The next day was sunny and cool. We walked on the High Line, enjoying the landscaping that showed winter was approaching. We felt thrilled to be in NYC and knew we would be enjoying contemporary art, live music and delicious vegan food during the next twelve days.
There were some interesting artworks to see on the High Line, such as Firelei Báez's piece that depicts the colonial palace Sans-Souci in Haiti that became a headquarters for the Haitian Revolution.
Another thought-provoking piece we saw was Ruth Awan's Silent Agitator based on an Industrial Workers of the World illustration they used for organizing for the eight-hour work day and 40-hour work week.
The High Line is fun to walk on, because by getting up a few stories, you can catch glimpses of the streets beyond. Here, peeking out between two buildings was this colorful mural with Andy Warhol and Frida Kahlo. We climbed down to investigate.
We were rewarded with this view of Eduardo Kobra's mural Mt Rushmore from his 2018 Colors of Freedom series. He wrote,
“I made in total 18 murals around the city, and their goal is an urge for peace for all kinds of social justice, against racism, against violence. It was a period of 5 months, filled with challenges, but I leave with a feeling of accomplishment, having achieved something I have dreamed of, painting around New York, a city that is key to the history of street art. Thank you, NY.”
There was a line to take photographs of this scene, which on December 18th would become history.
We went to the David Zwirner Gallery to see the Yayoi Kusama Everyday I Pray for Love show. This is a photo of the largest gallery, with the My Eternal Soul painting series on the wall.
We were intrigued by the sculptures on the floor, which were described as,
"... a large, new floor-based constellation composed of almost a hundred different stainless-steel elements. Viewers navigate an all-encompassing environment of organic-looking, cloud-like forms whose reflections envelop its audience and reinforce an impression of perpetuity and infinity."
Upstairs we checked out Kusama's soft sculptures. Pete is next to Mother from the series I Will Love You With All My Heart. Mother's head was also made into a balloon for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On the walls of this gallery were a dozen pieces like this one entitled Souls of Women that Continue Forever.
We left the gallery to have lunch with our Zen Buddhist friends Roshi Enkyo and MyoGetsu (right) for lunch. We first met in China on a Tricycle tour with Roshi as the spiritual leader along with several of her students from the Village Zendo. It was great to reconnect with them, as it had been five years since our last visit to NYC when we stayed with MyoGetsu.
We all enjoyed the food at Blossom Restaurant, an NYC vegan institution. Kristina loved the vegan Benedict (made of tofu topped with a lemony hollandaise sauce).
MyoGetsu shared her seared trumpet mushrooms with us, which were outstanding.
After lunch we went back to the High Line with Roshi and walked to The Shed, a new cultural nonprofit that opened in April. The architect of this impressive building was Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
All three of us thoroughly enjoyed the Agnes Denes: Absolutes and Intermediates Retrospective at The Shed. This is The Debate: One Million B.C. - One Million A.D. with her statement,
“Look, these forms you see aren’t skeletons but you and I at a dinner party discussing the state of the world or the stock market. They are Hamlet and Socrates, and Descartes and da Vinci, children with imagination so eager to question, so desperate to communicate and to know the reason for this incredible journey … the repetition and absurdity of it all, and to be born just to die, and all the while, the debate goes on to find an answer for this aberration that we are: Homo Communicatus, Homo Literatus, Homo Desperatus.”
Denes has had a prolific career in NYC since the 1960's and is best known for Wheatfield – A Confrontation, a prescient environmental piece in which she planted, grew and harvested a two-acre wheat field in NYC as an act of protest against climate change and economic inequality. She is most often compared to Leonardo da Vinci. This is one of her Map Projections from 1975. Here the map of the world is distorted onto the shape of an egg. Others in the exhibit included a snail, a hot dog and a donut.
We learned she is always involved in every aspect of her art’s production, resulting in her learning techniques, scientific principles, philosophy, linguistics and even ecology, as was the case with Tree Mountain - A Living Time Capsule - 11,000 Trees, 11,000 People, 400 Years that was realized 1992-1996. Planted in Finland at the site of an abandoned gravel mine, each of the 11,000 trees bears the name of the volunteer who planted it, and will remain the property of that person through successive generations. As Denes writes,
"The trees can change ownership - people can leave their tree to their heirs or transfer it by other means, even be buried under it - but Tree Mountain itself can never be owned or sold, nor can the trees be moved from the forest. Ownership signifies custodianship.”
The pyramidal shape of the plantings was echoed in her more recent works like The Aging Pyramid from 2006.
Model for Probability Pyramid - Study for Crystal Pyramid created for this retrospective measures more than five meters tall and is made of 6,000 corn-based compostable 3-D-printed blocks. Denes described it,
"It is at this point that Crystal Pyramid joins its Egyptian counterparts in combining logic, science and poetry with engineering skill and architectural know-how to address itself to issues that are timeless. Compared with the usual density and opacity of buildings, this structure is transparent and elusive in its forever-changing effects - a comment on our ideas, on our destiny, and on a universal scheme we can never totally comprehend."
We were enamored of Agnes Denes' art and ordered her book from the retrospective.
We also saw this smaller sculpture vibrating and hovering; Model for Teardrop - Monument to Being Earthbound was created for the retrospective too. Denes writes,
“The sculpture consists of a circular base and a teardrop-shaped top, which levitates above the center of the base afloat on an elastic cushion of magnetic flux. The top is gently and mysteriously moved about by air currents held in place by superconductive elements. When lit, the teardrop resembles the flame of a candle.”
We spent so much time at the retrospective that it was dark when we left. It was interesting to see The Shed illuminated at night.
There's so much interesting live music in NYC. We felt fortunate to see trombonist Joe Fiedler and his trio perform at the I-Beam in Brooklyn.
We visited the 9/11 Memorial located at the World Trade Center site, and felt moved by the inverse fountain design that seems to drain into the center of the earth.
Within the Memorial grounds we saw this "Survivor Tree", a pear tree that survived the terrorist attack and was beautiful with its fall foliage. In the background is The Freedom Tower, designed by Daniel Libeskind.
Within the Memorial grounds we saw this "Survivor Tree", a pear tree that survived the terrorist attack and was beautiful with its fall foliage. In the background is The Freedom Tower, designed by Daniel Libeskind.
Nearby we visited the World Trade Center Transportation Hub and mall designed by Santiago Calatrava. The above ground structure is a retail center and is called The Oculus. It reminded us of a fish skeleton although we later read it was described as 'a kitsch stegosaurus'. The building has received a lot of criticism for putting design over function.
We had planned to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but Kristina caught a cold and the weather forecast was for high winds and cold temperatures. Instead we spent the day at an awesome Korean spa.
Then we cooked our favorite vegan Thanksgiving dishes (from top left, clockwise): wild rice pilaf, roasted Brussel sprouts, mushroom gravy and stewed kabocha squash.
Frequently we took the subway, finding it the easiest way to get around the City. Many of the subway stations have interesting tile artwork.
We were fortunate to see American artist Kehinde Wiley's Rumors of War in Times Square. In Wiley’s first public sculpture there is,
We had planned to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but Kristina caught a cold and the weather forecast was for high winds and cold temperatures. Instead we spent the day at an awesome Korean spa.
Then we cooked our favorite vegan Thanksgiving dishes (from top left, clockwise): wild rice pilaf, roasted Brussel sprouts, mushroom gravy and stewed kabocha squash.
Frequently we took the subway, finding it the easiest way to get around the City. Many of the subway stations have interesting tile artwork.
We were fortunate to see American artist Kehinde Wiley's Rumors of War in Times Square. In Wiley’s first public sculpture there is,
"a direct response to the Confederate memorials that populate the United States. Mounted proudly on its large stone pedestal, Wiley’s monumental bronze sculpture features an African-American man dressed in urban streetwear, sitting in a striking pose astride a massive horse… a powerful repositioning of young black men in our public consciousness that engages the national conversation around monuments and their role in telling incomplete narratives and perpetuating contemporary inequities."
It felt great to be back in NYC. We saw this seasonal peace sign as we walked around.
We spent a Saturday checking out other gallery shows. This is the Jason Rhoades' TijuanaTangierChandelier.
Although Rhoades is deceased, he left detailed instructions on how to install this piece, with its tangle of neon lights.
We were moved by Jordan Casteel's portraits at the Casey Kaplan Gallery. Her exhibition entitled The Practice of Freedom draws on bell hook's 1994 book of the same name, which explores the benefits of a reciprocal relationship between teacher and student. Casteel features her Rutgers University students in explorations of their identities in self-chosen settings, such as Jorge, who proudly displays his Honduran ancestry.
In Serwaa and Amoakohene,
"Amoakohene and his mother, Serwaa, are pictured in their Newark, NJ living room against the backdrop of a hanging portrait Amoakohene painted of his mother."
We enjoyed a meal at Hangawi, a Korean vegan restaurant. Sipping date tea, we were transported back to traveling in Korea.
We love Korean food, like this kimchi tofu soup.
Of course we visited the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). We picked a Monday, hoping it would be less crowded, but because it was snowing for most of the day, the museum was packed. This is a view from inside looking across the courtyard.
The MOMA has reinvented itself and now offers performances in some galleries. We were fortunate to see Fault Lines, which was described as:
“Two boy sopranos perform a duet amid low-slung sculptures made from stones that function as choral risers. In the span of 15 minutes, the boys hurl adversarial language at each other culled from literary sources ranging from Cicero to Shakespeare. The beauty of the music, arranged by composer Guarionex Morales-Matos, disguises the verbal forms of conflict, which evoke the tone of much political discourse today. The work’s title plays up the multiple meanings of such opposition: a fault line is a geological fracture where the movement of masses of rock has displaced parts of the earth’s crust. Here, it alludes to the tension between geological time and the brief period when the boys’ singing can reach a high pitch before their voices break, as well as the breakdown of social order.”
The MOMA invited artist Amy Sillman to curate a gallery and she decided to use the theme “the shape of shape”, primarily selecting lesser known artists whose art gives primacy to shape. The gallery had many more paintings and sculptures than in the past. Yet the exhibit didn’t post the artist’s name or artwork’s title by the artworks, instead she makes you work a bit to learn this. We used cards that showed the shapes of the artworks on one wall and the corresponding artist/title so we could figure out what we wanted to know.
This is Marcel Duchamp's To Be Looked At (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour from 1918. Apparently Duchamp was delighted by the fact that the glass shattered during transport, welcoming the mechanics of chance into the work.
Rasheed Araeen created (3+4) SR in 1969. The title refers to three raw and four painted wood latices (only five are depicted in the photo), and SR stands for structure and relief. He trained to be an engineer in Pakistan before moving to London. His statement,
“The presence of diagonals in my work is not my own creation. They are fundamental to the very formation of the lattice structure in engineering. This work models my aspiration to create symmetry within human relationships and other forms of life.”
Mine Kafon wind-powered deminer by Massoud Hassani reflects his childhood in Afghanistan where he made toys out of whatever materials he could find. We learned that among his favorite toys were objects powered by the wind, which he would race with other children. When their toys blew into minefields, they couldn’t retrieve them. He moved to the Netherlands as an adult and began using his original designs to make larger and heavier versions that could be deployed into minefields to detonate any remaining mines at a fraction of the cost of current demining methods. Mine Kafon is made of bamboo and biodegradable plastics.
We went for dinner with Pete's cousins Kate and Malcolm, who live in Brooklyn. Unfortunately it was very dark inside restaurant Jajaja Plantas Mexicana, so we're including a photo of them from May when we met in Colorado for a wedding.
We walked in Central Park, happy with our wool hats and warm jackets.
There were plenty of other hearty souls out walking in the park, especially on Bow Bridge.
The bare tree branches dusted with snow had a dramatic appearance.
Then, at the Guggenheim, we saw Ruth Asawa’s copper wire sculptures that seemed to sprout branches, and we were reminded of the trees in Central Park.
The show at the Guggenheim, entitled Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, was actually six shows, each curated by a different artist. Jenny Holzer chose artworks by women artists, and her exhibition included Ruth Asawa's sculptures as well as Helen Frankenthaler's Canal. Canal was painted in a gestural way by pouring diluted paint over the canvas as it lay flat, creating a lovely balance between chance and human deliberation.
Cai Guo-Qiang curated an exhibition and also created Non Brand, in which his process was explained as,
"Cai is known for making works using gunpowder. For this exhibition he created new paintings in this signature style. The works are in dialogue with iconic abstract paintings in the Guggenheim collection such as Mark Rothko, and again reference the idea of artistic styles as a kind of brand. As Cai explains, he emulated these works on glass, and then exploded gunpowder on the images. He wanted to poke fun at his own “brand”— an inside joke he is sharing with the artists, the museum, and visitors."
We saw the Ohad Talmor Trio at the Jazz Gallery as they were getting ready to tour in Europe. It was a great show featuring Ohad Talmor on tenor sax, Miles Okazaki on guitar and Dan Weiss on drums.
When it warmed up we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Looking back at Manhattan, we enjoyed great views of the skyscrapers.
In Brooklyn there had been an ice carving competition the previous day. Here are a couple 'cool' sculptures.
Annie Vieux's /light_wave was displayed on 15 windows in the MetroTech Center.
We went for lunch at The VSpot. Pete enjoyed a Columbian arepa, a thick corn masa base topped with spicy refried beans, plantains and avocado.
Outside Miss American Pie was advertising gluten-free sweet potato pie, but Pete opted for a slice of (vegan) banana cream pie instead.
Not far from where we stayed in NYC was Louise Nevelson Plaza, replete with her magnificent steel sculptures entitled Shadows and Flags.
The five smaller sculptures were removed for restoration in 2008 and then reinstalled in the plaza.
On our last day in Manhattan, we were able to attend the 12/6 Climate Strike. We were impressed to see so many youth activists speaking out about the climate crisis and our need for a Green New Deal. The groups involved included Fridays for Future, Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, Earth Guardians, and more.
Earlier this year we joined Sunrise as 'young-at-heart members' and we will continue to support these young leaders in this important and effective movement. Attending the Climate Strike seemed like a fitting end to our time in NYC.
We learned about Jane Fonda's Fire Drill Fridays while at the Climate Strike, and then read Roshi Joan Halifax's speech a few weeks later. Here's an excerpt,
"... And listen carefully: there’s a reason why predatory corporate and financial elites promote a focus on individual behavior, like recycling or energy saver light bulbs, and also why they support autocratic regime change, which ends up causing gross economic and social inequality. These forces of capitalism do not want us to realize that we need fundamental systems change, including making our government enforce checks and balances on the companies profiting from polluting our earth and condemning our future. They know that thriving democracies with active citizens are a threat to them; and, hear me clearly!: We need to behave like a thriving democracy, or else!...We must ask then: who will make the change? Clearly, every one of us must! Whether faith leader or farmer, politician or policewoman, kid or grandmother, we must demonstrate in solidarity for those who are on the frontlines of climate change impacts and hold accountable the perpetrators of climate-caused suffering."
It's worth reading her whole speech here.
We left the chilly temperatures behind to spend a week on retreat in Chacala, Mexico. The retreat center Mar de Jade was located on the Pacific ocean and protected by a lovely bay. This was the view from our room, which included the roof of the zendo.
A zendo is a Japanese Buddhist meditation hall and temple. Here's the entrance to the zendo where we would meditate during the seven day sesshin, which means formal retreat.
Here's a look inside the zendo. We learned the Buddha statue here was cast in Taiwan and sent here as a gift through a long and difficult process.
Zen Buddhism is a different form than what we usually practice, and we learned a lot during the retreat. This is a wooden drum used to keep time during the chants.
The altar was decorated with flowers for several ceremonies, including the Buddha's enlightenment (called rohatsu).
In a Mexican-influenced version of the rohatsu ceremony, we danced around the zendo chanting, "homage to Shakyamuni Buddha". It was a new and wonderful experience to participate in a bilingual sesshin.
The sesshin is an annual event and has been going on for over 20 years. Here Jorge twirls as we all danced on bougainvillea flowers.
Norman and Kathi Fischer, the priests who taught the sesshin, gave wonderful and inspiring Dharma talks. And Angelica (in the middle) translated both from English to Spanish and the reverse; She is wearing her rakusu because she participated in the jukai ceremony of taking lay Buddhist ordination and the precepts.
And here are some other happy participants after the sesshin ended. From left is Lulu who lives in Sonoma County, then Javier who was the Eno for the sesshin and who lives in Mexico City, Dr. Laura owns Mar de Jade and is Angelica's mother, plus an American couple who are travelers like us. We were all in a festive mood after Angelica's jukai ceremony.
There were about 50 practitioners at the sesshin. About half were from the U.S and half were from Mexico.
Next we flew from Puerta Vallarta to Mexico City (CDMX). Luckily we had good weather and clean air during our two week stay.
Every day we walked around CDMX. We liked this vertical garden.
It was our fourth visit here, so we had some favorite restaurants to revisit. Kristina is at La Pitaya Vegana, a tiny place with 10 seats inside and a few outside. Pitaya is the real name for dragon fruit.
Here's a closer look at the tacos: the back two are tofu and the front one is oyster mushroom. The tortillas there are made with corn, sesame seeds, chia seeds and beets for color.
We ate there twice because the food was so tasty. This time we ordered enfrijoladas, enchiladas filled with plantains in a bean sauce topped with pineapple salsa and cauliflower chorizo.
We saved enough room for dessert, a chocolate flan made with cashew milk that had the perfect texture and not-too-sweet taste. Kristina also enjoyed leche dorada, a warmed vegetal milk flavored with turmeric.
Having enjoyed the Rufino Tamayo Museum during previous visits to CDMX, we went back. It's a wonderful building designed by architects Abraham Zabludovsky and Teodoro González de León and built in the early 1980's.
This photo shows the interior courtyard of the museum. We learned that in 1982 the building had been awarded the National Prize for Arts and Sciences Fine Arts for its characteristic design, including its malleable and functional spaces.
There were several Rufino Tamayo paintings on display, including Sandías (Watermelons) from 1968.
And a portrait of Tamayo's wife Olga. In researching Tamayo's life and painting we came across an appropriate quote from Octavio Paz,
"If I could express with a single word what it is that distinguishes Tamayo from other painters, I would say without a moment's hesitation: Sun. For the sun is in all his pictures, whether we see it or not."
Tamayo, who was from Oaxaca, had established a biennial contest at his museum to highlight and reward new artists from his home state. He passed away in 1991 but the biennial continues today. Our favorite piece in the exhibition was by Juan Caloca with its translated title, The Mexican, Being Split in Half, It’s a Peculiar Form of Disintegration. It was made of half-painted wooden sticks.
We had seen Danh Vo’s sculptures previously, so were interested to check out We the People (detail) from 2014.
The exhibit Other Bodies Behind by Adriana Varejão really caught us by surprise. From the series Tongues and Incisions, Carpet-Style Tilework in Live Flesh features tiles that appear to be melting to reveal what's underneath: the human bodies controlled and destroyed by colonialism. Varejão explained,
"Tile is the most used decoration medium in national Portuguese art. My idea is to assimilate tile as an artistic rhetoric that represents a European worldview, and to reverse and subvert the point of observation...These artworks migrate to the exhibition space in an association between body and architecture. In them, the tiles refer to recent Brazilian history..."
From the series Polvo she draws on racial and ethnicity tensions in Brazil by examining skin color descriptions given in the 1976 census, with responses ranging from branquinha, “snow-white,” to morenão, roughly “big black dude”, which she interpreted into paint colors. A few poetic names included: flirting with freckles, faded fawn and sun kissed.
Varejão commissioned 40 different Chinese artists to use these different 'skin colors' to create portraits of her. Here is her explanation of Polvo,
"Polvo was the name I chose for my own brand because it relates to the people (in Portuguese: povo), and also because the ink released by an octopus (in Portuguese: polvo) contains melatonin, the substance that gives color to human skin."
With all our walking, we saw many new street murals that we wanted to share in this blog. Santiago Savi's piece shows a native woman speaking as flowers blooming from her mouth.
Another mural by him entitled When I Die, My Body Will Bloom.
We liked this mural of a trombone player but it didn't appear to be signed by the artist.
The muralist Murdoc painted this fox in October of 2018, so now it has tags along the bottom but the colors were still vibrant.
We happened to walk by while artist Magda Ćwik was painting this mural. She is a multidisciplinary artist from Poland who lives in Dublin when she is not traveling the world making art.
A few days later, we went back to see her finished piece, which includes references to the chakras to promote health and well-being.
We ate at several new vegan restaurants. Por Siempre Vegana was our favorite for high quality, inexpensive tacos. Their tag line in English is "everything good is wild and free."
Their version of pastor used wheat (seitan) so we didn't eat it, but we thought it was cool how they used a vertical spit for roasting.
We did eat many of their mushroom tacos with lots of salsa and pickled vegetable toppings.
Here's a closer look at setas encebolladas and alambre de setas topped with almond cheese.
We liked Por Siempre so much that we ate there almost every other day. This day they offered pickled potatoes in addition to jalapeños, carrots and cauliflower.
We also liked Distrito VE. Antojeria roughly translates to snack shop.
A more sophisticated restaurant we ate at twice was Los Loosers, so named because the chef Mariana Blanco was told it was a loser idea to have a plant-based restaurant. We are glad she persevered with her restaurant!
We liked Por Siempre so much that we ate there almost every other day. This day they offered pickled potatoes in addition to jalapeños, carrots and cauliflower.
We also liked Distrito VE. Antojeria roughly translates to snack shop.
A more sophisticated restaurant we ate at twice was Los Loosers, so named because the chef Mariana Blanco was told it was a loser idea to have a plant-based restaurant. We are glad she persevered with her restaurant!
Here's a closer look at Pete's taco-of-the-month with pickled almond cheese, mole and greens. Yes, there is a taco under there.
Another day Kristina ordered different mole tacos. She asked for the pickled cheese recipe and was told it was a restaurant secret!
Expecting everything to be closed on Christmas, we decided to cook for ourselves with ingredients we bought from the San Juan Market. Of course we made tacos. Pete sautéed onions, peppers and huitlacoche (corn mushrooms) for a taco filling, which were topped with pico de gallo salsa and guacamole, and accompanied by frijoles Peruanas (Peruvian beans).
The fruits available at the San Juan market were outstanding, including ones you may not know: zapote chico and granitas.
We stayed in La Condesa neighborhood and walked most days on the Hipodromo, a former horse racetrack turned walking path with mature trees. Pete stopped to pose with these sculptures (that were part of a nearby shop).
This is Plaza Popocatépetl, with its charming fountain. In the background is the building where we stayed.
Here's a closer look at our building with its charming Art Deco style.
This is the front door of Edificio Lux.
Our Airbnb apartment was filled with books, of which we enjoyed perusing the many art books.
La Condesa is a tranquil neighborhood, in part because there are many trees. This was our view from one of the windows in the apartment.
We explored the botanical garden in Chapultapec Park.
It was the perfect place for Pete to enjoy his macro lens and photograph flowers close up.
We walked to the historic district. This was a favorite building we saw.
We went to the Women's Museum and learned about historical Mexican women such as Sor Juana Inés of the Cross, a self-taught academic, poet and philosopher from the 17th century.
And we went back to Diego Rivera's art museum featuring archeological artifacts, Anahuacalli. Since we wrote about it in 2017 while visiting CDMX with cousins Alex and Diana, we'll just include a few new photos in this blog. This is one of the detailed ceilings, constructed from stones and forming intricate patterns.
We liked how the evidence of volcanic activity here was left in this corner of the museum.
And we thought this display really showcased Rivera's incredible collection in an artistic way.
CDMX goes all out for Christmas, and we saw an interesting mix of snow decorations and historic buildings under sunny skies.
They even had an ice rink at the Zocalo that was quite popular.
We really enjoyed spending the Christmas season in CDMX.
Next we fly to Las Vegas to spend New Year's with Pete's mom Csilla and sister Denise, and then we'll be on a meditation retreat for most of January. We wish you all a very happy New Year!
