Acid trips, Modern masters, and black exceptionalism
Chill out at Mercer Labs, see Picasso downtown, and Ailey at the Whitney
I’ve never taken acid, but the closest I’ve come to a trip was at Mercer Labs’ show Limitless in FiDi.
Conceived by the artist Roy Nachum, it is a psychedelic experience on a vast scale, and through numerous labyrinthine spaces. You’re invited to lie down and allow enormous 3D projections to wash over you, which completely blissed me out for at least 45 minutes.
In a padded room with shag-pile carpet, you can also lie in a sound-bath of bizarre noises. Sometimes it sounded like a bunker in Ukraine, other times like the Amazon rainforest. I fell into a deep, deep, meditative state.
There are other, equally amazing, rooms of infinite lights and mirrors, strange artworks and interactions. Leave around two hours to do this, so you can truly relax into it.
It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done in New York - or anywhere. If I could afford it, I’d go every week to chill out.
I unveiled the latest painting in my Bartenders of New York series this week to Meaghan Dorman at Dear Irving on Hudson.
She was delighted - as you can see from the video below - and, more importantly, her mom loved it.
Next month, I’ll reveal the next one. Cheers!
Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde exhibition is superb - and that rarest of things in New York: it only costs $5.
There are over 100 fabulous paintings, prints, and sculptures by the masters of modern art, such as Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and Modigliani, as well as many lesser-known brilliant artists.
Weill was the first woman who dealt in modern art, who - of course! - had to overcome sexism in order to build her career.
At NYU’s Grey Art Museum, which is next to the old Village Voice office on Cooper Square. Until March 1.
Edges of Ailey at the Whitney is monumental. Set in a 18,000 square-foot dark-red room, it contains work from more than eighty artists, as well as a video screen running the length of the space showing archive footage of the life and influences of the visionary artist and choreographer, Alvin Ailey.
It feels like an immersion in the traumas, triumphs, and exceptionalism of black Americans from slavery to the present day.
It’s also big on joy. I spent 20 minutes watching archive film of Duke Ellington playing and hanging with his band, and was bowled over by the varied selection of artworks as Aretha was played over the loudspeakers.
It’s so overwhelming, you’ll need three or four visits to really absorb it all.
Until Feb 9.
The pigeon has landed on the Highline, where I volunteer as a gardener.
A colossal hand-painted metal sculpture by Iván Argote, called Dinosaur, it is a jokey snub to those monuments that aim to lionise historical figures.
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Big love,
Boo