Over the last month I have literally been around the world. As I’m on my way home I thought I’d take stock of some of the art which I have had the pleasure of seeing.
First stop was New York. Such a treat – booked myself on an art marathon with NY art tours, and was treated to gargantuan wooden sculptures by Ursula von Rydingsvard at Lelong Gallery and the woven bottle tops of El Anat
sui at Jack Shainman Gallery. I have been lucky enough to see his work every time I have been in NY – last time it was a large piece along the High Line. 
At Cheim and Reid there was a fantastic exhibition of Louise Bougerois’s series Suspended – I finally had the opportunity to see her knitted heads, and was also quite taken by the long stockinged legs pressed up against the wall.
At the major galleries, I was really engaged by The Heart is not a metaphor – Robert Gober’s retrospective at MoMA. His constructed rooms contained unsettling twists on domestic life, with his legs jutting out all over the place. On a rainy day I trudged into MoMA PS1, and found a work by Alan Saret in a quiet little corner. Another highlight was the coconut – I have no idea whose work it was but it stopped me in my tracks. Being the art world groupie that I am, I trudged down to McNally’s Books in Soho and waited in the freezing cold to hear Hans Ulrich Olbrist and Marina Abradovic chat about his new book, Ways of Curating. Makes me wonder – what is my unrealised project?
I managed to duck away to see the Barnes Collection in Philly. Albert Barnes sense of aesthetics really were ahead of his time with his ensembles which included everyday objects – the connections between the artworks were really so complex and subtle. Its up there as one of the best private collections I’ve ever seen. I loved how you could track some of the work back to study drawings in other rooms. The building itself was really beautiful, and I imagine Ellworth Kelly’s sculpture in the front to be Barnes giving Philly the finger from severing it from its former home out in suburban Philly.
The highlight of the galleries though was the Takeshi Murakami exhibition at Gasgosian. I have been following him on instagram, and watching the paintings take form over the past few months. But even so I was completely blown away. There was even a temple gate reconstructed in the gallery. I had initially dismissed his work as too shallow, just commercialised J-pop but I was completely wrong. His work is about the evolution of Japanese and Asian culture through time – and how though has changed with the influence of the “developed” western world and its consumerist madness. Mind blowing – the guy is a genius.
Then onto London Richard Serra with his Curve and London Cross at Gasgosian Britannia, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s diaorama series at PACE London and Anslem Kiefler’s retrospective at the Royal Academy. I was disappointed by Anslem Kiefler’s retrospective – they focused pretty much on his paintings, with only one of his intense installations included. The Tate Modern was also really disappointing – it felt like it was in a holding pattern until its extension opens – crowded and grubby with none of the freshness and innovation that I remember it for.
Anyhow its time to head home. I’m looking forward to a summer filled with Chuck Close, Pop art and my favorite artist, James Turrell at the National Gallery of Australia. What a great year of art – thanks to the artists, curators and other spectators for the all the wonder.
Through the looking glass 