SEPTEMBER OPENS A MYRIAD OF CULTURAL VENUES (c) By Polly Guerin

It’s the last rose of summer and the cultural calendar is brimming with venues to enlighten, entertain and engross every minute with museum, gallery and restaurant hopping. Only in New York, my friends, it’s the Best of New York. Here’s the Scoop!!!

DORIS DUKE’S SHANGRI LA Take a vicarious trip to Honolulu, Hawaii. The tobacco heiress, world adventurer and philanthropist was ahead of her time when it came to collecting Islamic treasures and the Museum of Arts and Design stages a remarkable tribute to the iconic collector. Amassing 3,500 objects spanning the Muslim world from Spain through the Middle East and into Asia she was a nonstop collector from the time she was just 23 to the time she died in 1993. Her acquisitions include objects dating from the early first millennium B. C. to the early 20th Century. One fascinating object the l8th century Indian rosewater sprinkler was once housed in her Honolulu estate, Shangri La. At MAD MUSEUM, 2 Columbus Circle, September 7 through January 6, 2013.
WE ARE HERE! Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship. This remarkable exhibition features the rich history and cultural traditions of the ancestors and the artists’ modern artistic approach to contemporary and modern life. The National Museum of the American Indian features five focus shows devoted to the artists who recently received contemporary art fellowships from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis. Alan Michelson works with moving elegies for the lost environs and traditions of dislocated Indians with channeling them in light boxes showing photographs of his great-grandfather’s farmland, models of log cabins and a video of the Hudson River shoreline. Bonnie Devine offers objects of sheer beauty that express the circumstances of her people. Downtown at 1 Bowling Green at Broadway. Through September 23rd, 2012. 212.514.3700.
THE BEARDEN PROJECT Day trip it up to Harlem and visit the Studio Museum where a year-long tribute to Romare Bearden features work by 100 contemporary artists, inspired by or made in response to Bearden’s genre including works resonating with the artist’s themes in mind such as Emma Amos, a contemporary of Bearden and a member of his collective, Spiral, as well as young emerging artists like Lorna Williams and Noah Davis. For the Bearden Project the Studio Museum sent each artist sheets of 22x30 inch paper and asked them to make collages. Bearden’s work is a kind of visual African-American history and this exhibit broadens Bearden’s legacy. At 144 W. 125th St., at Malcolm X Blvd. Tel: 212.864.4500. Image above by Emma Amos 708 yo man ray yo.
RED ROOSTER HARLEM, Polly’s restaurant pick of the week. Gospel Sunday at Red Rooster Harlem is a ‘must’ for Sunday, or go for lunch or dinner anytime you’re up that way in Harlem. Start off with a spicy Bloody Mary and you’ll be clapping and dancing in your seats at brunch on Sunday. The menu, courtesy of Swedish chef Marcus Samuelsson, is served from 11:30 to 3:30 pm, but the no reservation policy means you need to arrive at least a half hour in advance as it fills up early. Otherwise arrive on any weekday when there’s an impressive mix of artsy and professional types dishing the news and dining on the Yard Bird, fried chicken served on a bed of braised greens and mashed potatoes slithered with gravy and house-made hot sauce. At 310 Lenox Ave, between 125th and 126th Streets. 212.792.9001.
Ta Ta Darlings!!! PollyTalk is taking off for Harlem where its happenings are all the rage. Fan mail welcome www.pollytalk.com. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and in the left-hand column click on the Blog that interests you from fashion to poetry and visionary men.