A BUTCHER’S hook/look (Cockney rhyming slang)
New York assemblage
3 in a row
That’s a ‘shadowman’ by Richard Hambleton on the facade of the abandoned synagogue on Norfolk St from back in the early 80s, (his studio was on Orchard St). Catching his lurking shadowy figures out of the corner of your eye at night could be very unnerving. I’ll go in to the neighborhood car in another post.
NO HEAT NO RENT (graffiti next to the figure) - a common issue in the day for many
and out the window
Looking East - The statue of Lenin by Yuri Gerasimov was brought over after the fall of USSR in 1994 and set up on ‘Red Square’ a new building on East Houston (with a random number clock by M&Co). When the building was sold, the owner moved him to a nearby building on Norfolk St. where he waves at us. For a few months he was lying there and only his feet were visible.
inside
This was actually much better than the state it was in 1986 when sculptor Angel Orensanz bought it and made it into an Art and performance Center. We went to an early event there (a fashion show? 1990ish) and had to sign a liability waiver and enter ‘at our own risk’ - puddles of water from the holes and bits falling from the ceiling. Fun!
the view
One of my annual New York based postcard collages (X-acto knife, no photoshop) - this one from 1990, and for the curious it comprises of a postcard of a detail from Domenico Ghirlandaio’s La Visita in Florence, a NY postcard and the ‘sky’ which is actually the inside mechanism of a French automaton made in 1750
postcard world
With the recent re-opening of Notre Dame in Paris ……. this was a postcard that certainly fits my fascination with bad/good bad taste/weird cards - I picked this up in the 80s, thinking to myself ‘look at that - it’s a postcard of a cathedral on fire. Not really what you’d expect’. Much later I discovered that postcards were made to commemorate special occasions, wartime, even visits from dignitaries would be remembered through the medium of the postcard. The Notre Dame cathedral at Reims was controversially hit by repeated German shell-fire on September 19th, 1914. Still standing - pretty impressive really
