Culture: NADA, Art Fair @ Basketball City on Pier 36, New York City 2014

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - This weekend New York City has an orgy of art events. The metropolis is hosting "Frieze New York", one of the largest global art fairs, and all over Manhattan there are more than a dozen satellite art shows.

This Friday I reported about the "Downtown Fair" in Midtown Manhattan (driveby).Yesterday I visited NADA NYC @ Pier 36, which is normally used as basketball hall in Southern Manhattan (newartdealers).

The fair is organized by the New Art Dealers Association and hosts more than 80 US and foreign galleries. I didn`t see any famous names represented there but the works of a legion of uprising and interesting artists.

I indulged in the diversity of the paintings, sculptures and video displays and enjoyed the often fresh and surprising ideas. Watching the crowd of spectators and art collectors also was a lot of fun.

Here again a collection of my favorites. Let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!

Culture: Mogwai @ Terminal 5, New York City 2014

(Drivebycuriosity) - Sometimes you can buy bliss, the existence of pure happiness. The admission to a Mogwai gig @ Terminal 5 in Midtown Manhattan yesterday was one of these rare cases (facebook).

The concert - which lasted around 2 hours - was one of the most intense rock experiences I`ve had since I watched a Pink Floyd concert (with founding member Syd Barrett)  in London`s Ufo Club decades ago (the other was a performance by Cut of Luna last year driveby ).

Wikipedia labels their music as post-modern, whatever that means (wikipedia). The five musicians (3 guitars, keyboards & percussion) delivered mainly instrumentals, illustrated by some sporadic vocals. The audience got long pieces with some very melodic and atmospheric parts speckled with violent & furious elements with blurred guitars, viscous resonances, feed backs and other effects.

Watching the concert was like walking in a magical garden inhibited by fairies and unicorns - and then suddenly there was an explosion turning the music into massive waves of heat. Then you could physically experience the concert. Amplified by staccatos of bright light (stroboscope flashes) the music felt like matter hitting anti-matter turning into pure energy. 

Wow. Thanks a lot Mogwai. We want to see you again!

Culture: Downtown Fair - Modern + Contemporary Art, New York City, May 2014

(Drivebycuriosity) - It is spring time in New York City. The season also seems to animate the world of art. Now the metropolis is the stage for "Frieze", a huge art fair. The event vitalizes a lot of satellite fairs all over Manhattan which "cater to the seasoned collector and curious novice alike", writes the New York Times, (here you can find an overview and links to these events nytimes). According to the paper there are more than a dozen art fairs in town. The orgy of art shows demonstrates that New York is still the centre of the art world.

Yesterday I visited the "Downtown Fair" @ Downtown Armory, a place in the Flatiron District, Manhattan (downtownfair). The host also produces the famous art fair "Art Miami". The show runs through Sunday May 11 (General Admission 12pm-6pm).

It was much fun. According to the host´s website nearly 600 artists from over 35 countries are on display. The show focuses on "modern and contemporary works" (no idea what is the difference).

I saw works by established artists like Warhol, Lichtenstein & Botero but also from unknown and uprising creators. I was impressed by the diversity, flamboyance and briskness of paintings, collages, video images and sculptures.

As usual, the event drew an interesting crowd of art collectors, spectators & bohemians. Watching them was almost much as fun as viewing the paintings and sculptures.

Here is a collection of my favorites. Let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!

Culture: Wine - In Praise Of The New World

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Wine is pleasure, wine is culture. Like (almost) everything which is fun, wine drinking can get very expensive. Especially the French produce could slurp your budget, if you don´t belong to the happy one percent.  I believe French wines are overpriced; you have to pay for the grand name and the French are very good in marketing themselves.

Therefore as a wine drinker and buyer I prefer the New World - North & South America plus Australia. There you can get comparable qualities for a much lower price because you don`t have to pay for the prestige. Fortunately the New World offers a huge diversity. There are many ambitious vintners, often with European pedigrees, who grow fine wines. Even Canada delivers some delicious wines. And the huge US has many regions which are suitable for wine growing.

I am a huge fan of the oaked Californian Chardonnay, especially those bottles from the Russian River Valley. According to Wikipedia this area has a "characteristically cool climate, heavily affected by fog generated by the valley's proximity to the Pacific Ocean" (wikipedia). But my favorite Chardonnays these days come from the San Francisco area: The Chardonnay "Wente Morning Fog" (wentevineyards). In the moment a bottle cost around $16 in the wineshop nearby. I think that is very reasonable for this quality.

When my mood is for red wine l enjoy Cabernet Sauvignons from Oregon/USA. But my favorite reds are Argentinian Malbecs. The country doesn´t have the (costly) reputation of the Napa Valley, California or the famous European wine growing regions. The WineEnthusiast magazine describes them as "dense and dark, with full-bodied richness" (winemag). The "Bodega Elvira Calle Alberti 154 Malbec" from Mendoza/Argentinia is delicious and with $16 very reasonable priced (wine-searcher). 

Enjoy!

Economy: Gary Becker. R.I.P.

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Today I learned that Gary Becker passed away. The Nobel laureate was one of the greatest economists of the past half century.

I had met him in Prague in the early 90s - shortly before he received the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. He had joined a conference of leading economists who talked about how Eastern Europe would have to change to prosper after the fall of the wall which had divided the former Soviet Empire from the Western world.

Even though Prof. Becker was one of the rockstars of economics, he was very polite and friendly and talked openly with a humble journalist like me. He treated me as if I had been part of the elitist scientists he usually dealt with. I am very grateful for that and I feel especially honored by his generous treatment.

Gary Becker was one of the leading thinkers in microeconomics which deals with decisions of households, how you and I respond to economic incentives (econlib). Becker's Nobel Prize lecture is entitled "The Economic Way Of Looking At Life" (nobelprize.org).

One of his topics was "Human Capital": "Becker pointed out what again seems like common sense but was new at the time: Education is an investment. Education adds to our human capital just as other investments add to physical capital" (econlib).

Prof. Becker dealt - in a methodic & scientific way - with a lot of aspects of everyday life, including "allocation of time within a family, using the economic approach to explain the decisions to have children and to educate them, and the decisions to marry and to divorce" (econlib).

R.I.P. Prof Becker.

New York City: The Lilliput Effect

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - New York City blows your mind. The metropolis overwhelms you with her skyscrapers, traffic, noise - and the huge billboards.

The sheer size of the vast advertisements dwarfs their neighborhood. This reminds me of "Gulliver`s Travels" (by Jonathan Swift), especially to the "country of Lilliput". There he meets tiny people, the famous "Lilliputians".

Often houses, people and carls look lilliputian compared to the megasized billboards.

Here a collection of pics capturing this Lilliput Effect. Here you can see another collection of fascinating billboard pics (driveby). Enjoy.

Economy/Stock Market: Reality Check May 2014

(Drivebycuriosity) - The US economy is in a much better state than the media and the pundits want us to believe. Yesterday we got news that the US economy created 288,000 new jobs in April. The numbers for the previous months were revised to plus 203,000 new jobs in March (from plus 192,000) and 222,000 in February (from plus 197,000). "Through the first four months of 2014, the economy has added 857,000 payroll jobs - slightly better than during the same period in 2013 even with the severe weather early this year", comments the blog CalculatedRisk (calculatedrisk).

These numbers confirm that we are in a virtuous circle: More jobs - and a falling unemployment rate - will fuel consumer spending in the coming months which will translate into higher company revenues & profits. Therefore the CEOs will hire more people. Climbing company profits also should rekindle the sluggish stock market and resume the rally. Enjoy.