments". Ultimately Piano's work consists of a legion of one-off creations, careful tectonic expressions, balancing engineered determinism with an intrinsic Italianate humanism that a century of modernism can't fully suppress.
LIGHT
The next day we saw the work of James Turrell at the Guggenheim Museum, a series of prints and magisterial installations. The rotunda installation is, and will be regarded as, a cultural event. The installation, called "Aten Reign" completely envelopes the rotunda with an inner scaffold of translucent oval scrims, receding as they rise to the oculus. Color-changing LEDs provide an dynamic aura of color tinting, wonderful blues, purples, reds, oranges. Custom-built inclined benches at the ground level allow for prolonged gazing up into the light. On upper floors, there were 4 more installations, each carefully composed with cerebral precision.
FORMS ASSEMBLED IN LIGHT
Le Corbusier said that "architecture is the skillful, correct and magnificent play of forms assembled in light" (this is one of many translations of this saying). To complete a trinity of modern masters, we went to "Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes" at the Museum of Modern Art. Make no mistake: this is an epic retrospective on the work of Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887–1965), a classic modern fox (per Isaiah Berlin). Le Corbusier was prolifically productive and industrious over a very long career. His career traversed many great disciplines, those pursued by Palladio and Michelangelo and Leonardo - all together. Architecture, painting, sculpture, writing, publishing, teaching, lecturing, urbanism, photography, film-making, furniture, installation, visual evangelism. He was also a word traveler, avid sportsman and swimmer, man about town and smart dresser. He did not waste a day. The exhibition, across half of the MoMA's sixth floor special exhibitions rooms, was vast, with rooms full of original models, oil paintings, architectural plans, sketches, watercolors. He was a global architect a half century before it was feasible. His oeuvre was vast but not as vast as it could have been. His career was truly a patient search, a personal search, through the urban, pastoral, and mountainous landscapes that his life traversed.
Taken as a group, these three exhibitions are worth the cost of a flight to New York City, from anywhere in the world.
