The Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch is described as notoriously theatrical. That’s him slumped over in the photo above. We didn’t know a thing bout him until we stumbled on the opening a show of his paintings in Chelsea and we were just in time to catch a string quintet, Quintetto Nitsch, performing with Herman. A controversial painter and performance artist, he has staged crucifixions and has been arrested many times, his work plays with religious rituals and our violent tendencies. His canvases looked blood soaked even if they weren’t and created a rich, dark mood with the long sustained drones. We were offered soup after the performance but moved on.
Wandering from one gallery to the next in Chelsea is like putting your iPod on shuffle. It is an experience full of surprises and unexpected juxtapositions and it alters your perception. After immersion in or just glimpses of fifty or so galleries you are open to even the trash piles in the street as art.
Back at Duane’s pad in Brooklyn we opened the window, New York style, to the twenty degree weather. Peggi cued up mxrich videos of Angel Corpus Christi and we streamed half of Fellini’s “8 1/2” before sleeping like babies.
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go butler
we saw Fellinis’s 4 1/4