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My favorite thing about NYC is the layers. It’s just layers and layers and layers of stuff everywhere you look. I had the pleasure of visiting the great city last week. Here are a few of the things I thought you might enjoy.

C.B. I Hate Perfume
Do you love the idea of scent as art but hate regular perfume? If so, I joyfully recommend C. B. I Hate Perfume to you. It’s a wondrous perfume gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with over 300 scents to take in (if you can). The offerings range from a few specialty blended perfumes to a collection of singular accords with names like Old English Novel, Suntan Lotion, Ginger Ale, and Wet Mitten. It’s a magical place. Swoonworthy, actually. If in Brooklyn, you must go.

Richard Serra at the Gagosian
Those of you into encaustic painting should check out Richard Serra’s show Solids at the Gagosian. The show – which runs through December 20th, 2008 – features a series of topographical drawings made with paintstick. (I wonder what brand he uses?)

Here’s a bit about how the drawings are made from the one-sheet at the show.

Melted paintstick is poured onto a hard surface on the floor or a table. Sometimes a sheet of window-screen is placed on top of the liquid paintstick. Then the paper is laid down, either on top of the screen or directly on top of the liquid paintstick. Pressure is exerted on the back of the paper with a hard marking tool and the front side of the paper picks up the mark. In this series no direct drawing is done on the front of the paper… In the Solids series, as the layering of gesture increases, so does the accumulated mass and perceived weight. The effects of compression, torsion, the surface tension of the material and, finally, gravity, all work, as the paintstick coalesces to produce widely varying textures.

So basically… printmaking. For me, these pieces are all about their compositions. The textures are interesting. Integral, even. But it’s the compositions, seen at mid-distance (those raggedy edges!) that thrill me.

Garden of Earthly Delights
Did you ever wish you could see the Hieronymus Bosch painting, Garden of Earthly Delights, interpreted in dance? I didn’t! But I had no idea how beautiful it could be. Martha Clarke’s production at the Minetta Lane Theater captures the joys and horrors of being human in a sensual, scatological, ariel dance performance supported by live musicians (percussion, cello & wind). The painting’s always been a favorite of mine in a Where’s Waldo kind of way.

To see it bigger, click here. It’s intense, I know. But that’s life, eh? (At least in New York.)