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BC and I checked out the Martin Kippenberger exhibition at MoMA today. It’s a really great show for people with limited attention spans, as he didn’t really stick to any one style or subject for too long, and the vastness of his output is quite entertaining, and he appeals to those who like to read wall labels and delve into the artist’s intent, as most of the work is saturated with meaning and references to art historical figures and movements. It seems very much like he was dealing with the last days of modernism as well as his own life. The last body of work on view at the museum is his reworking of the Raft of the Medusa, paintings and prints that convey a sense of an artist trying to come to terms with the past but unable to hang on, with little of the humor or irony of the earlier work—very powerful and moving.
Tonight we saw Eugene Ionesco’s fantastic Exit the King at the Barrymore Theatre, starring Susan Sarandon, Geoffrey Rush, and Lauren Ambrose. Susan Sarandon tells her husband, the king, “You are going to die in an hour and a half. You are going to die at the end of this play.” The comic absurdity of the narrative somehow manages also to be emotionally wrenching, the story basically about a man, the king, learning to die.
New York to me is the smell of creosote and cigarette smoke. And Magnolia cupcakes.