art Archives - GothamJoe

August 17, 2025August 18, 2025

The Frick Collection

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	210 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	I want to break my rule and say that the whole building is my favorite thing about the Frick, but if I had to pick just one thing, I’m so happy to get to visit the Garden Court again. It’s lovely, green, and a respite when you need a minute away from the art.

My second-favorite museum in New York City

The Frick Collection has re-opened in its Fifth Avenue mansion after a multi-year, zillion-dollar expansion and renovation project. My pithy original review from 2017 is here, and my review of The Frick’s temporary home-away-from-home in the brutalist former Whitney, former Met Breuer building on Madison Avenue is here.

I loved the original Frick Collection for its extraordinary good taste, and for succeeding as simultaneously one of the best house museums and art museums in the City. I loved it for bucking museum trends and norms:

Minimal wall text – just look at the art!
No cafe
No photos allowed (take that, Instagram!)

I worried when the big renovation project was announced. Would The Frick sacrifice the things that made it special?

Then, once the museum moved to its temporary space, I found I loved The Frick Madison. I thought the recontextualization of the collection was brilliant and I appreciated (though I did not always love) the opportunities that having the collection there created to let Mr. Frick’s art commune and converse with contemporary art. I was sad when it shut down.

But now The Frick is back, and the question on my mind is, is it still my second favorite museum in New York City? (If you’re curious, The Cloisters is number one..)

Short answer, if you’d rather not read this whole essay, is yes. And luckily enough, during the member previews for the new-old Frick this spring the museum waived its no-photo policy, so I can pepper this review with pictures.

Nothing but the best for Mr. Frick

I try to be careful about superlatives. If I like or dislike a thing subjectively, that’s not the same as something being objectively whatever. So, when I claim that The Frick Collection boasts not one but two of the very best roomfuls of art in New York City, that’s very conscious.

The first room is Mr. Frick’s Living Hall, which is home to an astounding set of pictures. Hans Holbein’s St. Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, forever glaring at one another from opposite sides of the mantel. El Greco’s St. Jerome in between them. The monumental St. Francis by Giovanni Bellini on the opposite wall, flanked by two literal Renaissance Men. I imagine what Mr. Frick’s ego must’ve been like, that he could sit with this group of guys around him, and not be intimidated beyond all ability to work, live, think, converse.

The second room is the West Gallery, which is, I sincerely believe, painting for painting, the best single roomful of art in New York. What a flex this particular collection of masterpieces is. The Rembrandts. The Turners. The Velazquez. The Titians. The Vermeers, plural. There’s not a miss in the room. Any of them merit looking at for hours, for days.

And the thing is, The Frick has always had many other rooms that, depending on artistic tastes and preferences, could easily rank on a “best rooms” list. And the new Frick has a lot more of those rooms to love.

The new Frick takes it to the next level

The ground floor of The Frick Collection includes the public, formal spaces the Frick family dined and entertained in back in the day, with plus dedicated gallery space, a lovely glassed-over garden court, and an entry foyer added in the 1970s.

One reason for the renovation was to address a fairly major need for more space, for many reasons. The collection continues to grow, and The Frick was stuck hosting lovely little temporary exhibits in very inadequate basement space. The gift shop was possibly literally located in Mrs. Frick’s former broom closet. The Frick held concerts in a room that decidedly did not live up to the rest of the building. All these issues are now addressed, and then some.

The biggest change from the old Frick is the second floor. Formerly offices of the museum staff, and before that the family’s private living spaces, the Frick has reclaimed a series of upstairs rooms for art. Everything about them is fantastic, although I do worry that they’re so intimate that crowd control will prove a challenge.

Frick newbies will take it in stride, but for Frick veterans there’s a fun frisson of trespassing when you go up that grand staircase the first time. While the Frick was in previews, they discovered the low risers and carpeting make the mansion’s staircase a little treacherous to descend, so they are up-only. Fortunately, there’s an awesome marble stairway in the new addition that safely returns you to earth again.

Addressing all The Frick’s former problems, the new addition also offers:

Much bigger and better space for temporary exhibits
A fancy cafe
New space to show drawings and works on paper
A beautiful subterranean theater (I can’t wait to hear a concert there)
A gift shop that definitely does not resemble a broom closet.

The Shape of Fricks to Come

We don’t live in a world where things get better. Entropy is the rule, change inspires skepticism rather than hope. But sometimes, against the odds, change improves, reinvents, opens new doors, or new floors. At least in museums. The new-old Frick Collection is better than it used to be.

Perhaps my biggest surprise — shock even — at the new Frick was a bowl of buttons at the member preview. Some bore the classy old-school “HCF” monogram logo, which, thankfully, The Frick has not thrown out in favor of some sort of superflat sans serif font. But the other buttons read, “FRICK YEAH!” If I’d been wearing pearls I would’ve immediately clutched them. Kudos to the marketing team for making a joke I never thought I’d see The Frick willingly make about its august founder’s surname.

I do have one reservation. I was excited about the restoration of the old gallery spaces, putting the collection back “exactly as it was.” Except, it isn’t. Not quite. The Frick has pulled off a super subtle intervention throughout, a temporary installation of dazzlingly realistic porcelain flowers by Vladimir Kanevsky, a Ukrainian-born contemporary artist. These play off The Frick’s art, sometimes too well. They reflect The Frick’s own amazing porcelain collection. AND they offer a nod to beleaguered Ukraine. Well played, curators.

But. But but but. That’s some new art snuck into in the old spaces. And a bit of me raises a skeptical eyebrow, reaches for my metaphorical pearls again. Just because this sneaky, subtle art intervention succeeds (really well!), that doesn’t mean the next one will. And I bet in this edgy, brave new Frick, there will be others. So, we’ll see.

Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland, 1871, plus flowers — James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland, 1871 Plus flowers by Vladimir Kanevsky

That off my chest, I refuse to end pessimistically. Everyone should go to The Frick Collection. It’s both wonderful and essential. And now it’s a whole new Frick, and yet it’s also the old Frick, and I can’t wait to see what it does next. “Frick yeah,” indeed.

The Frick Collection, Henry Clay Frick — Henry Clay Frick, in his collection

For Reference:

Address	1 East 70th Street (between 5th and Madison), Manhattan
Website	frick.org
Cost	General Admission: $30, advance timed tickets essential
Other Relevant Links	Cromwell and More hating each other reminds me of Wolf Hall, where Hans Holbein’s portrait of Cromwell makes a cameo appearance Vladimir Kanevsky’s delicate porcelain work

August 8, 2025August 8, 2025

Vilcek Foundation

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	55 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	It’s lame to pick the obvious crowd-pleaser, but I loved the centerpiece picture in the Il Lee show. IW-2201, 2012 is a big oil and acrylic work. Here’s a detail, a larger picture is in the review, below. Photos do not do it justice, though.

Of all the things I love about New York, the best is how there is always more to it. There are so many bars, restaurants, cultural institutions, jazz clubs, whatever, that it’s virtually impossible for any one person to know them all. No matter how good your radar, on whatever the subject, New York City always has something flying under it. Waiting to be discovered.

For example, say you’re someone who has been going to New York City museums. You’ve been cataloging them and writing about them for nearly a decade. And you (well, me) think, arrogantly, that you’ve got the best database of museums, extant and closed, in the City. And then you discover a nonprofit that’s quietly been hosting art exhibitions since before you started your museum quest. That’s just a thing that happens.

A few weeks ago, I was walking on East 70th Street from the Frick Collection (re-review badly overdue) to Madison to catch the M4 bus when I stumbled on the Vilcek Foundation.

To be fair to me, the Vilcek Foundation has only been on 70th since 2018. Also, based on the foundation’s website the Vilcek Foundation didn’t do any art exhibitions between 2013 and 2019. So maybe I didn’t actually miss them, as much as they restarted a part of the mission that was on hiatus before they moved to the East 70th Street location.

Finally, in my defense, the only way to see Vilcek Foundation exhibits is to make an appointment and get a tour. However, that’s an easy process, and it’s hardly the hardest museum space to gain access to in the City.

All that said, I’m very happy to add a new-old place to my list.

Vilcek it out

The Vilcek Foundation exists to “raise awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences.” So, that’s not exactly a fashionable thing to do these days. It makes it akin to, among other places, the Ellis Island Museum. The Foundation gives out grants and prizes, and, across two floors of long, narrow gallery space, holds exhibits showcasing the work of immigrant, something-American artists.

The Foundation website opens with a nice, very unfashionable, tribute to the value of diversity: how it propels innovation and sparks new ideas and strengthens America’s cultural and scientific community. Perhaps, then, it’s better that it’s a bit of an under-the-radar institution, at least until the political winds change.

The Vilcek Foundation’s building, down the block from The Frick, is a landmark, 1910s-era townhouse, understatedly renovated. The gallery spaces aren’t huge, but they are decent in a stark white kind of way, consisting of two levels connected by a staircase of the type that seems required for upscale duplex art galleries and museums.

Who is Il Lee?

The current show at the Vilcek Foundation showcases the work of Il Lee, a Korean-American artist. Born in Korea in 1952, he moved to New York City in 1977 to go to Pratt. Impressively, a large part of his practice is done with ballpoint pen. Which leads to questions of whether it can be called “painting” (which the show catalog does). His work is mesmerizing, a mix of control and randomness, of planning and freedom. And effort. It’s a ton of work. I can only imagine the hours and hours it takes to cover a large-scale sheet of paper or canvas with so many ballpoint lines that they blur together into solid blocks of color. How many attempts end with a piece that doesn’t quite work, where one errant line throws everything into disarray.

The Vilcek Show offers a strong cross-section of Il Lee’s work, showing how his practice has evolved over the years. It highlights several of his loopy, swirly, ballpoint pen pieces and a selection of his prints. It also includes work he’s done in paint. Rather than painting per se, he layers oil over acrylic. He then uses a dry ballpoint pen as a stylus for dragging his signature swirly, swooping curvy lines into the layers of paint. It’s spectacular, tactile stuff, reminding me of the world’s most precise finger-paintings.

Funnily enough, Il Lee also loaned the Vilcek Foundation several bags of pens. Apparently he keeps every one he’s ever worked with. Those are on display in a plexiglas box in the middle of the ground floor gallery space. I’m a big fan of art that elevates humble materials, and there are few more humble than a Bic pen.

It was a beautifully curated show, fun and edifying at the same time, and it had the incredibly beneficial effect of introducing me to an artist who was not formerly on my radar. My bad for that. I can’t imagine how Il Lee does what he does, even though the work is essentially a “how to” for itself. The lines are the lines, there’s no concealing what he’s done. But the amount of time and patience, work and practice required to make them look just so boggles my mind.

Should you visit the Vilcek Foundation?

My guide to the Il Lee exhibit was a curatorial fellow named Olivia. I really appreciated her willingness to spend an nearly an hour with me, talking about Mr. Lee and his practice and his work. Seeing the show, and Olivia’s insights into it, were well worth the (tiny) effort it took to email to get a date and time scheduled.

Confusingly to me, the Vilcek show prior to this one was on Pueblo Pottery, which, would seem antithetical to the mission statement of celebrating immigrants, but I’m always down for some creative cognitive dissonance. I’m sure not every artist the Foundation features would be as in sync with my personal aesthetic as Il Lee turns out to be, but I’m looking forward to keeping an eye on what they show next, and to visiting again.

In the current political climate, I appreciate any organization that tries to remind the world that some of the greatest contributions to American art, science, culture, and society came from people who were not born here. If you’re the sort of person who disagrees with that, no harm, no foul, just skip this place, it’s totally fine.

But if you’re anyone other than that kind of person, I strongly recommend a visit, Il Lee is on until the end of May 2026, definitely go see that if you can. And after that? Check out what’s on, and if you have the luxury of planning in advance, book visit to the Vilcek Foundation as a chaser to a visit to The Frick Collection.

For Reference:

Address	21 E 70th Street (between 5th and Madison), Manhattan
Website	vilcek.org
Cost	General Admission: Free, but must make an appointment in advance by emailing info@vilcek.org
Other Relevant Links	Il Lee on Art Projects International Il Lee on Rembrandt, video from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

May 4, 2024May 4, 2024

Statue of Liberty Museum

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	37 minutes (in the museum; far longer getting to and wandering around Liberty Island)
Best thing I saw or learned	I keep coming back to a pair of quotations. One was from an editorial from the Black-owned Cleveland Gazette from Nov. 27, 1886, that read, “Shove the Bartholdi Statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country [exists for the] colored man.” Alongside that was a quote from Lillie Devereux Blake, president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, who said, “In erecting a Statue of Liberty embodied as a woman in a land where no woman has political liberty, men have shown a delightful inconsistency.” Cheers to this museum for celebrating the statue and what she means, while acknowledging that not everyone agreed, even back in 1886, that liberty was a done deal.

Note: This review updates my review of the old Statue of Liberty Museum, dating from 2018, when the museum was located inside the Liberty’s pedestal.

Why Liberty?

We do not live in terribly allegorical times. Alas, this era rewards bluntness over allusion, and literalism rather than metaphor. How, then, can can one explain the enduring popularity of “Liberty Enlightening the World,” a very allegorical and symbolic symbol indeed, standing on an island in New York Harbor?

Because, judging from the insane queues of people who had journeyed from every corner of the world to go visit her inconvenient island, Lady Liberty remains exceedingly popular.

It’s stranger still because, when you think about it, “Liberty Enlightening the World” is a particularly 19th century sort of idea, obsolete in times where many both in the United States and outside it would question the mission statement.

With those thoughts on my mind, I semi-patiently queued, scrummed, went through airport-style security and boarded a ferry to cross the harbor to visit her, and the museum that tells her story.

The Statue’s Story

Surely everyone knows the story of the Statue of Liberty. Gift from France, colossal, New York Harbor. Immigrants. Lifting her lamp beside the golden door. Yadda yadda yadda.

The museum highlights five instrumental people, also immortalized in statues on Liberty Island:

Edouard de Laboulaye: who dreamed her
Auguste Bartholdi: who designed her
Gustav Eiffel: who engineered her
Joseph Pulitzer: who raised the money to give her a place to stand
Emma Lazarus: who gave her her soul

Statues of the key figures in the creation of the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island

Old Statue, New-ish Museum

The Statue of Liberty Museum occupies a purpose-built, very modern building on the northern edge of Liberty Island, as far from the statue as one can get without plunging into the harbor. Opened in 2019, it boasts a green roof, ample space for accommodating the huddled masses from the ferry, and fantastic views toward Manhattan, as well as of Lady Liberty’s rear.

Statue of Liberty Museum, Liberty Island, New York

The museum tells the story of the genesis, engineering, construction, and gifting of the statue, as well as her absolutely iconic role as a symbol of freedom, democracy, New York City, and the United States. Among other treasures, it includes the statue’s original lit-from-within torch, replaced during the 1986 rehabilitation of the Statue.

Continue reading “Statue of Liberty Museum”

July 9, 2023July 9, 2023

Hispanic Society of America

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	60 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Sorolla’s entire mural series (which I write about below) was easily the best thing. However if I had to pick just one panel, I’d go with Seville/The Dance, which evokes Carmen… the happy, carefree parts, not the stabby misogynistic ones. My little internet photo does not do it justice!

Note: I first visited the Hispanic Society in May of 2022. I revised my review in July 2023 as the Society has continued its reopening. The original review is here.

Iberian Dreams…

Like many other institutions around New York City, the Hispanic Society of America was founded by a rich guy who became obsessed with something. Think Gustav Heye and what is now the New York branch of the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, or Mr. Frick’s collection or Mr. Morgan’s library… Occasionally it was an obsessed rich woman, like Jacques Marchais’s thing for Tibetan Art or the artistic passions of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

In the case of the Hispanic Society, the rich dude was Archer Milton Huntington. And the obsession was the art of the Iberian peninsula. Archer Milton Huntington opened his Spanish Museum in 1908, though he’d dreamed of having a museum of some kind since he was a boy. Born very rich, the story goes that as a young man Huntington fell in love with Hispanic art on a visit to Mexico, which sparked many trips to Spain, learning Spanish as well as Arabic, and becoming both a connoisseur of and an expert in the art and culture.

Hispanic Society Museum and Library, Exterior, New York

The Hispanic Society is located in a splendid Beaux-Arts building in Harlem, part of the Audubon Terrace campus. It’s an interesting quirk of fate that Spanish is much more likely to be spoken in the museum’s neighborhood today than when it opened there over a century ago. The beautiful old building is a blessing and a curse: the museum closed for a massive renovation shortly before I started my museum project back in 2017, and remained closed until 2022.

Recently, the Hispanic Society entered the second phase of its reopening, following the teaser “we’re back” exhibition that I saw in its basement last year.

Hispanic Society Main Entrance (under construction)

Soto and Sorolla

The Hispanic Society has now reopened two spaces: its Main Court and the Sorolla Room. The Main Court has two levels (though only the ground floor is currently open) and is something like a roofed-over medieval cloister, featuring an open space surrounded by ornate archways and a small corridor running around the perimeter under the mezzanine. It is an exciting space, though its relatively small size limits what the Society can exhibit there.

Hispanic Society interior

Nevertheless, the cleverness of the Hispanic Society’s reopening exhibit belied its small space.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida was a famous Spanish painter (“the most esteemed and renowned Spanish painter of his era,” per a wall text) who died in 1923. Jesús Soto was a Venezuelan abstractionist who made highly formal geometric sculptures who was born in 1923. That coincidental birth/death centennial year provides a somewhat tenuous justification for exhibiting their work together. However, each artist was interesting in his own right, and together they bridge the old Hispanic Society/ new Hispanic Society philosophy regarding curation and collecting.

That philosophy, by the way, has evolved from a focus mainly on the Old World to including the New, and from classic and retrospective to embracing contemporary work.

Hispanic Society's Sorolla and Soto exhibit, 2023, New York

I appreciated the way the Hispanic Society installed Sorolla’s bourgeois society portraits in the arches of its Main Court. Floating in space they echoed the 3D, geometric, sculptural layering of Soto’s work.

Jesús Rafael Soto, Untitled

The Sorolla Room

The Sorolla Room is something else. Much like the Spanish Inquisition, I was not expecting it. Back in 1909, the Hispanic Society held the first major US exhibit of Joaquín Sorolla’s work. Based on the success of that show, Archer Milton Huntington commissioned Sorolla to create a series of murals depicting life in España, installed in the eponymous room.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida's Vision of Spain murals at The Hispanic Society

The murals are a delight — packed with regional detail. Colorful and exotic, they combine mundane scenes with holidays and festivals. I might feel concern that they’re a bit too exoticizing, but, hey, Sorolla was Spanish, I think it’s safe to assume he knew what he was painting. I want to take a guided tour of these murals, or at least come back and visit many more times.

The Hispanic Society installed another exhibit in the Sorolla room, entitled “Jewels in a Gem,” featuring the work of Luz Camino, a contemporary Spanish jewelry designer. This worked surprisingly well. The installation was designed to leave the murals unimpeded and the jewelry complemented what was on the walls — sometimes directly. For example, I appreciated the fishbone earrings in a case juxtaposed with a fish market scene.

Luz Camino, fishbone earrings at the Hispanic Society

Fish Market from Sorolla's Vision of Spain murals, Hispanic Society Camino’s work reminds me of early 20th century jewelry by Lalique or Cartier. It draws heavily on nature, but also has a healthy dose of humor. I don’t know who would want enamel and gold earrings lovingly shaped into popcorn, but I respect that person.

Although full of beautiful things, my one nitpick is the exhibit would have been richer had it included some of Camino’s notebooks, design sketches, and other preparatory work — I love seeing inside a designer’s creative process.

Luz Camino, popcorn earrings

Should You Visit the Hispanic Society Museum?

I’m excited that the Hispanic Society has continued its return to life as a museum. Its important collection and beautiful building are invaluable restorations to the New York’s cultural fabric.

With this phase of its reopening, the Hispanic Society has gone from being “worth a quick stop if you happen to be in that part of Harlem” (quoting myself from 2022) to being well worth a trip. The Sorolla murals are arguably the closest thing Manhattan offers to a visit to Spain. (Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards is the other contender…)

The Hispanic Society would make a good combination with the splendid Morris-Jumel Mansion, both historic buildings. It is also close to the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling if you’ve got kids in tow.

Hispanic Society of America Stairway — Upstairs coming soon (I hope)

I chatted with a friendly guard who said that the Society expects to have more gallery space open by autumn. I’m already excited about making another visit.

Hopefully part of the longer-term plan will make the pleasant piazza of Audubon Terrace more inviting, too. An al fresco café or tapas bar would be fantastic there (where’s José Andrés when you need him?!). Sculptures on the terrace immortalize Don Quixote (yay), the conquistadors (boo), and El Cid (I think he’s a “yay” but your mileage may vary…). The terrace was once a sort of Lincoln Center of cultural institutions, featuring the American Indian Museum, the American Numismatic Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. That last one is still there, and occasionally open for exhibitions, too.

Audubon Terrace Plaza — El Cid, by Anna Hyatt Huntington

For Reference:

Address	613 W 155th Street, Manhattan
Website	hispanicsociety.org
Cost	General Admission: Free
Other relevant links	Mercado Little Spain (tapas and more by José Andrés) Luz Camino, Madrid

June 3, 2023June 22, 2025

Fotografiska

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	88 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	My favorite picture in Fotografiska’s hip hop show is this iconic 1998 shot of Missy Elliott by Christian Witkin. It hits that perfect balance between posed and spontaneous, and she comes across as confident as hell.

PERMANENTLY CLOSED. As of September 2024, Fotografiska’s location in New York has closed. The organization is reportedly looking for larger space, but it’s been nine months with no update.

At some point I’ll write a story about the superlative museums of New York. I don’t mean the best, but things like the smallest, the quirkiest, (which may well be one and the same), the oldest and so on. Fotografiska, a museum focused on photography, earns an unexpected superlative: It is the darkest museum I have visited in all of New York. I saw two different exhibitions there and both were lit very similarly: spotlights on photographs (and other work) in otherwise deep gloom.

It’s dramatic and unexpected — and a refreshing change to visit a museum where it’s actively challenging to take a selfie — or to take pictures for a museum review. But what else do I think about it?

A Snapshot of Fotografiska

Early in this project, I defined museums as non-profit organizations, thereby deliberately excluding museum-in-name-only experiential entertainment zones like the Museum of Ice Cream. I have been on the fence about Fotografiska since it opened in 2019.

Fotografiska is a mini museum empire, with outposts in Stockholm, Berlin, Shanghai, Miami, and Tallinn in addition to New York. It self-describes as “a destination to discover world-class photography, eclectic programming, elevated dining and surprising new perspectives,” and I’m pretty sure they’re in it to make money. And yet it also does use the m-word, and serious publications write about its shows. So into the darkness I plunged.

Fotografiska's Renaissance revival NYC building

Fotografiska’s New York outpost occupies a landmark 1800s Renaissance Revival, former church mission house on Park Avenue South. The building’s interior was thoroughly transformed to house several floors of windowless gallery space and one of the fanciest restaurants at a New York museum, in keeping with the “elevated dining” part of the mandate.

Hip Hop Hooray

Fotografiska Hip Hop Exhibition, portrait of Biggie Smalls The main show at Fotografiska when I visited celebrated the photography of hip hop, which is turning 50 years old this year. (Exact birthdate: August 11, 1973.) The show was organized into five zones: an origins section, three geographic sections (East Coast, West Coast, and Southern, naturally), and a “hip hop today” closer. While breezy, hagiographic wall text introduced each section, there wasn’t a lot beyond that, and I really wanted more exposition.

Each photo did have a label identifying the photographer, the subject and date. Sometimes — too rarely — those labels also said something about the context of a photo, the when and why it was taken, which was a treat. Despite this, beyond identifying them by name the exhibition said nothing about the photographers of hip hop. It felt like a miss that a show in a museum of photography failed to focus on the artists behind the camera as well as those in front of it.

Fotografiska image of Jay Z — Chris Buck photo of Jay-Z from 1998, from a series that imagined what Jay-Z would be doing if he weren’t one of the most famous entertainers on the planet

There’s a great Vice article that interviewed three of the photographers featured in this exhibition about how they created specific images, including Christian Witkin on the one of Missy Elliott. It’s a big failing to me that those stories weren’t told as part of the show.

Even the title of the exhibition: “Hip Hop: Conscious/Unconscious” promised something that Fotografiska didn’t deliver. I’d love to have learned more about the process of imagemaking; how much of each of these pictures were “unconscious” capturing of moments versus consciously constructed images. I left feeling I’d seen a bunch of fantastic photos. And that was it.

Second best thing I saw or learned at Fotografiska: Madonna and the Beastie Boys played Radio City Music Hall on June 6, 1985, almost exactly 38 years (and a handful of days) before I wrote this. I have no further comment on that, except: cool photo (by John Cheuse).

Beastie Boys publicity photo outside Radio City Music Hall

Sound and Fury

The second show at Fotografiska also disappointed. Titled “Listen Until You Hear,” I was intrigued by the cognitive dissonance of a photography show attempting to address to an aural phenomenon. However, that’s not what this was. Although all six contemporary artists in the exhibition included photography as part of their practices, much of the show featured videos and sculpture, which feels like cheating. It tried to coin”visual listening” but I’m unconvinced that’s a thing.

I can imagine a great museum show about hearing and listening. The Rubin Museum pulled one off a few years ago. But this wasn’t it.

Should You Visit Fotografiska?

It’s hard to recommend Fotografiska as a museum. It’s very sceney and very cool. It has a distinct downtown vibe. And a museum of photography that’s so dark you can’t take good pictures there has an irony that I admire.

Fotografiska lobby and gift shop

However, both of the exhibitions I saw there felt like they were just for fun. And, particularly given the price of admission, that’s not enough to justify a visit.

If you like photography, there are several better museums in New York City. The International Center of Photography and the Aperture Foundation (currently closed because it’s moving) are both better, as well as much cheaper. The delightful Alice Austen House in Staten Island is also great if you like early street photography.

For Reference:

Former Address	281 Park Avenue South, Manhattan – PERMANENTLY CLOSED
Website	https://www.fotografiska.com/
Cost	General Admission: $30
Other Relevant Links	Verōnika, Fotografiska’s fancy restaurant Bootleg recording of that 1985 Madonna concert at Radio City Music Hall (YouTube) The birthplace (and birthdate of hip hop

June 2, 2023June 19, 2024

Center for Italian Modern Art

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	83 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Many years ago I saw Punt e Mes listed on a menu at a fancy cocktail bar described along the lines of “If you know, you know.” Punt e Mes is an excellent Italian vermouth. Its name is dialect for punto e mezzo, a point and a half— meaning one part bitter, half a part sweet. This poster elegantly depicts the concept. If you didn’t know before, now you do.

UPDATE: JUNE 19, 2024

I’m super bummed to report that the Center for Italian Modern Art is closing as of June 22, 2024. I only made it to the one exhibit there, so I guess it’s in part my fault for not knowing about it sooner or visiting more often once I did know about it. Keeping my review here for posterity’s sake.

Knowledge Gap

How did I not know about the Center for Italian Modern Art? I love Italy and I love art. I am reasonably fond of modernity. And centers are generally okay with me, too. This is one of those places that has been quietly doing cool things just a bit under my radar. In fact, I only know about it because I received a Poster House email announcing a tour of the current exhibit.

Center for Italian Modern Art, exterior

The Center for Italian Modern Art (inevitably, “CIMA,” but at least it’s pronounced “chee-ma”) occupies a light-filled fourth floor SoHo loft space. I expect it is a coincidence that it’s just around the corner from the last vestiges of Manhattan’s Little Italy, which has been eroding steadily since well before I moved to New York City. Still, it’s an interesting confluence of things Italian.

Center for Italian Modern Art, interior with fireplace

CIMA’s exhibition space is compact, consisting mainly of a gallery area that boasts lovely wood floors, an appropriately sleek and modern ornamental fireplace Center for Italian Modern Art's very modern kitchen , and huge windows. A hallway widens into a smaller rear gallery, passing a beautiful modern kitchen with a plethora of Pantone espresso cups. Offices and a coat room are tucked behind discreet doors.

Although limited in square footage, it’s comfortable, with chairs and couches and that very nice kitchen lending a homey touch.

Posters Galore

Center for Italian Modern Art, interior The exhibition when I visited the Center for Italian Modern Art focused on posters made between the 1920s and the 1950s. It examined the interplay between the worlds of high art and commercial advertising, starting with the Italian futurists and cubists. It concluded with two pieces by Mimmo Rotella, who was something of an Italian anti-Warhol, taking actual posters and folding, spindling, and mutilating them into artworks that say things about capitalism and consumerism. Not generally positive things.

Arranged chronologically, the exhibition touched on tremendous changes in advertising from the pre-war period, the rise of Italian Fascism, and through to postwar reconstruction.

Although there was little in the way of wall texts, CIMA is part of the growing network of organizations that leverage the Bloomberg Connects app, and so offered descriptions of key pieces via mobile. There was also a catalog for sale.

I want to go on about the variety of techniques Italian midcentury poster designers used (some cool photomontages here). I could also reflect on the changing dynamics between corporate brand identities and creative artistic impulses But mostly I want to rave about how awesome these posters were. Not to fixate on alcohol, but an early, cubist-inflected Campari advertisement definitely caught my eye.

Campari poster at the Center for Italian Modern Art

Lucio Fontana for Lloyd Triestino: Express service for the whole world The show also included a poster by Lucio Fontana, who is far better known as an artist than a graphic designer. His 1935 poster for Lloyd Triestino ship lines sleekly conveys speed and modernity. And it also hints at the linear slashes in canvas that would later make him famous. (Apologies for the inadvertent selfie in my photo.)

I could go on… I haven’t even mentioned Olivetti yet, and that’s a shame. Only an Italian company could make a typewriter into a fashion accessory.

Andare o non andare?

The Center for Italian Modern Art puts on two shows a year. Its hours are limited and moreover it requires an appointment, so no just dropping in spontaneously in the midst of a SoHo shopping spree. Its smallish space means anything CIMA does will be focused and fairly limited in scope.

Center for Italian Modern Art, interior That said, I was extremely impressed with the curation of the poster show — not to mention the beauty of the pieces they selected. Flipping through CIMA’s past catalogs left me vexed that I missed this place on my initial list of New York museums. On the brighter side, I’m happy that I know about it now. I will keep an eye on CIMA and I’m looking forward to seeing what it puts on next.

Anyone who likes cose italiane, or modern art, should look out for this place as well.

For Reference:

Address	421 Broome Street, 4th Floor, Manhattan
Website	https://www.italianmodernart.org/
Cost	General Admission: $10; $15 for a tour. All visits by appointment only
Other Relevant Links	Punt e Mes Campari

July 31, 2022July 31, 2022

American Academy of Arts and Letters

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	37 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	This 2015 tapestry by Michael Smith, titled “Excuse Me I am looking for the Fountain of Youth!” delighted me. Who makes tapestries? But this one was full of wonderful narrative details including skinny dipping bunnies, errant knights, and a TSA metal detector.

A Hall of Fame for Great Artists

Imagine the 250 greatest living creators of art and literature had a club, and you could only join it if one of them nominated you. Once you’re in, you’re in for life, and you and the other 249 greatest creators would get together and, I don’t even know what. Hob-nob, soiree, cotillion, give prizes to one another and possibly to other artists who aren’t quite 250-worthy, but hey, you keep trying there.

That’s the American Academy of Arts and Letters, founded in 1898. Except that in 2020 it graciously upped its ranks (or, from another point of view, lowered its standards) to 300.

It somewhat reminds me of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, except the Academy’s 250 (or 300) don’t have bronze busts. They do, however, have a neat clubhouse up in Harlem, part of the Audubon Terrace complex that also houses the Hispanic Society.

A Space on Audubon Terrace

Mere mortals mostly don’t get to visit the Academy. However, periodically, the place does open up for special exhibitions. I have always managed to miss them, right up until this year, when I finally made a visit.

The Academy’s gallery spaces are lovely, in a slightly-gone-to-seed way. They comprise two mirror-image Beaux-Arts pavilions facing one another across the brick plaza of the Terrace.

Trinity Church Cemetery — A view to die for

Their interiors range from darkened rooms for video installations to spaces bright with skylights or windows (overlooking the atmospheric Trinity Cemetery and Mausoleum, no less).

I tend to think contemporary art works best in older spaces. The contrast of old and new works better for me than, say, an austere, whitewashed concrete box. So the slightly shabby pavilions held great appeal. Moreover, I appreciated how thoughtfully the curators used the variety of spaces at their disposal.

American Academy of Arts and Letters

Invitational Only

I saw the Academy’s 2022 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, a sort of mini-Whitney-biennial of contemporary artists that the Academy’s members like. Future member recruitment?

American Academy — Carl D’Alvia, Loveseat, 2021

The description said that although there was no intentional theme, nonetheless, “[i]n many cases, the finished works destabilize, even disregard, old disciplinary questions rooted in hierarchy—is it a painting or a sculpture; art or craft? Instead, they opt for plenitude, for and, and, and. ” Indeed, the show included nearly three dozen artists working in eclectic materials: ceramics and glass, sculpture and video, the aforementioned tapestry, and even upholstery (see Loveseat).

These kinds of exhibits are always hit-or-miss, and so I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the show was a hit for me. It helped that most pieces in this show were lighthearted, clever, and often quite beautiful. For example, I loved Judy Fox’s slightly creepy, biomorphic, technicolor terra cotta pieces that looked like something out of a Jeff VanderMeer book.

Should You Visit the American Academy of Arts and Letters?

The Academy’s raison d’être is unfashionable these days. Elitism and exclusivity aren’t really a good look. However, I think elitism, after a fashion, is due for a comeback, and so I am very happy that the Academy still exists, and seems to be going strong.

Th American Academy Bronze Doors e entrance to one of the two Academy pavilions features a pair of handsome, old-school bronze doors, with naked cherubim and the personifications of Inspiration (girl) and Drama (guy), along with the sentiment, “By the gates of art we enter the temple of happiness.” However, the pediment of the same building bears a different perspective: “All passes, art alone untiring stays to us.”

While art isn’t always (and shouldn’t always be) about making people happy, positioning museums as temples of untiring happiness is no bad thing, especially in an era when happiness feels in especially short supply.

The Academy boasts great old spaces for viewing new art, and Audubon Terrace is an unexpected architectural gem. I’d definitely recommend visiting the next time the Academy opens its doors.

For Reference:

Address	633 West 155th Street, Manhattan
Website	https://artsandletters.org
Cost	General Admission: Free
Other Relevant Links	Trinity Cemetery and Mausoleum

May 14, 2022June 11, 2023

Hispanic Society of America

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	33 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	It’s a predictable choice but Hispanic Society’s Goya, “The Duchess of Alba,” from 1797, is a fantastic portrait. I especially love that Goya inscribed his signature on the sandy shore where she’s standing. The Duchess unsubtly points a bejeweled finger toward his name. The Duchess gives Goya the finger

Note: This is my original review of the Hispanic Society, published on May 14, 2022. The museum has re-opened more since then, and I’m happy to have updated the review here.

Iberian Dreams…

The Hispanic Society is located in a splendid Beaux-Arts building in Harlem, part of the Audubon Terrace campus. It’s an interesting quirk of fate that Spanish is much more likely to be spoken in the museum’s neighborhood today than when it opened there a century ago. The beautiful old building is a blessing and a curse: the museum closed for a massive renovation shortly before I started my museum project back in 2017, and remained closed right up until 2022.

Today, happily, it is in the first stages of reopening its doors. When I visited back in March, I saw a “best-of” selection of the museum’s collection, curated to demonstrate how its mission has evolved and expanded.

Nuestra casa es su casa

The exhibit on view when I visited was titled Nuestra casa, and split a small basement space into two sections. The first half focused on Archer Huntington’s dream for the museum, travels in Spain, and the foundations of the collection. The second half was titled “A collection without borders” and focused on the museum’s mission since the 1990s, when it started to greatly increase its holdings from Latin America.

The Hispanic Society argues that this is justified because of the huge cultural influences back and forth between Iberia and its colonial (or former colonial) holdings – the Spanish and Portuguese speaking worlds. And of course it wants to stay relevant in a cultural landscape much-changed since Huntington’s time.

I’m not convinced the exhibit really supported the “one big world of influences” argument. It was easy to see Spain and Portugal influencing art in their overseas territories; however, cultural influences in the other direction were much less clear. I think that’s a fault of the bifurcated curation; it didn’t let the Society’s classic collection and its more recent acquisitions really talk to one another.

The space was a let-down as well: a small, windowless room, interrupted by a row of six large columns, with walls painted in shades of ochre that play off the collection’s Goya.

Hispanic Society Interior

That said, the Hispanic Society’s greatest hits are indeed quite great, including a dynamite Velázquez and the aforementioned showstopping Goya portrait, along with El Greco, Zurbarán, and even a dark and murky Sargent. I had a less strong reaction to the art from the New World, though some small devotional sculptures from Equador, depicting what awaits after death, were almost Tibetan in their macabre exuberance.

Manuel Chili, “The Four Fates of Man,” Ecuador, ca 1775

Should You Visit the Hispanic Society Museum?

I’m excited that the Hispanic Society seems to be (slowly) returning to life as a museum. Its important collection and beautiful building are valuable restorations to the cultural fabric of the city.

However, the tiny current space doesn’t merit a trip. Having seen photos of what the building’s interiors look like I’m confident that will change when more of the place opens back up. I just hope it won’t be another five years before that happens.

Hispanic Society Interior View

The Hispanic Society is worth a quick stop if you happen to be in that part of Harlem. It might make a good combination with the splendid Morris-Jumel Mansion, both historic buildings. It is also close to the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, and while kids may not enjoy the Hispanic Society, at least the small size means they won’t get too impatient.

On a nice day it would be pleasant to just hang out in the piazza of Audubon Terrace and contemplate Don Quixote (yay), the conquistadors (boo), and El Cid (yay? boo? I don’t know…), all of whom are immortalized there. The Society once shared the terrace with the aforementioned American Indian Museum, as well as the American Numismatic Society. A mini Lincoln Center of museums and cultural institutions, now scattered across the City. The American Academy of Arts and Letters is still there, and occasionally opens for exhibitions.

Finally, those with an interest in modern or contemporary Hispanic art should also consider El Museo del Barrio, which didn’t impress me much but for the moment has far more to see than the Hispanic Society.

For Reference:

Address	613 W 155th Street, Manhattan
Website	hispanicsociety.org
Cost	General Admission: Free

May 26, 2021May 26, 2021

International Center of Photography

NOTE: This is my original review of ICP in its old space on The Bowery. Here are my thoughts on their new home on Essex Street.

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	71 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	The lobby boasts a large interactive screen that enables visitors to browse through the ICP’s digital image collection, sorted by timeline or via a large number of tags/keywords. It’s fun to see what comes up, and how images connect across times and places.

The International Center of Photography is one of two photo-specialist institutions in New York (the other being the Aperture Foundation). It has a venerable history, founded in 1974 by the photographer Cornell Capa, the brother of even greater photographer Robert Capa. It’s currently located on the Bowery, very close to the New Museum.

In addition to its museum space, the Center offers classes, a full-time school of photography, and events.

Ironically, the ICP does not allow photography inside its galleries. I’m not certain whether that policy is general or just for the current show. Regardless, I have a few shots of the lobby area and cafe, but that’s it.

The ICP Galleries

International Center of Photography features two moderately sized gallery spaces, as well as a small video screening area. Visitors begin in a bland rectangular space on the ground floor, then go downstairs to a similar space directly below. I don’t have a lot to say about them — they are windowless and fairly generic, painted white when I visited. Continue reading “International Center of Photography”

April 18, 2021June 22, 2025

The Frick Madison

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	210 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Bellini’s wonderful St. Francis in the Desert now has a room to itself, angled to one of the Breuer’s weird, skewed windows such that the light hits it exactly the way the light in the painting works. It’s like Bellini knew back in the 1470s that someday this room would exist, or like Breuer knew someday this painting would be in this spot. It gave me chills. Also, St. Francis in the Desert has one of the best oblivious donkeys in all of art.

CLOSED. As of March 2025, The Frick Collection is back in its home on Fifth Avenue. I’ll actually miss the Madison years a bit, but I’m thrilled that the art is back in its old/new home. Review of the New Frick coming very soon. I hope. (June 2025)

Have you ever had a dear old friend, tell you that they planned to change up their entire look? Style, hair, clothes, the way they present themselves…the whole shebang. Have you ever worried that, even though you know they’ll be the same person underneath the superficial changes, you might like them… less? Maybe tried to talk them out of it? “You’re awesome just as you are! Don’t go changing!”

This has never happened to me with a person, but it’s very much how I reacted when the Frick Collection announced that while Stately Frick Manor is closed for a major renovation and expansion, Mr. Frick’s art would be on view in Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist building, originally home to the Whitney and lately venue for the Met’s experimental, defunct Met Breuer effort.

There’s no overstating the magnitude of the change, the cognitive shock of Henry Clay Frick’s lovely, genteel, incredibly tasteful collection of masterpieces recontextualized out of the home that’s been its home for over a century, and re-installed in one of the least friendly buildings in New York City.

I feel like I should hate it. To be brutal(ist)ly honest, I wanted to hate it.

I loved it.

Possibly this is because it was my first art museum visit in 4 months. Maybe I was just starved for art…maybe you could’ve showed me anything and I would’ve gone into raptures. But I don’t think so.

Space: The Final Frontier

The clearest benefit of the move to the Breuer building is a ton of square footage to play with. I wonder if the Frick curators toyed with the idea of keeping everything more or less “where it was” — recreating the mansion’s rooms in the Breuer space. Like what they did with the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. That would have been a terrible idea. Probably.

Instead, for the first time ever, the Frick collection is arranged chronologically and thematically. That sort of pedagogy is out of fashion in museums and seems very retro, but it makes tons of sense, and it feels new, because we’ve never been able to see this art this way before.

For example, the Vermeers are in one place, creating arguably the best single roomful of art in New York City (prove me wrong!). Holbein’s Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More now glare eye to eye, no fireplace or stern St. Jerome separating them. I never realized how many Van Dycks the Frick Collection had til I saw them all in one place.

The extra space also creates more breathing room between pieces. As a result, there’s less sensory overload, and so more ability to focus. Works that were second-tier Frick treasures get attention, and the Frick’s best pieces get showcased in ways the mansion doesn’t allow.

What’s more, things that were perviously part of the scenery — the porcelains, the bronzes, the carpets — now get spotlights, literally, thrown on them. The porcelain room is a particular delight, and its very contemporary design made me stop and pay attention to those pieces in a way I never have before.

The other remarkable change is you can get closer to some pieces now, and the heights and sight lines are different. It’s a literal shift of perspective. To wit, I’ve never been a fan of the froufrou Fragonard room with its insipid cherubs. It’s still definitely not my fave, but seeing its panels anew on Madison, rearranged, I realized that at least some of those cherubs are violent. And therefore a little edgy.

What’s Stayed The Same

In terms of things that haven’t changed, the Frick has retained its no-photos policy. While I deeply respect that, this is an utterly photogenic, super-Instagrammable experience. Visitors will be tempted!

Also, The Frick’s retained its no-wall-text philosophy. You can pick up a free guide, or download a reasonably good Bloomberg-sponsored app, but if you want, it can be just you and the art. I admire that.

A Whole New World

The best art makes you see the world in a new way, and the best museums make you see art in a new way. However, for a place like the Frick, there are few opportunities (outside of their jewel-box special exhibitions) to let people see the collection anew. That’s okay when you’re as perfect as the Frick. But perfection breeds inertia, and a resistance to innovate. It takes some doing to overcome that.

I’m surprised at how pithy my original, 2017 Frick review is. But it says what it needed to say: Everyone needs to go to the Frick. And I wish it would never change.

The Frick Madison forces me to rethink part of that conclusion. Everyone definitely needs to go to the Frick Madison, most especially people who know and love the original. And I stand happily corrected about the “never change” part. I can’t wait to go back.

For Reference:

Former Address	945 Madison Avenue, Manhattan – CLOSED PERMANENTLY
Website	https://www.frick.org/
Cost	General Admission: $22. Advance tickets required
Other Relevant Links	Details on the Frick building project are here.