DiarySue Williamson
Saturday October 4
By the time this column goes up, the results of the American elections will be known, but here in New York, at the beginning of October, the final month before voting day is an intense and slightly crazy time to be in the city. Everyone seems to be for Obama, and young Democratic party workers stop one on the street to make sure you're registered for the vote.
The Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is the subject of endless malicious and marvelling conversations, as fascinated New Yorkers analyse her inarticulate responses, her nods and winks, her traveling caravanserie of children, and her wardrobe.
A subway ad for a domestic storage facility shows a cropped picture of a red jacketed woman sporting an anti-abortion button, clearly alluding to Palin, with the slogan 'WHAT'S MORE LIMITED? YOUR CLOSET OR HER EXPERIENCE?'
Clothes, textiles and the roles they play in African life is the subject of a panel discussion at the Metropolitan Museum this Saturday afternoon, organised by Met curator Alyssa LaGamma. The discussion is an event organised in conjunction with a fine show of African textiles and textile-related artwork at the Met, entitled The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End .
The renowned scholar Doran Ross from the Fowler Museum at UCLA kicks off the afternoon with a lively discussion on the use of Ghanaian textiles in contemporary art. El Anatsui, with his gorgeous wall hangings built up from small elements fabricated from hundreds of flattened liquor bottle caps is so hot right now. Practically every museum speaker this afernoon touches on his work in one way or another.
Ever since his double appearance on the Venice Biennale last year, with hangings in the main Robert Storr show in the Italian pavilion and also, with an enormous hanging cladding the exterior of the Palazzo Fortuni, American museums have been scrambling to acquire his work. At the beginning of 2007, one could still get a good sized piece for around $40 000. Later this month, one El Anatsui work will fetch $600 000 on a New York auction, outselling Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol.
His work fills all current critical criteria - the intricately constructed, swathed hangings gleam and glint on museum walls around the world: contemporary in structure and concept, with a clear link to Ghanaian textile traditions of the past, and as an added bonus, in an era of increasing ecological awareness, all the materials are recycled.
Apparently the artist encourages museums to hang his works the way they want to - there is no set formula for draping any one piece - but most museums prefer to fly him out to arrange the works on the wall himself.
The list of speakers for the afternoon's panel is long but lively, scholars and experts followed by artists, both from this show and the parallel exhibition, 'The Poetics of Cloth', currently on at the Grey Gallery, located next to Washington Square in Greenwich Village.
Each of us has 10 minutes to speak, and for once, this requirement is observed. The last speaker is London-based fashion designer Duro Oluwo, who shows a video of his most recent collection, combining myriads of brilliantly hued African prints in his extraordinary clothes.
At drinks upstairs in one of the elegant Met lounges, Oluwu's wife, Studio Museum in Harlem director Thelma Golden, is wearing what I take to be one of his stylish dresses. Carol Thompson from the High Museum in Atlanta is here, and Christa Clarke, from the Newark, to name two.
Monday October 6
'The Poetics of Cloth', which focuses on the use contemporary artists make of African fabrics in their work officially opens at the Grey Gallery tonight. As an artist, I am really happy to be on this show. Curator Lynn Gumpert has curated it with an excellent eye as to how the work will fit into the space - and relate not only to the theme but to the other work on the show. Abdoulaye Konate, Yinka Shonibare, Nontsikelo Veleko, Grace Ndritu and Malick Sidibe are some of the other artists.
Home town (Cape Town) visitors include Catherine Raphaely
Tuesday October 7
Tonight's opening is at the New Museum, and it's an invitation-only affair, with barriers and clipboard-armed young women guarding the entrance to the museum against the would-be attendees gathered on the street. Luckily, Performa director RoseLee Goldberg has left my name at the door. The new New Museum opened in the last year, a stack of white boxes on The Bowery, once known as the hangout of winos, now, since the opening of the New Museum, rapidly becoming a new focus of artworld chic-dom.
Find RoseLee, who knows everybody. Greets gallerists Jeffrey Deitch, David Zwirner, designer Marc Jacobs, artist Maurizio Cattelan. And of course, the artist whose opening it is - painter Elzabeth Peyton, with her fashionably titled show, -Live Forever' - paintings of celebrities, friends and historical characters.
But we don't stay long. A quick trip up to the bar on the top level of the museum to enjoy its neon green lighting and views of the city, and then it's back to RoseLee's lower East Side house for supper - and a McCain/Obama debate on television. Obama's answers are much better than his rival's, but he seems a little tired and lacking in energy. Everyone thinks, hopes, believes Obama will win, but even so, with three weeks left, nothing is guaranteed �
Thursday October 9
The young superstar Kehinde Wiley is giving an artist's talk tonight hosted by Thelma Goldin at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Wiley's painted portraits of young black men painted against a background of African fabrics are the subject of a solo exhibition at the museum, part of a series entitled 'The World Stage: Africa - Lagos, Dakar�.
Wiley is an easy and likeable speaker, candid about his process and working methods. I reflect that it is a very smart piece of art marketing to call your ongoing series 'The World Stage' and then travel around the world to make work in each new country. For those artists who love travelling, of course.
Friday October 17
For the third year running, a South African photographer is the focus of the young photographer's showcase at the Museum of Modern Art. Following in the footsteps of Robin Rhode and Berni Searle, Mikhael Subotzky is one of the two artists on 'New Photography 2008'.
I am not sure that the way the MoMA has hung the works in two rows does not diminish the power of the individual prints to some extent, but Subotzky's photos of the people and locale of the dusty dorp of Beaufort West still command considerable attention.
Sue Williamson's October/November diary will be continued in December
