TRANSFORMATIONS AND MODERNISM IN THE BIG APPLE(c) By Polly Guerin

Youth & Beauty, Old Art in New Places and Modernization capture the spirit of culture and intellect in the Big Apple this week. It’s the Best in New York, my friends, the very best in new galleries and musems. Here’s the scoop!!!
YOUTH and BEAUTY: ART OF THE AMERICAN TWENTIES at the Brooklyn Museum presents the first wide-ranging exploration of American Art from the decade called Art Deco marked by the aftermath of World War I through the onset of the Great Depression followed by World War II. American life was dramatically transformed in those years and American artists like Edward Hopper, Charles Demuth, Romaine Brooks and Paul Camus responded to this dizzying modern world with works that embraced a new brand of idealism. Image left: The Birth of Venus (1925) by Joseph Stella, American, born Italy. Influenced by industrialization, mechanization and materialism they produced figurative art that melded uninhibited body-consciousness with classical ideals. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/. At 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York. Through January 29, 2012.
LUMINOUS MODERNISM: Scandinavian Art Comes to America, 1912/2012 features 47 works by some of the foremost Nordic artists working at the turn of the 20th century with special film screenings. World renowned director Ingmar Bergman fell in love with Faro, the landscape which became the hallmark of many of his films. Two documentaries portray a complex, understated and loving portrait of his tiny island on Wed., Nov. 2 at 6pm and Fri., Nov. 4, 6:30pm. $10 ($7 ASF Members). On Wed., Nov. 9, 6pm view a biographical drama about the famous painter, Edvard Munch, from his childhood to his adult life, with in-depth studies of the influence of persons and surroundings that made his paintings. $10. At Scandinavia House, 58 Park Ave. @ 38th St. www.amscan.org.
MODERNIZING THE NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM AND SCHOOL emerges with less stuffy museum spaces, airier with new track lighting and more picture-friendly. Several temporary exhibition through December 31 include salon-style portraits from the early 19th century in “The Artist Revealed: A Panorama of Great Artist Portraits”; 100 American paintings from the permanent collection and the later-career retrospective “Will Barnet at 100. At the entrance way the gift shop has been removed allowing visitors to sweep right into the galleries. At 91st Street & Fifth Avenue. www.nammuseum.org.
NEW GALLERIES FOR THE ART OF THE ARAB LANDS, TURKEY, IRAN, CENTRAL ASIA AND LATER SOUTH ASIA reveal a renovated and expanded suite of 15 galleries to house the permanent collection of the Department of Islamic Art which had been removed during a eight-year construction project. The galleries showcase some 1,200 works spanning more than a thousand years including breathtaking carpets, illustrated manuscripts (bring a magnifying glass), textiles, jewels and the sumptuously ornamented Damascus Room, built in A.H.1119/1707A.D. , one of the finest examples of Syrian Ottoman reception rooms from the house of an important and affluent family. Opens Nov. 1st. www.metmuseum.org.
Ta Ta darlings!!! Youth and Beauty, Art of the American Twenties was breathtakingly enchanting. Don’t miss it! Fan mail welcome at pollytalk@verizon.net. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and click in the right-hand column to access the Blog of your interest including http://www.amazingartdecodivas.blogspot.com.

NEW YORK FOCUS IN THE EYE OF THE CAMERA(c) By Polly Guerin

New Yorkers’ are forever in the eye of the camera! Captured in silver prints for nostalgic viewing New York’s Fashionistas appear in photographed treasures never to be forgotten, while 100 dresses get their due recognition and it's pumpkin time. Here’s the scoop!!!
INCOMPARABLE WOMEN OF STYLE: Selections from the Rose Hartman Photography Archives, 1977-2011 record the iconic moments of fashion, style, and culture for more than 30 years, capturing New York nightlife, fashion shows, parties, clubs and openings. From Studio 54 to the Mudd Club to Chelsea art galleries, Hartman’s photographs yield a treasure trove of material that portrays incomparable women of high fashion, street style, and New York City society through the eye of a social documentarian. Image: Grace Jones at her CD release party at Le Bar Bat, 1993. Rare vintage silver prints include a group of never-before-seen images of NYC’s underground style icons who drove high fashion from the city’s club scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s into the mainstream. On view at FIT’s Gladys Marcus Library, Nov. 4-Jan.20, 2012. FREE Enter at 27th St. and Seventh Av. Show valid picture ID and receive a same-day pass to the Library on the 5th floor.
TREASURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY FROM ALFRED STIEGLITZ’S PERSONAL COLLECTION at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Stieglitz was not only a master photographer, but a powerful taste master and tireless advocate for photography as a fine art. Among the most notable portraits are Alvin Landon Coburn’s image of the Nobel laureate author George Bernard Shaw lost in thought, the glamorous portrait of the fashionable socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig and of course Stieglitz’s wife Georgia O’Keeffe. The photo exhibit complements the Museum’s show Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O’Keeffe. Through February 26, 2012.
HAL RUBENSTEIN’S “100 UNFORGETTABLE DRESSES,” This HarperCollins imprint, is a joy read into iconic dresses that graced the forms of Rita Hayworth in “Gilda,” Julia Roberts in that infamous red dress in Pretty Woman, Joan Crawford in Adrian, Audrey Hepburn’s Sabrina, and political women and wedding dresses--all with a telltale story behind the wearer and the creation. The list goes on and Rubenstein, the former fashion director of Bloomingdales, includes Bob Mackie’s greatest parody dress of all time, the Starlett O’Hara curtain-rod gown for Carol Burnett. Who can forget Elizabeth Taylor’s strapless fluff of a dress which became every girl’s prom dress for the next 20 years or Ginger Rogers dancing “Cheek to Cheek” with Fred Astaire shedding feathers all the way. Picture perfect it’s a tour down fashion’s memory lane. On Amazon and major bookstores.
THE HAUNTED PUMPKIN GARDEN at The New York Botanical Garden fun for grownups trill the kid in you with spooky fun featuring pumpkin sculptures of spooky scarecrows, frightening spiders, sneaky snakes in the Adventure Garden with bubbling artisan beers and insect delicacies. The Ukaladies will be on hand performing cowboy love songs, Ruth Wallis medleys, favorites from the ‘30s and ‘40s, and a host of original hits. Friday, October 28, 7-9 p.m. At. 2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx. www.nybg.com.
Ta Ta darlings!!! Celebrating Halloween I’m off to the Haunted Pumpkin Garden and spending the week devouring the 100 Unforgettable Dresses book. Fan mail welcome at pollytalk@verizon.net. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and click in the right-hand column for the Blog of your interest, such as, http://www.amazingartdecowomen.blogspot.com.

FASHIONISTA'S REVEL IN MUSEUM OPENINGS (c) By Polly Guerin

What has fashion got to do with New York? Well for one thing it fuels employment, it pumps up the economy with amazing creativity and it earns New York City the title “The Fashion Capital of the World.” It’s the Best of New York, my friends, the very best inviting the fashion cognoscenti and the tourists more reasons to visit its museums. Here’s the scoop!!!
YOUTH AND BEAUTY: ART of the AMERICAN TWENTIES: Put on your cloche hat and shimmy dress and head for the Brooklyn Museum where the first wide-ranging exploration of American Art from the decade between the end of World War I and the onset of the Great Depression showcases a major exhibition of 138 paintings, sculptures, and photographs by 67 of the greatest artists of their time. Among the imagea Gloria Swanson, circa 1925, by American photographer, Nickolas Muray. Exhibit on view from October 28 through January 29, 2012, then it moves onto Dallas and Cleveland. At 200 Eastern Parkway www.brooklynmuseum.org.
TWO -DAY SYMPOSIUM ON FASHION ICONS AND INSIDERS: Fantastic, real, past and present from vampire dandies to Marie Antoinette to Daphne Guinness get in with the fashion intelligentsia where fashion icons, designers, authors, curators, and scholars cover such topics as: Daphne Guinness, one of today’s most original fashion icons, in conversation with Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator, Museum at FIT. Dr. Caroline Weber talks about What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, Thelma Golden, director, Studio Museum in Harlem on Black Fashion Icons and Dr. Peter McNeil, professor Design History, University of Technology, Sydney on Gay Fashion Icons. Thursday Nov. 3 and Friday Nov.4, 9:30 am-5:00 pm. At the Fashion Institute of Technology, 27th St. between 7th and 8th Ave. Haft Auditorium. Cost $100 both days. Registration is required. The Museum at FIT 227 W. 27th St., Room E301, NY, NY 10001-5992.
LE PARFUM: THE POWER OF FRAGRANCE Meet some of today’s leading perfumers, smell a selection of the world’s iconic fragrances, and hear the stories behind their creation. Could your fragrance be next? The Scent of History, Nov. 3 at 7pm features osmocurator Christophe Laudamiel who takes you on an olfactory journey with samples provided by the Osmotheque in Versailles. Members $35, non Members $45. The Power of Fragrance on Nov. 10 covers the influence of fragrance on identity, memory, and desire. $20 and $25. Speed Smelling on Nov 16th presents the world’s renowned perfumers and meet the noses behind Ralph Lauren’s Paulo and Estee Lauder’s Pure White Linen. $35 and $45. Alliance Francaise, Le Skyroom, 22 East 60th St. 8th Floor. http://www.fiaf.org/. Buy tickets at 800 982 2787.
TEXTILE THERAPY AND HAPPY COLORS: The Marimenkko flagship store in the Toy Building, 200 Fifth Avenue at 23rd St. is an explosion of brightly colored, signature upbeat prints for which the 60-year-old Finnish company is so famous. Armi Ratia and her husband, Viljo have partnered with textiles to teapots. Fans of Marimenkko’s signature poppy print, Unikko or Astrid Sylwan’s Vattenblank will delight in the fact that there’s even an on-site seamstress to whip up prints to your specifications say pillow covers, perhaps an apron, maybe a dress. Us.marimenkko.com.
ELSA AND MIUCCIA MEET AT THE MET: Remember you heard about this even first from PollyTalk. Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada will be the focus of the Spring 2012 Costume Institute Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and focus on how they broke with fashion convention and subverted notions of taste and glamour in the art world. Mark your calendar: Exhibition dates May 10-August 19, 2012.
Ta Ta darlings!!! I’m off to get some textile therapy and color my life with the colors of Marimenkko. Fan mail welcome: pollytalk@verizon.net. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and click in the right hand column for direct access to Blogs like www.amazingartdecowomen.blogspot.com.

DESIGN AND ANCIENT TREASURES DOMINATE BIG APPLE VENUES (c) By Polly Guerin

Grand openings, Islamic Art, Master Painters of India, a rich cultural heritage offers a wide range of ancient treasures in museum collections and design options. It’s the Best of New York my friends, the very best inviting the masses and intelligentsia to enlarge their experience. Here’s the scoop!!!
Pictured: Praca Cantao Favela Painting Project
DESIGN WITH THE OTHER 90% CITIES Examines the complex issues arising from unprecedented urban growth, primarily in the informal settlements and slums of the Global South. The exhibition explores the design solutions to the challenges created by rapid urban growth in informal settlements, commonly referred to as slums. Case in point, I recently returned from Rio de Janiero and had my first experience with the Favelas like the Praca Cantao Favela Painting project in Santa Marta, Rio, where artists engaged community members to paint the building exteriors in their neighborhood, calling international media attention to their need for improvement. On view off-site during Cooper-Hewitt’s renovation at the United Nations Visitors Center, main gallery, First Ave. at 46th St. October 15-January 9, 2012.
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM of ART’S GRAND OPENING of a suite of 15 New Galleries for the Art of the Arab lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia opens on November 1, a not to be missed opportunity to view ancient treasures in greatly enlarged and completely renovated galleries. house “The opening of these extraordinary new galleries underscores our mission as an encyclopedic museum and proves a unique opportunity to convey the grandeur and complexity of Islamic art and culture at a pivotal moment in world history,” stated Thomas P. Campbell, director. Highlights include the sumptuous ornamented Damascus Room, built in 1707, one of the finest examples of Syrian homes of the wealthy during the Ottoman period and rich holdings of the Islamic and Asian departments. www.metmuseum.org At 1000 Fifth Avenue.
TREASURES OF ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPT PAINTING For the first time the Morgan Library & Museum has gathered its spectacular collection of Islamic manuscripts together in a single exhibition with important religious and secular works, including a rare, illustrated translation of the life of Rumi, Our’ans and Qur’anic leaves, a thirteenth-century treatise on animals and their uses, individual miniatures, and an illustrated text on astrology, wonders of the world, demonology, and divination. Not to be missed. Bring a magnifying glass to view the colorful and intricate miniature works of art. Opens Oct. 21-January 29, 2012. www.themorgan.org.
MASTER PAINTERS OF INDIA, 1100-1900 Gives credit where credit is due and pushes the trend for explicitly proclaiming that individuals with distinctive artistic voices shaped Indian painting. The show is divided into six chronological sections from Early Hundu-Sultantate paintings to the Golden Age of Mughal painting with exquisite variety of works with jewel-like decorations and rich colors. These miniature paintings deserve magnifying glass inspection which are provided by the musem. Metropolitan Museum of Art through January 8, 2012. www.metmuseum.org.
Ta Ta Darlings!!! It’s plain to see that ancient treasures deserve my scrutiny and with magnifying glass I venture forth to view these miniature works of art. Fan mail welcome: pollytalk@verizon.net. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and click in the right-hand column for the Blog of your interest like amazingartdecodivas, thefashionhistorian or poetryfromtheheart.

ARTISTIC VARIETY and CULTURAL VENUES (c) by Polly Guerin

The brilliant colors of fall are starting to bloom, Matisse , O’Keeffe and De Kooning come to town, while Mummy Tours and Nature Narrative offer reasons to explore the rich cultural heritage of New York City. It’s the Best of New York my friends, the very best diversions to date. Here’s the scoop!!!
WILLEM DE KOONING, an American icon and master painter, widely considered to be among the most important and prolific artists of the 20th century gets the royal treatment at MOMA where nearly 200 works in all mediums span the artist’s development over nearly seven decades. Occupying the entire sixth-floor gallery space on view are some of the artist’s most famous, landmark paintings including Pink Angels, his erotic signature “Women” paintings, his breakthrough black-and-white compositions and urban abstractions. Don’t miss de Kooning’s famous yet rarely seen theatrical backdrop, the 17-foot-square Labyrinth. Location: 11W. 53 St. Through January 9, 2012. www.moma.org.
STIEGLITZ and HIS ARTISTS move in at the Metropolitan Museum of Art October 13, 2011 with the first large-scale exhibition of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from Stieglitz’s private collection, including many works on paper that are rarely on view. Some 200 works by major European modernists include Picasso’s Woman Ironing, Brancusi’s Sleeping Muse, Kandinsky’s Improvisation 27 and Brancusi’s Sleeping Muse and Charles Demuth's "I saw the Figure 5 in Gold," pictured here. Works by American painters whose careers Stieglitz shepherded from the 1920s to 1946, Arthur Dove, John Marin and Georgia O’Keeffe who he felt epitomized the authentic American experience also featured. Through January 2, 2012. www.metmuseum.org.
FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE: Nature and Narrative, the Norway film series presents a historical perspective on the relevance of natural phenomena and landscape in Norway’s cinema. Expressing visual splendor Norway’s beautiful, other-worldly landscape, harsh climate and radiant skies focus in two films this week: The Bride of Glomdal on Oct. 5 and 7 and Tramp/Fant Oct. 12 and Oct. 14. At Scandinavia House, 59 Park Ave. www.scan.org.
LA PISCINE, Polly’s Pool Bar and Restaurant Pick of the Week, on top of the new Hotel Americano, 518 West 27th St., looks north and east over the glamorously gritty cityscape of industrial Chelsea and west towards the Hudson. In winter a big glass garage door will seal off the glass-roofed dining area, where fondue and hot sake will be served. For those hearty enough to plunge, the winterized pool will morph into a hot tub, with robes and slippers for indulger's. www.hotelamericano.org.
THE SECRET LIVES OF MUMMIES in celebration of Halloween, the Brooklyn Museum presents mummy-themed tours for the child of wonder in all of us who want to discover the secret behind “Why did the Ancient Egyptians mummify the deceased?” Guide Roy Capps explores the mysterious and practical objects associated with mummies, mummification, and their journey through ideas and history. Exploring the Book of the Dead” continues on Oct. 27 and Oct. 30th. 200 Eastern Parkway. www.brooklynmuseu.org.
Ta Ta darlings!!! I’m off to take the plunge at La Piscine in more ways than dining. Fan mail welcome: pollytalk@verizon.net. Polly’s Blogs can be accessed at www.pollytalk.com, just click in the right-hand column for a direct link like to my latest http://www.thefashionhistorianpollyguerin.blogspot.com.