gago11's trip around the world for Damien Hirst's Spot Challenge. Eight cities, three continents, eleven Gagosian galleries, to see all of Damien Hirst's 1986-2011 spot paintings and more!
Contact the author at gago 11 . usa at gmail.com. (Please remove spaces.)
Miles flown: 2475 miles x 2 New York JFK <-> Los Angeles LAX
Flight time: 10h 45 min = 5h 45 min + 5h
Landed: 9:15 am at Los Angeles LAX
Left: 9:25 pm for New York JFK
Returned: 5:30 am at New York JFK (January 29, 2012)
I left my apartment at 4:10 am. Remember my insistence at using public transportation?
Not having been to Frank Gehry's concert hall before, I was interested to see the building and I bought a ticket for a children's concert at 11 am. Though my flight arrived 40 minutes early, I was four minutes late because of a problem with public transportation. The concert featured excerpts from Mahler 5. The acoustics were impressive, and I found Gehry's design ingenious.
Walt Disney Concert Hall, courtesy of Wikipedia and Carol Highsmith
Mahler 5 Adagietto, Walter & Vienna, 1938, courtesy of YouTube
My next stop, after lunch, was LACMA. I spent most of my time inside the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, designed by Renzo Piano. The second floor featured a special Ellsworth Kelly exhibition. Koons, Baldessari, Therrien and Warhol shared the third floor, while Serra's sculptures and a Nauman video were on the first floor. The elevator shaft showed Barbara Kruger.
If I wasn't the first to complete the Challenge, I could very well be the first to arrive at the Beverly Hills gallery by bus! Afterwards I was off to see the Chinese Theater in Hollywood before heading back downtown for dinner. I thought of having dinner in Chinatown, but oddly most places had closed or were about to close, and it was not even 6 pm yet. Little Tokyo was much more inviting.
I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.
My strong allegiance to Manhattan has softened over the years, and Los Angeles is probably much more exciting culturally than it was when Woody Allen's Annie Hall was released. Still Los Angeles is difficult without a car, but I found much I liked. I'd like to see all the famous modernist architecture some day. The urban sprawl was jarring, and using the bus made me acutely aware of deep economic divisions. But yes, I'll admit this:
Sun is shining, the weather is sweet Make you want to move your dancing feet
Miles flown: 8067 miles New York JFK to Hong Kong HKG + 1569 miles Hong Kong HKG to Kuala Lumpur KUL
Flight time: 24h 35 min (20h 55 min + 3h 40 min); return on Jan 23, 20h+
Landed: 7:55 am at Hong Kong HKG
Left: 4:15 pm to Kuala Lumpur KUL
Landed: 7:55 pm at Kuala Lumpur KUL
Returned: ~9 pm at New York JFK, January 23, 2011
I booked my ticket too late, so the direct flights to Hong Kong were too expensive and I had a connection via Vancouver. I'd never been to Vancouver, but all transit passengers were confined to the aircraft while it was cleaned quickly. Cathay Pacific has an excellent entertainment system, and I watched several movies (all on demand), and during the New York-Vancouver segment, the aircraft was virtually empty.
While this was just two days before Chinese New Year, Gagosian kept to its regular hours. It wasn't opening until 11, so I took a cab for Tuen Mun to visit my friend S and his family. This time I caved and took a cab, as a bus would just be too taxing after a transpacific flight. S's wife fed me homemade corn bread and tea, while we all chatted and watched their kid whip up some amazing Lego structures in no time.
S insisted on driving me to Central. We walked past Occupy Hong Kong underneath the HSBC building. The protesters had a reduced presence compared to when I saw them a month before.
Occupy Hong Kong, photo taken Dec 2011
When we arrived at Gagosian, two other Challengers had already arrived and were waiting for their stamps. From their conversation, I guessed that one was juggernut3, who writes for the art blog Arrested Motion. I had been following the travails of my fellow Challengers virtually prior to my trip, and I knew that three people were racing for the top. Juggernut3's last stop was Hong Kong and was the third person to finish. I chatted with them briefly, and it was really nice of juggernut3 to take a photo of me and the other Challenger, who I'm guessing was estefue. He subsequently finished in Beverly Hills, based on Gagosian's Facebook pages.
gago11 in black jacket and estefue (I think), courtesy of juggernut3 of Arrested Motion
S treated me to dim sum at Luk Yu Teahouse, and we met another friend for a quick coffee before I set off for the airport via the Airport Express.
Prior to landing in Kuala Lumpur, the flight attendants walked down the aisles and sprayed a disinfectant, supposedly following some rules. I'd never seen this before. Upon arrival, I caved and took a cab again. While the airport is far from the city center, the fare, around $25, wasn't outrageous. I spent the night and the next day and a half with my parents, flying home Monday Jan 23 at 1:45 pm, the first day of the Year of the Dragon.
Previous Gagosian gallery visit: Lichtenstein's Chinese landscapes, Dec 22, 2011
Airfare: $1660.15
Hotel: free, thanks to mom & dad
Miles flown: 469 miles x 2 + 3452 miles London LHR to New York JFK
Flight time: 11h 25 min = 1h 40 min + 1h 45 min + 8h
Landed: 11:35 am at Geneva GVA
Left: 3:25 pm for London LHR
Returned: 8:20 pm at New York JFK
Time was especially tight as I insisted on using public transportation as much as possible. I only had about 45 minutes in the city center. The weak dollar and the strong Swiss franc were giving me sticker shock, so I was actually glad that I had little time in Geneva. I had a quick look at the Flower Clock and saw Jet d'Eau from a distance, bought some Thai takeout, and I was back at the airport.
Jet d'Eau, courtesy of Wikipedia
At Heathrow, I managed to get on an earlier flight for New York that left two hours before the one I was booked on without paying another change fee. I was very thankful.
My friend A was running late, so I wandered over to the Charing Cross Road bookstores. I had bought some Hévin chocolates for her, but when I was getting my things from the coat check at the National Gallery, I ran into the friend who had gone to the show with the woman who had sold me her extra ticket. So she got the chocolates instead as a thank you.
I told A this story over lunch, and I said, Well, I have some macarons I didn't get to eat in the morning and we can share these for dessert. But as I reached for them in my bag, I realized they were gone as well. I'd given them away inadvertently.
Ladurée Burlington Arcade, courtesy of Ladurée.fr
Off we went searching for macarons at Ladurée Burlington Arcade. But instead we indulged ourselves at the Parlour at Fortnum & Mason across the street.
I marveled at how well A coped with motherhood. While she was caring for her baby in a changing room, I waited in the lingerie section nearby. One item had this on it, which I thought summed up the Challenge quite well:
Time spent waiting in line: More than 2.5 hours
Time spent at the exhibition: Less than 2.5 hours
Number of Leonardo paintings seen: 9*
The Lady with an Ermine, courtesy of the National Gallery, London
The Leonardo ticket was the hottest in town. Advance tickets were sold out shortly after the exhibition opened in November. And sadly I arrived too late. Though the people at the end of the queue and other "latecomers" and I (7 am was considered late; people started queuing at 5:30 or earlier, apparently) were told repeatedly that there were no more tickets that day and it'd be a waste of time to wait, I stayed anyway.
Some have queued more than three times, oh my god.... courtesy of audreyamarillo and YouTube
I was hoping for my moment of serendipity. When traveling, one is especially dependent on the kindness of strangers. I once made it into a sold out Bruckner 8 concert at the Concertgebouw. I've been especially lucky in Paris, where I'd gotten back cash (and even a passport!) that I'd accidentally dropped. I had to wait for two hours for this moment to arrive. About 20 minutes before the museum opened, a woman was looking to sell an extra ticket, and someone connected the dots and remembered the guy who had flown all the way from New York to see the show. So I ended up inside the museum when it opened.
Was the Leonardo show hyped and not worth the trouble? I found it remarkable that I was able to get so close to his art because of the strict crowd control policies at the museum. As I was in the first group that was let in, I was able to take a quick look at all the paintings before others got to them, and I looked at the drawings later.
It was a treat to have two versions of Virgin of the Rocks at opposite ends of the room. The London version is later than the Louvre version, and Leonardo's palette had become more restrained. Leonardo also added halos in the London version. The Entente Cordiale might have been signed nearly a century ago, but different art tastes in the two countries have led to a very public clash in the restoration of Leonardo's celebrated The Virgin and Child with St Anne, over which two French art experts resigned in protest.
The face of the exhibition was Lady with an Ermine. This painting came from Poland and reports were that it would not be lent to another show for at least ten years. I found myself being fascinated by the ermine, which recalled other exquisite art on animals, such as Durer's famous hare.
Pairing paintings and related drawings made for a particularly enjoyable and educational experience. The curators seemed to be making a case for Boltraffio's significant hand in Madonna Litta from the Hermitage through drawings by Boltraffio, one of Leonardo's most talented students. Drapery drawings by Leonardo supported the attribution of Salvator Mundi to the master. There someone else had his moment of serendipity, or, put more simply, hit the jackpot. The Lenoardo attribution meant that a painting that was worth 45 pounds about fifty years ago was now worth more than 120 million pounds.
The final part of the exhibition took place in the Sunley room in the main building. The Last Supper obviously could not travel, but the curators gathered the drawings related to the badly damaged fresco in this room. Also shown was the earliest known full-scale copy of the fresco by Giampietrino (Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli), now at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, from about 1520. It includes details now irretrievably lost in Leonardo's fresco, such as Christ's feet.
Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, courtesy of Credit Suisse and YouTube
A special HD presentation of the show can be seen in movie theatres around the world over the next few weeks.
*Leonardo paintings in the show, in the order seen
The Musician (c. 1486-7), Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan
The Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489-90), on deposit at National Museum, Crakow
La Belle Ferronnière (c. 1493-4), Louvre
Saint Jerome (c. 1488-90), Vatican Museums
The Virgin of the Rocks (1483-c. 1485), Louvre
The Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1491/2-9, 1506-8), National Gallery, London
The Madonna Litta (c. 1491-5), Hermitage
Christ as Salvator Mundi (c. 1499 onwards), Private collection
The Madonna of the Yarnwinder (c. 1499 onwards), The 10th Duke of Buccleuch and the Trustees of the Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust (this painting was attributed to Leonardo and unknown 16th century painter)
Train travel: ~300 miles x 2 London St Pancras <-> Paris Gare du Nord
Train time: 4h 49 min = 2h 23 min + 2h 26 min
Arrived: 3:47 pm at Paris Gare du Nord
Left: Eurostar 8:13 pm for London St Pancras
As soon as I boarded the train for Paris, I regretted leaving my bag at St Pancras. The left luggage office closed at 10 pm, 21 minutes after I was due back in London. A delay would be troublesome.
I rushed to Gagosian once I got off the train. I walked down rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, past Élysée Palace, past some Christmas lights that were still on at Place Vendôme, to various shops in Paris I always visit when I am there -- Colette, for the latest photobooks; JP Hévin, for exquisite chocolates and agnès b., for essential couture.
While agnès b. was panned in the New York Times for shirts "that would probably cost one-third as much at Uniqlo," I remain a loyal customer. Although prices have ballooned frighteningly (certainly outpacing the rate of inflation) since I bought my first shirt in Amsterdam in 2001, they are still affordable during the giddy Paris soldes and still hard to pass up with VAT refunds. The size 36 shirt is a nearly perfect cut for me, whereas American cuts are probably made for twice my size.
A stop at Gagosian meant that I had very little time for Fondation Cartier (designed by Jean Nouvel). Still I spent twenty minutes there, which was far too short to appreciate properly the Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere exhibition. The show was a collaboration among artists and mathematicians, who included Fields Medalists, such as a 2010 medalist Cédric Villani.
Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere, courtesy of Fondation Cartier
The most striking artwork I found was a sculpture by Hiroshi Sugimoto, renowned for his minimalist photographs of black-and-white seascapes, long-exposure photographs of theaters and blurry photographs of iconic modernist architecture. From the bookshop I picked up a second copy of his monograph Conceptual Forms, which has become impossible to find in the USA.
Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Conceptual Form 011: Surface of Revolution with Constant Negative Curvature" in the Fondation Cartier exhibition, courtesy of Wallpaper.com
Cover of Sugimoto's Conceptual Forms, courtesy of Barnes & Noble
Did I just stamp your passport twice, asked an incredulous immigration officer at Gare du Nord
Dinner was a salmon tart, which I ate on the train. My seat mate was watching La Règle du Jeu on his DVD player, which he said he watched regularly. Renoir's brilliant portrayal of aristocratic dysfunction at the eve of World War II is a masterpiece.
Le plus terrible dans ce monde c'est que chacun à ses raisons. Drop terrible and this famous line from the movie explains why anyone even takes up the Spot Challenge.
I had no trouble retrieving my bag at St Pancras.
Previous Gagosian gallery visit: Cy Twombly + Jean Prouvé, Nov 27, 2010
Train tickets: $227
Miles flown: 3452 miles New York JFK to London LHR
Flight time: ~7h
Landed: ~9 am at London LHR
Left: Eurostar 12:24 pm for Paris
Returned: 9:39 pm at St Pancras
My journey began on Jan 14, 2012....
Time was tight, so I prebooked my Heathrow Express ticket for Paddington station and took a cab for the Davies Street gallery. Despite missing one train just as it was leaving, I arrived a few minutes before the gallery's opening time at 10 am. I even had a nice stroll past Claridge's and thought about my sticker shock from drinks there years ago.
Claridge's Hotel, London, courtesy of Wikipedia and flickr
Some unforeseen trouble meant the gallery would be open late, but fortunately the delay was short. The cheerful staff gave me directions for the second London gallery at Britannia Street, directing me to use the Victoria line at the Green Park tube station, which was a quicker way that hadn't occurred to me. Davies Street had the smallest spot paintings of the show. Britannia Street showed a round painting that was like a flower, with a large spot in the middle and half spots around it. I did not see this design anywhere else.
With more than an hour to spare, I had time for an egg sandwich and a hot chocolate at Caffè Nero and I left my bag at the luggage check at St Pancras station.
Then off to Paris!
Previous Gagosian gallery visit: James Turrell at Britannia Street, Nov 26, 2010 (?)
Airfare: ~$1000 (includes $275 change fee)
Hotel: $122.60 per night x 2 nights
