THE NEW YEAR ROARS IN WITH CULTURAL PURSUITS (c) By Polly Guerin

It’s time to start the New Year, time to try something new, to broaden the mind, to go somewhere you’ve never gone before. It’s time to indulge your curiosity to open new doors to creativity and it’s time to go antiquing and museum hopping. Here’s the scoop!!!

THE WINTER ANTIQUES SHOW

Own a part of history!! The Winter Antiques Show celebrates its 57th year as America’s most distinguished antiques show, featuring exceptional objects exhibited by 75 specialists in American, English, European and Asian fine and decorative arts from antiquity through the 1960’s, all vetted for authenticity. Over 50 works from Historic Charleston Foundations museum houses include highlights from the plantations Drayton Hall and Middleton Place. At the Park Avenue Armory, 67th St. & Park Ave. January 21-30. Daily Admission $20. www.winterantiqueshow.com for details.
MANNERISM and MODERNISM

The Kasper Collection of Drawings and Photographs will be on view at the Morgan Library & Museum thru May 1. Why go? The art collection assembled for its distinctive character and superb quality offers visitors a rare opportunity to see old masters, modern and contemporary works on paper and photography assembled by American Fashion designer Herbert Kasper—and is a testament to both Kasper’s personal taste and his desire to build a truly unique collection. Pictured: Hans Hoffman: An Affenpinscher, 1580, watercolor and gouache on vellum. Do indulge yourself and have the Three Martini Lunch in the dining room. The address: 225 Madison Ave., at 36th St., 212.685.0008 http://www.themorgan.org/.

RENAISSANCE MASTERPIECE

Take a time travel trip to view the new installation of the works of Filippino Lippi (1457-1504) one of the greatest artists of 15th-century Florence. To celebrate the restoration, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is mounting Lippi’s Madonna and Child. A test cleaning revealed that beneath a thick, discolored varnish there was a beautifully preserved, richly colored painting. So breathtaking is the Old master that the pictures that along a number of objects from the Museum’s permanent collection, that it appears like a new acquisition. www.metmuseum.org. 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.

ANDY WARHOL: MOTION PICTURES

Focuses on the artist’s lifelong fascination with the cult of celebrity, comprising a visual almanac of the 1960’s downtown scene. Included in the exhibition are such Warhol “Superstars” as Edie Sedgwick, Baby Jane Holzer, poet Allen Ginsberg, author Susan Sontag, among others. The artist’s cinematic portraits and non-narrative, silent, and black-and-white films include Sleep, Eat, Blow Job and Kiss projected on the gallery walls at large scale, some measuring seven feet high and nearly nine feet wide. At MOMA, 11 W. 53rd St., through March 21. www.moma.org.
Ta Ta darlings!!! You can’t blame a gal for wanting to improve her mind. Kasper’s collection really fascinates…so I’ll see you there and everywhere else. Fan Mail: pollytalk@verizon.net. To see Polly Blogs go to my website www.pollytalk.com and click on the link to Blogs in the right hand column.