BORBAY

The day started with Warhola’s old townhouse, 1342 Lexington Avenue. This was the first stop on our visit to @MetMuseum. After the jump, you will find some photos, rambling thoughts and a sketch from the Bacon exhibit.

This is the firehouse where Warhol and his poetic assistant painted the gold Elvis series. One day they arrived to find them ruined by the rain, through the holes in the ceiling, and made them over – what a potential dumpster find.

This El Greco is not in the standard 500 pixel width, but I cannot afford to be anal about this. Not now. So look at this. Was El Greco really the painter? Who cares. Excellent name. Excellent strokes. This guy was Photoshopping reality before Photoshop was a seedling by hundreds of years.

When standing in front of a landscape, I try to adjust my gaze to the horizon and pretend this is my reality. Are those my friends out there on that boat? Are they drinking? If so, am I drinking? Is it hooch from a hand spun piece of pottery? Where am I going after this? Will my allergies act up? Were allergies just considered illness back in the day of 30 year old life expectancies? Was this done in the last fifty years?

Hopper really knew how to catch the dirty, beautiful light of NYC. The colors pulse.

Stuart Davis was a smooth operator. Six colors, one composition. Try to count the six colors without pointing or keeping tally, I got lost by the fifth.

It was a time, where four planes created an entire reality. Reflections on light bulbs were all the rave. Window reflections meant everything.

This Dubuffet has grown on me, in the same way a dark fungus grows on a rock in mossy waters – firmly, with great attachment. The tops of these buildings dance in a sea of unexpected coloration. The figures at the bottom of the picture plane are akin to a Nike logo being slapped on the Mona Lisa – it doesn’t really make sense, but I can see myself accepting this somehow.

Nothing makes a statement like pulling off your lightest lights at the furthest point from a pictures surface. Also, the reclined woman looks exacerbated – probably saying, “but when are you going to leave your wife?”

Brilliant fauvist colors in a bustling cityscape. Honorable mention – the amazing shadows behind the canvas on the wall.

Chagall is a crowd pleaser. If you can paint and explain 30% of the symbolism in a canvas like this – you are rolling in the cash money.

This Picasso draws an interesting structural resemblance to the Tanguy below. In my opinion, Picasso lurked in the dark streets of Europe, breaking into artists studios. Once inside, he would quickly sketch the best ten pieces he saw, and quickly return to his secret artist lair to create work that trumped each masterpiece with the greatest of ease. Most artists, when being introduced to art history, renounce Picasso as overrated. Then, they study and paint further, and suddenly realize his is the bee’s knees times ten.

Not only did it appear that Yves Tanguy had the best drugs around, his ability to create a plausible reality from abstract creation was breathtaking. All of his formations appear to resemble what a dentist might see while extracting a set of molars – only they are orchestrated in some sort of funerary march on pause. Love the invisible planes.

Each mark is so deliberate, so intentional. Beautiful sense of light. You can recreate this painting to look like the same thing, but to capture the feel is another world.

As Ari’s pen is so astutely pointing out, Neo Rauch is the hotness. His olde tyme imagery, coupled with his smattering of contemporary references and maddening structure… in my opinion, one of the most inspiring artists out there today.

Bacon doesn’t last forever, especially when it is sitting on a plate in front of yours truly, cooked all crisp like. Thus, I took a moment to sketch out one of his triptych’s. His compositions are far more complex to capture than first glance would dictate – lesson learned.