Death By Art Direction
I had an odd Friday off, Finals Week!, and so I spent the day catching up on doctor visits and kulchur. A visit to the doctor's office revealed that all my numbers are headed in the right direction or already where they need to be: you wish you had my blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol, bitches! And while the weight isn't heading downtown, it's stable, which is a good thing over the holiday season. After the visit I schlepped in the subfreezing cold to Chelsea to catch a matinee of A Single Man. And I actually enjoyed it. The movie relies heavily on Colin Firth's acting skills: his silent facial expressions reveal layers of sub-text that Ford's direction can only hint at. And the costumes are, well, fagulous! It's a Tom Ford movie, bitches! Julianne Moore is perfect as the flossy, blousy alcoholic divorcée. The lesser actors? not so much. Two, count 'em, two of Ford's models, one has a hustler and one as a stalking student in too much mohair. Pretty, but, well, miscast. And frankly, what English professor can afford that fabulous a wood and glass house in the canyon? And a house with mebbe ten books in it max? And a university office with no books in it? I mean, I know it's Los Angles and no one reads there, but puhleeze!
After the movie I headed to the Clamp Art Gallery on W 25th St to catch the penultimate day of their Luke Smalley Memorial Exhibition. Beautiful work, badly displayed. Think Norman Rockwell gone wrong. Each photo maintains some of the Rockwellian innocence and optimism, but also contains something so much more wonderfully sordid. Instead of featuring fresh faced young draftees off to fight for the nation, the scrubbed underwear wearing lads enter prison. Clamp Art is located across the street from the Pace Wildenstein gallery, so I caught the second half of the Hockney exhibit. Especially appropriate given how many times Tom Ford drops Hockney's name as being the lover of his, Ford's, ex, nu? The better landscapes are at West 57th St, even if the portraits are no longer there. The W 25th St space's works are more, er, acidic. Still, worth seeing while still in town.