2 posts tagged "Stephen Shore"
Phaidon Pops Up in Soho
Now that Halloween is behind us, holiday shopping season begins. Not officially, of course, but those of you who like to get a head start on the annual gift-grab ought to wander to the new PHAIDON|STORE, which opens today in Soho. Taking up a cool 2,500 square feet on Wooster Street, the pop-up shop sells every book in the Phaidon Press catalog; it’s also the only place you can find the art publisher’s new series of Collector’s Editions: signed, numbered, specially bound editions of select titles that come with an original silver gelatin or C-print signed by the artist. Photographer Roger Ballen, whose Gagosian Gallery show opens later this week, is one artist whose work has been Collector’s Edition-ized by Phaidon; so, too, Stephen Shore, Jeff Wall, and Danny Lyon, all of whom have new work up at PHAIDON|STORE. Limited editions are one good way to get people to stop dillydallying and start holiday shopping; a firm deadline is another one. The first and only free-standing Phaidon shop in the U.S., PHAIDON|STORE packs up its racks in January. In other words: Stop procrastinating.
chanel in the park: une défense
By now, anyone with an Internet connection knows that Chanel’s new art container concept, Mobile Art, has landed on Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield. What’s not to love about a globe-trotting exhibit inspired by the beloved 2.55 quilted handbag, you wonder? Just ask The New York Times‘ architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. It seems the Zaha Hadid-designed spaceshiplike structure—which houses original works from 20 contemporary artists including Stephen Shore, Sophie Calle, and Yoko Ono—struck Ouroussoff as more than a bit indulgent. We’d like to take this opportunity to defend the French fashion house and its traveling homage against such recession-minded reticence.
For its placement in the park, Ouroussoff accused the Chanel pavilion of “dismantling the boundary between the civic realm and corporate interests.” Hmm. With taxpayers set to funnel $700 billion straight to Wall Street, we can’t help but feel this is the least of our worries. Fashion has long been prone to frivolity; it’s part of our charm. But to hold something that’s drawing cash-strapped crowds and even creating jobs (as reported by the WSJ) against us as an example of our utter obliviousness to the crumbling financial world is, like, way harsh. Admission is free, after all.
Oh, and one more thing. “An elaborate mousetrap for consumers?” Please. How elaborate could it be if nothing is for sale? Century 21. That’s an elaborate mousetrap. This is really more like a subliminal messaging system whispering something we’ve known all along: Chanel is chic.