Friday, October 31, 2008

After All the Hubbub: Chanel's Mobile Art

I dutifully attended my 1:15pm ticket reservation for Chanel Mobile Art in Central Park on Monday, October 27. The day was beautiful; one caught between other days of rain and drear. Having scored one of the very few time slots available online, my friend and I queued up and cast pitying glances back at the long, long line of standbys. Reading blogs kept me out of the wannabe line and I found myself swiftly ushered into the lovechild of Zaha and Karl. 


A few notes: When we interacted with any of the Mobile Art staff, they were so extremely gracious that we'd say the service mirrored that of sales associates in the Chanel stores. Although we did (hilariously) catch one of the dudes grumbling about how all the tourists go crazy for their uniforms (black windbreakers with white Chanel buttons), he personally thought they weren't all that nice. 

While we actually relished the Soundwalk guide, WAY too much time was spent gazing down into the hole with insect projections; we would have preferred to peek longer inside the shipping container with S&M bear or watch more of the video inside of the powder compact, where girls were full-out gunning down Chanel bags on a shooting range.

Yoko Ono's "wish tree" installation was interactive, sure, but damn there were a lot of very shallow wishes on those things. But then what should we expect in going to a luxury-branded museum? 

Aside from the aforementioned Chanel shooting range video, my favorite piece was most definitely Lee Bul's "Light Years" room, whose walls directly mirrored the famous Chanel stairway inside of their Rue Cambon address. Sitting in the middle of the room was a pile of light topped with leather scraps from bag manufacturing, all the while tempting you to touch it. 

So my tour lasted exactly 45 minutes and concluded unceremoniously...actually I wasn't even sure it was over until there was no where else left to go. Oh yes, and the New York issue of the program is SO not as well done as the first Hong Kong one. Whatever Karl, I see how it is.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Abomination On The Street


There are no words. I believe the many ironies present here speak for themselves. Let me know if you'd like a diatribe.

Shot a few nights ago on West 9th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues.