Monthly Archives: January 2009

Yves Saint Laurent Collection at Auction

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Legendary clothes designer Yves Saint Laurent died last June at his residence in Paris, where he and his partner Pierre Bergé had created a house of style in bricks and mortar. Their art collection is now hitting the auction block at Christies this February. The collection is a testament to Saint Laurent’s style in its wide-ranging combination of mediums, time periods and styles.

Quite conveniently, just as this collection comes to auction another style maven, moi, is moving to a new apartment and is in serious need of furnishings. Thus I did some online shopping at Christie’s.
First there are practical matters to consider: how to sit, how to drink martinis, and how to eat cereal. My solutions:
Reading Chair


Amazing Silver and Coral Spoons

YSL bar: now that’s a beautiful thing.

But what shall I contemplate, not that I’m set up in that luxurious chair, enjoying a martini and cereal? Leger’s Profile and Hooch’s Parrot, I think. Then for sheer exuberance I’ll add Calder’s Dancers and Sphere. But I’ll have to find a table on which to display it.

Fernand Leger, The Black Profile

Pieter de Hooch, A Young Woman Feeding A Parrot Alexander Calder, Dancers and Sphere


This style, as I like to call it, is ‘Manhattan Spartan-Chic,’ combining essential luxuries in limited space. My new apartment will be a joy once I purchase these lovelies. There were many other temptations, but a blogger can only afford so much. As it is, I won’t have any funds leftover for Vermouth.

Louise Bourgeois’ Spiders

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“My work has always been a recording of my emotions. It’s not a concept that I’m after, but an emotion that I want to keep or destroy. All of my sculptures have the sense of vulnerability and fragility. Sexuality is one theme tied to those two states of being.” –Bourgeois, 2006 interview


Bourgeois, 97, still lives and works in New York City. Her spider, shown above, was there on my visit to Dia:Beacon. It fuses metal plates together in a way that suggests contained energy and torque. Balancing that strength, the heavy body rests on pins that end in sharp points. It’s a fragile stasis. In Dia’s small space, I was torn by the desire to examine it and nervousness that the spider would jump!



Despite the delicacy of the legs, these spiders seem less vulnerable than threatening. Spiders, such as the ones pictured above, have been a part of her work for many years. Even placed in an outdoor setting, they look as natural and harmless as Godzilla. They are fascinating works that draw you in even as they unnerve you.

Does anyone know more about why Bourgeois uses this spider motif?

The Modernist’s Versailles, Dia:Beacon

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If the city isn’t wintry enough for you, take MetroNorth out of Grand Central some morning up to Beacon, New York. Along the frozen Hudson River, this small town is home to Dia:Beacon, and Dia is a monument of a museum to Modernist art.
The scale of the place lends Modernism a lighthearted air. One feels distanced from the small people walking on the other side of the gallery and more immersed in an aesthetic experience. The huge works beg to be played with just as they play with your perceptions. The atmosphere invites you to touch the works (Dont!, however). It even begs for you to do a little dance inside the center of a Richard Serra sculpture. This sense of exploration is with you around every corner.
A former Nabisco factory, its proportions are suited to the huge works its showcases. Galleries of open windows and bare white wall, stretching miles, make it a pared down Versailles. The works, of Sol LeWitt and Joseph Beuys and other important Modernist figures, take up the space beautifully. Rooms bigger than most New York City apartments contain rows of Robert Ryman’s white paintings or compacted cars.

Robert Ryman, Vector, 1997.
Dia also has spaces set off from the main galleries on the ground floor, so that smaller, darker brick rooms hold Louise Bourgeois’s womb-like sculptures and her impressive bronze cast of a spider resting its huge weight on spindly legs. On the basement level, there are dark rooms showcasing neon light sculptures and movies playing on the walls. In a former loading dock are Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses, large circular wall installations of to wander in and out of.

Such extremes of Modernism can be overwhelming. I left wondering if the canvases painted white, the pieces of string attached floor to ceiling, and the compacted cars really hold meaning or if the whole experience was a colossal joke. Yet it does feel wonderfully playful to wander there, and the whole trip is a pleasant escape.

Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1997