"Stop The War On Workers" - More Protests Outside Sotheby's by Locked Out Art Handlers and their Supporters

More loud protests were held last night outside the Sotheby's auction house on the Upper Eastside.The protests coincided with last night's contemporary art evening auction. At issue is Sotheby's three-month-old lockout of 43 art handlers represented by Teamsters Local 814. The Teamsters claim in the press release that Sotheby's "hired Jackson Lewis to attempt to starve its workers into giving up their job security and accepting wage cuts." According to the union, the art house, with the law firm's help, is attempting to reduce wages and replace experienced workers with outsourced employees, "despite earning record profits." The professional art handlers' last contract expired in early July and the lockout began August 1.

La Montagne (The Mountain) by Gaston Lachaise at the Tramway Plaza

Gaston Lachaise's sculpture, "La Montagne (The Mountain)" is currently on exhibit at the Tramway Plaza. La Montagne (The Mountain) was modeled in 1934 by American Modernist sculptor Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935). The sculpture is the culmination of a series begun in 1913 by Lachaise in New York, where he lived and worked from 1912 until his death in 1935. The work represents at once a landscape and the figure of Isabel Dutaud Nagle, the artist’s muse, model and eventual wife. Lachaise envisioned a piece that was “great and solemn.” He later admitted, “You may say the model is my wife. It is a large, generous figure of great placidity, great tranquility.” Some recognize in Lachaise a revival of the feminine ideal that had flourished for centuries in the voluptuous stone carvings on Hindu temples. Lachaise’s wife inspired virtually all of Lachaise’s sculptures of the female form. “You are the Goddess I seek to express in all my work,” he wrote to her in 1915-16. (Information from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation). 

The exhibition runs through April 1, 2012. The Tramway Plaza is located on Second Avenue, between 59th and 60th Streets.

Faile's New Artwork on the Houston and Bowery Intersection Mural Space

The famous mural space at the corner of Houston and Bowery Streets in Lower Manhattan currently showcases a new large-scale artwork by Faile, a Brooklyn-based artists collective co-founded by Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller. They are known for pioneering a wider variety of mediums used in street art, and the use of wheatpasting (liquid adhesive made from paste and water) and stenciling. The same mural space has been home to artworks by artists such as Shepard Fairey.

Peter Woytuk's Whimsical and Captivating Sculptures on the Broadway Malls

Kiwi (72nd Street Subway Station)

The Acorn Bench (73rd Street)

Balancing Bearcat (64th Street, DantePark)

The Falling Apples (at 63rd Street, Dante Park)

The Broadway Mall Association is presenting eighteen sculptures of PETER WOYTUK for public view on the Broadway Malls from Columbus Circle to 168th Street. The Malls are a 5.5 mile-long park from the Upper West Side through Harlem to Washington Heights. Peter Woytuk is a well known American sculptor whose is known for small and grand pieces depicting an interplay of convex and concave form, space, color and shadow. Animals are a vehicle for expression, usually birds of varying sizes, colors and shapes. He also uses huge, gracefully composed animals such as bulls and elephants as subjects. Some figures are solitary, but many sculptures are compositions with fruit of vibrant colors, stone and other materials. Many of the pieces for the New York exhibition were created in China and Thailand, where he lives part of the year, and then were shipped to his studio in Connecticut. Pictured above are just some of the sculptures on public display at the Broadway malls on the Upper West Side. The sculptures will be on public view until April next year.

2011 ING New York City Marathon

video from the MTA

Yesterday, the 42nd annual New York City Marathon (branded ING New York City Marathon for sponsorship) took place in the city in good weather conditions. The ING New York City marathon is a major annual marathon (42.195 km/26.219 mi) that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is one of the largest marathons in the world, with 45,103 finishers last year. Along with the Boston Marathon and Chicago Marathon, it is among the pre-eminent long-distance annual running events in the United States and is one of the World Marathon Majors. The race is organized by New York Road Runners (NYRR) and has been run every year since 1970. In recent years, it has been sponsored by the financial group ING. It is held on the first Sunday of November and attracts professional competitors and amateurs from all over the world. Some runners don costumes during the event as shown in the pictures above. Because of the popularity of the race, participation is chosen largely by a lottery system. Runners who are members of NYRR can gain entry by meeting the qualifications for guaranteed entry or via nomination from an official running club. Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai won the men's New York City marathon Sunday, setting a new course record with a finish time of two hours, five minutes and six seconds. Mutai was awarded $130,000 for winning the race. Ethiopia's Firehiwot Dado won the women's contest, finishing in two hours, 23 minutes and 15 seconds. It was also reported that a couple got married while running the marathon. Some 47,000 people competed in yesterday's event. 

Islamic Art Galleries Reopen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

"The Damascus Room," an intact 18th-century reception room from an upper-class Syrian home.

Fountain at "The Damascus Room" 

Moroccan courtyard with intricately carved arches and a fountain was created by Moroccan craftsmen specifically for The Met

11-foot high 14-century Iranian prayer niche

Fountain created by Moroccan craftsmen specifically for The Met

Islam-inspired art is the newest attraction at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the reopening of Islamic Art Galleries last Tuesday. After 8 years of renovations and expansion and $40 million of work, the former Islamic Wing of the museum reopened as the "Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia." The 15 galleries spanning 19,000 square feet, almost a third more than before the reopening range from displays of palatial Persian carpets and Quranic calligraphy to pottery, silver work, wood carvings and mosaics. In all, the galleries display around 1,200 art pieces covering over a millennium of Islamic culture and conquest.