Palm Sunday, we went to church at St. John the Divine a massive, massive building. I guess not that many people actually go to church there because they had us sit up in the choir which was like sitting in a giant chair all ornately carved with a cushion. Huge.

Then off to the New Museum for me to see what I could of The Generational: Younger than Jesus exhibition. Two of three floors of the show were closed for installation so there was not much to see. Its a cool building in a great area, but the show itself…eh. There were probably only 8 to 10 “pieces” to see, so. Josh Smith, of course, was there. In the flesh (me) and on the wall (he). I was still not convinced. Ryan Gander had a cool peice:

he requested that gallery assistants are dressed in limited edition all-white Adidas tracksuits, instead of conventional black attire. This Consequence (2005) thus immediately defies expectations. On closer inspection it becomes clear that the pristine state of the tracksuits is disrupted by carefully embroidered splashes of red on both the jacket and trousers, a hint of some unknown accident or incident. (from IKON)

I got on the elevator from the one open floor and headed up to look at the view from the open walk-around up top. The elevator stopped and, you know how you’re on an elevator and the door opens and you just start walking out? Nobody else that you saw punched a button, no other floors are open, you’re going up…Anyway the door opens and I take a step and a lady steps on (we’re 2 steps from each other) apparently this is a closed exhibit floor and instead of saying something to me she sort of blocks me and looks to the elevator operator and says “oh, uh, we’re not letting people on this floor are we.” not a question, just not wanting to address me. Making the operator chirp “no”. The lady gets on and goes up to the next closed floor and gets off. I’m not impressed and don’t care, just don’t like the “people” thing.

I know I’m rambling to some extent, but I’m leading up to a real grand event. If you are with me, hold tight.

The top floor views are spectabulous. I call Mags and schedule a meet. Hungry, I go down and out for some food. Its busy in SOHO and I cant find a slice. I feel like I’ve been walking for days and I don’t feel like searching no more. The poor showing at the New Mu and that lady put a sad flavour on my tounge, but it was a super nice day and I was happy. I decided to just go cheel in the New Mueseum cafe and rest it out a bit. I’m sitting and watching more. There’s a glass walled gallery on the first floor, behind me, where an artist is installing something and she has all kinds of hipster helpers. A museum guard is posted at the door to let unwanted hipsters and bumbling paying customers know, uncomfortably, that they are not permitted. Only the hipsters with the artist can come and go, and do they ever. Back and forth. I’m watching the guard, the embarrassed and the proud come welcome come unwelcome. Go, go.

A kind of hatred is growing in my heart. I don’t want it to, but seeing so much in 3 days, art in galleries, art in museums, art in theatre. People in the subway, in shops in museums and galleries and at the game. My experience in that cafe was seeing all the supposed “important” people come and go with a definite edge of pride that contrasted sharply with the rubbed wrong rejection of the cast aways. All in the museum, not all welcome.

All a sudden I see the senior art critic for New York Magazine, Jerry Saltz. In my prep. for this trip I read his reviews and recommendations and even linked to his video tour on this very site. Seeing him was like a celebrity siting. I was thinking “should I try to take a picture? thats lame, no. Should I try to say hi?” Then, “why? Why do we want to pet wild animals? get signatures from pro’s? take pictures of celebs?” I then let it go and thought “that’s cool, he’s here doing a preview before its open to the public. Thats how reviews of shows and movies come out before we see it” I let it go. 5-10 minutes later I hear him buying a coffee behind me. He goes over to a table and sits down by himself. (!) I popped up and marched myself over, hands behind my back unassuming, and said “hi, I enjoyed your comments on Kippenberger and found them helpful in the show” He said “thanks, what did you think of the show” I said “I liked it a lot, along with his comments, the phones helped, but I had fun looking for the Richter painting turned into a coffee table he pointed out” He seemed to enjoy this and continued with what’s your name, where you from, what you do, you a Yankee fan (I was incognito with my new hat on) said no (his face dropped–poser!) but, wait! I went to the game yesterday! (his face lit) we talked about Tex and the stadium. He asked me how I liked the show in the building where we were and I said it wasn’t so great, at least the one floor (i had no nerves, strangely) He looked around all fast, all sneaky…

“Are you alone?” / “Yeah” / “Good, can you make yourself invisible?” / “Yeah, I was a caterer once” / “Good, I mean, not draw attention to yourself? follow me”
He started off toward the elevator, I grabbed my stuff off the table I was sitting at and rushed to catch up. He walks past the guard (the Guard!) and she tries to stop me. “he’s with me”, she backs off. In the elevator he instructs me to stick close and he’ll let people know I’m alright. The door opens and this time, uh-huh, this time I get off. Step onto the magical floor of an unopened exhibit. Artists, curators, art handlers, hipster groupies, museum guards milling, installing, laughing. I’m getting a personal tour with Jerry Saltz. He’s treating me like he cares. He’s all, “come over here, I want you to see this” explains it and moves on “look at this”. “This is an artist you’ll be hearing about in the next couple years…” I cut him off “Ryan Trecartin? Oh, yeah. I’ve seen him on YouTube”. Trecartins videos are supplemented with airplane pieces and all kinds of junk that bring a physicality to the sicky feel his videos give. He excitedly wisks me to another peice.

I have his ear and find myself using it, I know this is the greatest opportunity, I’m asking him about, who else? Josh Smith. I quote himself saying “he’s a breath of fresh air” he’s somewhat defensive but honest and open and asks my opinion. I tell him and he says, well, here, look at this… It was great. One of the curators (Laura Hoptman) shows up and of course shows Jerry respect. He introduces me as “Josh Smith” and the curator starts a mini bow (obviously, a dude named me walking privately thru with Jerry Saltz is not me, but the one hanging upstairs. I nearly shout, “I’m Josh Smith, but not the one upstairs” She’s still very pleasant and we talk a little about Kentucky and she leaves us with “not now, but I’d like to ask you sometime why you moved to Kentucky”. Alls I can think is, “someday I just might tell you.”

I was so surprised how cool he was to do that for me. He’s been my favorite critic for a while now, but now he’s gold. I thanked him and he sent me on with a few nuggets of advice. I look forward to the not-so-distant future when we meet again at a J.B. Smith opening. Or Joshua Benjamin. Or Jaybles. or Joshua X. The Josh Smith.

Later, I meet up with Maggie, we walk into Little Italy to eat. I’ve saved all this for a table and chair.

Later still we go to the fancy joint called Dovetail for dinner. It claims a modestly priced “sunday suppa”, a fixed priced three course meal but with a homey sunday neighborhood feel. It was still in the too chic for me category, but our server was nice and the food was great. Once when Mags left for washing the server came by to fold her napkin and I was “you fold even at ‘Suppa’”? She thought that was funny and asked about us. I tol her we were the original dovetail. At the bill serving time, she asked for a card and said, “It would be great to have dishes made by Dovetail at Dovetail”. Durn straight.