Thursday shows up bright and clear, afoot foraging for food and a battery charger as mine didn’t make it to New York [wasn’t in California when we got back either; some TSA minion mistook it for a bomb? Like maybe they mistook my never-used backup camera for a bomb on the way home, too, ’cause IT sure didn’t make it, either]…

Midday, midtown, the Modern for lunch and Robert Gober’s retrospective, which started out strong but disintegrated into a confusion of “greatest hits”.  At any rate, a strong voice, advocate and maker, but as time goes on overly reliant, methinks, on The Narrative, though the poorly realized installation, the awkward scale of the galleries typical of the Modern being a salient factor, may have had a lot to do with it…but the first couple of rooms [like the artist] – brilliant.  We also saw the much-touted Matisse cut-outs, which were cute, colorful and reminiscent of things from my youth…all not pictured, of course, being “special exhibitions” and therefore unphotographable.

But here’s the staircase…

End of day on the Bowery, police helicopters all hovering over lower Manhattan in anticipation of a populace pissed as yet another murderous chickenshit cop’s been let off because, well, he was a cop, and “afraid”; impossible to figure otherwise, and unrest abounds.  We waited on the chilly sidewalk for our friends as the police rattled about overhead all to see paintings by a British artist previously publicly reviled in these parts for works deemed irreligious in the minds of people whose eyes hadn’t seen them; Chris Ofilli. His large and luscious canvases [plus a couple of sculptures] filled the difficult-to-navigate New Museum top to bottom and were most sumptuous, layered with references historical, art-historical, religious and cultural…probably the best show they ever put on, and maybe ever will.

The front window was kinda curious, and had nothing whatever to do with Chris;

Following all that fun, helicopters still circling, we walked a couple of blocks to a nice little restaurant to sit out the demonstrations enjoying good food, wines, lively reminiscences of things past and other enthusiasms…

We were returned laboriously to Brooklyn in a black BMW convertible [possibly the least advisable ride on such a night] as many more bridges had been closed for much longer than the media ever reported.  After considerable gridlock we crawled across the recently re-opened Manhattan, the inbound still empty save for roving bands of policemen, a bit after ten o’clock.

Friday, inspired by dinner’s conversations, I went back to Chelsea to submit my book to Printed Matter and document various of the Ubiquitous Abandoned Ruined Bicycles…

Redemption of a sort was found down the street in an exhibition of arguably numinous objects by a considerable master of that [and the marketplace]; Martin Puryear sculptures at Matthew Marks…

After that nothing else came close…

Lunch and a long, nearly doomed, struggle trying for a cab finally resulted in our return to the New Museum and Lydia, who was upstairs inspecting the Ofillis.  Soon enough we were out and about the Lower East Side, repeating some things, dipping in and out of others, nothing too major for sure [and the LES, for those as unschooled as we, is definitely a black hole of myriad tiny galleries, long wet walks and low returns]…

One highlight was our friend Noam Rappoport’s show at  James Fuentes on Delancy; plain old painting trying for that numinousness…and getting there now and again.  Plain old painting, dead a million times, and still at it.  Good for you, Noam, and good to see…

Wandering darkening unpopulous streets thronged with all too many hopeful venues was depressing, really, and though occasionally something, like this shadowy piece by Brenda Garand in one struggling little space, stood out, it may have been desperation as much as anything that drew me to it…

We ended up at Lisa Cooley, where I liked the above painting by Charlie Hammond about as well as anything seen downtown. Linda’s colleague Josh Faught was showing some pretty interesting autobiographical/narrative fabric stuff [a good bookend to Gober’s uptown tales] and they were also kind enough to let me pee, which was fortunate as considerable time was subsequently spent in the Essex Street Market buying treats for the kids…

Laden with smoked fish, meats and other goodies we made our way to Bed-Stuy for a quick look at the babe,

…then on with Lydia for Peruvian food at a place near hers coincidentally called “Luz”, where a raucous birthday party was underway as we entered…loud music, women dancing  crazily in the spaces between the tables…fantastic. Sitting down we were enough below the fray for conversation, the food was great, and the walk home only a couple of blocks through the continuing downpour.

So, so ends Friday…