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Art
James writes:
In today's Crain's New York Business, I tell the story of preserving an elevator made famous by the movie "You've Got Mail." It also happens to be my favorite elevator in my favorite building in New York. Thanks to Dan Geiger and Ken Christensen of Crain's for the terrific video.
South Facade of the main house at Olana. Photo: Stan Ries
James writes:
The spiritual home of the Hudson River School is Olana, the homestead of Frederic Church, located on a 250-acre hilltop outside Hudson, New York. Thanks to the long-term efforts of the Olana Partnership, Church's theatrical house, designed by Church and Calvert Vaux in a colorful blend of Middle-Eastern styles, joins the grounds in a remarkable state of preservation. With sweeping views of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains, Olana is best appreciated in summer, when it feels like you are walking inside a lush nineteen-century landscape.
Bell Tower, south view of river from inside Bell Tower. Photo: Andy Wainwright
Court Hall, Main House Olana. Photo: Andy Wainright
View of the Main House from Across the Lake. Photo: Melanie Hasbrook
Some thoughts on the house and grounds: Today the building is approached from a parking lot at the top of the hill behind it. This gives the sense that you are visiting an artifact and not a home. The access road also has cars cutting across the property and through the viewshed. By depositing people at the top, in back, they are less likely to explore the grounds below. This current parking lot could be converted into a site for a much-needed respite and watering hole while car parking could be relocated down the hill, encouraging people to explore the grounds, walk up, and approach the main house from the front. Such a change may help restore sledding in winter, a favorite activity that I hear is no longer allowed on site. Olana could also offer a trolly to the top, adding to the charm of the landscape. The house museum should also be arranged to accommodate visitors who choose to experience it outside of the small, wonderful, but often sold-out docent-led tours (which now need to be booked in advance).
View from Crown Hill, Olana. Photo: Melanie Hasbrook
Finally, I would love to see more involvement with contemporary artists. What a thrill it must be for artists to engage with these 250 acres. There could be residencies. I would be fascinated to see how artists working in a range of practices interpret the context of Olana: from the abstract artists of Bushwick to realist-revival painters to classical and modern dancers. They could mix on the hillsides with farmers, walkers, preservationists, children making crafts—a living tableau.
View of the South Fields at Storm King, all works by Mark di Suvero. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson
James writes:
Great sculpture needs to breathe. For more than fifty years, The Storm King Art Center has been showing modernist sculpture in the breathtaking landscape of the lower Hudson Valley. The nonprofit, founded and opened to the public in 1960 through the efforts of the late Ralph E. Ogden and H. Peter Stern, transformed the farmland of a country estate into a foremost site for examining the relationship between natural and man-made form.
Mark di Suvero Pyramidian, 1987/1998 and Beethoven’s Quartet, 2003. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson.
The seasonal center in Cornwall, New York, near West Point, Bear Mountain, and across the river from Beacon, is a little over an hour drive north of New York City. The trip is best appreciated by heading up the riverfront roads on the picturesque western side of the Hudson. Directions and bus schedules are available here.
Dan Budnik David Smith, South Field, Terminal Iron Works
As the long-time director David Collins explained to me, the inspiration for much of what appears at Storm King came from Terminal Iron Works at Bolton Landing, the rural New York studio where the sculptor David Smith often kept his work outside like crops in the fields. Many of these sculptures became early aquisions for the Center.
Mark di Suvero Jambalaya, 2002-06. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson.
In part thanks to commissions by Storm King, some of the most iconic works of the sculptor Mark di Suvero are now centerpieces here.
Mark di Suvero Frog Legs, 2002, Mozart’s Birthday, 1989, Neruda’s Gate, 2005. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson.
Alexander Liberman Iliad, 1974-76. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson.
The outdoor environment, and curatorial taste, has limited the range of sculpture in the Storm King collection, which is heavy on metal abstraction of the second half of the twentieth century. Some can seem overwrought and stuck in the 1970s.
Maya Lin Storm King Wavefield, 2007-2008. Photograph by James Panero
But in recent years the Center has seen sculptors take on the landscape in new ways, such as Maya Lin's Wavefield, and, a favorite, the snaking stone walls of Andy Goldsworthy.
Zhang Huan Three Legged Buddha, 2007. Photograph by James Panero
To me a foray into contemporary Chinese art with work by the theatrical Zhang Huan (who is also the focus of this summer's exhibition) seems like a misstep. You can read more of my thoughts on Zhang here. To its credit, this artist's large Three Legged Buddha, with its incense-burning toes stomping a head into the ground, conveys a palpable sense of corporeal discomfort.
Sculpture safari! Calder spotted on the ridge.
What would I like to see next at Storm King? An increased engagement with the range of artists taking a new look at form and nature, from Giuseppe Penone to Rachel Beach. A "Storm King biennial" would serve as further reminder that there's more to contemporary sculpture than Koons, Koons, Koons.