Nowadays there’s a citywide contempt for new hi-rise/mixed-use/condo buildings, perhaps because so many of the existing ones remain half-occupied.  Nonetheless I’m thrilled about Frank Gehry’s new tower under construction at Beekman Place.  It won’t replace the still-startling absence of the Twin Towers, but it will bring a much-needed super-tall figure to the landscape south of Canal Street.

When seen from the Manhattan entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge the structure, clad in crenelated metal panels, is a singular, majestic presence.  And when seen from Brooklyn, beside an array of Wall Street towers, it’s the loveliest of them all.

The skyscraper has lost much of its allure, so much so that’s it’s easy to forget how odd super-tall buildings are, and how remarkable the landscape of midtown Manhattan really is.

An exhibit of vintage aerial photographs of New York City at the Keith de Lellis Gallery recaptures that glamor.  Some of the older shots feel blurry and cramped, as if the conventions of photography couldn’t yet keep up with the technology of construction.  All the shots have a gee-whiz quality.  There’s an eagle-eye view looking from midtown straight down to Central Park.  The way the dense, mountain-like fabric of high-rise buildings halts at the north edge of the park is truly stunning.

(Berenice Abbott, Nightview, New York, circa 1932.  Photogravure.)

Say what you will about the tacky/porno subject matter of John Currin’s work, he knows how to paint.  His new canvases at the Gagosian are rendered with impressive skill.  The soft, luminous surfaces have a sensuality that transcends the imagery.

We could have predicted a great deal of it: voluptuous maidens with cascading curls and cockeyed smiles, pictured singly and in groups. But there are a few paintings that break the mold, offering more complex mises-in-scenes.  In the richness and strangeness of their compositions they evoke Dutch paintings.  And Currin’s handling of the figure in some of the works is so assured that it seems almost classical.  The subject of the paintings might not matter at all.

(John Currin, Hot Pants, 2010.  Oil on canvas)

Not since the 1960’s, when Americans were lounging around in Verner Panton chairs and Marimekko dresses, has the voice of designers in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden been so prominent internationally.

An exhibit at Scandinavia House in New York, “Nordic Models + Common Ground: Art and Design Unfolded,” presents a small, intriguing selection of these artworks and design projects.

from Planet-mag.com