Neue Galerie @ New York

The Ronald S. Lauder exhibition at the NEUE GALERIE NEW YORK, which I recently visited and which has now drawn to a close, was a veritable tour de force featuring highlights from one of the finest art collections in the world.

Ron Lauder refers to the "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" as "our Mona Lisa." It is the jewel in the crown of the permanent collection at the Neue Galerie New York.

From masterpieces by, among others, Cezanne, Picasso and Kandinsky to Austrian art, furnishings, silverwork and jewelry (Klimt, Schiele, Wiener Werkstätte) to postwar German art (Richter, Polke, Beuys), this show pulled out all the stops, thanks to Lauder's fine eye and truly remarkable collection amassed over a lifetime of loving art.

One room, darkened to protect the works on display there, for instance, contained several sketches and watercolor studies by Degas, Van Gogh, and Cezanne. Audible gasps could be heard from museumgoers who "stumbled" into this little gem of a room towards the end of the exhibition, which was spread out over two compact but cleverly utilized floors inside the elegant historic Manhattan villa that has housed the Neue Galerie for the past decade.

Heavy metal masterpieces

Museumgoers enter the Neue Galerie
(Photos by Karen Carstens)

To my own great surprise, I even lingered over Lauder's collection of centuries-old European armor that was showcased towards the beginning of the exhibition. I knew this would be on show alongside all the paintings I was so eager to see, and I thought all this vintage armor would bore me, er, stiff as it really seemed like more of a "guy thing" to me.

Most of the trappings of warfare, including weaponry and defensive garments through the ages, just don't float my boat as much as, say, a single painting by Van Gogh, Klimt or Hopper, which could leave me breathless and even render me utterly speechless (an occurance about as rare as a solar eclipse, anyone who knows me well would surely agree).

So I was amazed to find myself drawn to the often quite detailed craftsmanship - only visible up close - of these historic full suits of armor, some matched to metal headgear and other "defensive accessories" for horses, as well as the strangely futuristic (think Hieronymus Bosch creatures meet Samurai warriors meet "Star Wars" stormtroopers) heavy metal stylings of differently shaped helmets that comprise part of Lauder's collection.

Easter decor at the Café Fledermaus

Hearing Lauder himself explain on a free audio guide that accompanied the exhibition how each of these helmets started out "as a single ball of metal" before craftsmen wrestled them into these amazing shapes featuring various types of slanted openings for eyes, noses and mouths helped to underscore just how rare and special these items really are.

Lauder also explained how it is erroneous to believe that people were smaller back then because these suits of armor seem quite compact compared to the average height of men today. The reason they are so small is that they were often the first ever, ceremonial suits of armor presented to young teenage boys. And so they tended to stay at home - put on display in hallways, or perhaps stuffed into castle attics or similar - as these boys matured into men who may have taken to bloody battlefields, thus surviving unscathed for centuries.

Mona Lisa smile

Spring has sprung at the Café Fledermaus

Of course it was, moreover, as always wonderful to see the Klimt masterpiece which Lauder refers to as the Neue Galerie's "Mona Lisa" - the stunning "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I."

Lauder, a former US ambassador to Austria, purchased it at auction for the museum for $135 million in June 2006, which made it at that time the most expensive painting ever sold.

His soft spot for Klimt's work was evident via one audioguide entry during which he referred to his personal method for gauging great art. According to Lauder, there are some works that elicit a response of "oh," others of "oh my," and still others of "oh my God." He tries to chose only the latter, if possible, for his personal collection and for the museum.

Wide array of art books, high-end reproductions

After visiting any exhibition at the Neue Galerie, it's fun to linger in the elegant book store, which resembles a miniature yet well-stocked library featuring a wide array of delightful art books, and the adjacent design shop stocked with select reproductions of early 20th-century Austrian tea sets, textiles and jewels.

(Although these latter items, kept largely under lock and key, are more attainable for the alleged "1 percent" of Americans NOT somehow adversely affected by the 2008 economic downturn, or anyone about to "marry rich" - wedding registry information is available at this posh little shop staffed by elegant ladies.) 

Food and drink fit for an Austrian empress

Creamy Spätzle at the Café Fledermaus

No visit to the Neue Galerie would moreover be complete without setting foot inside one of the two cafés on the premises. As is usual for the Neue Galerie on a Sunday, there was a line to get into the Café Sabarsky, which is modeled after the elegant cafes of Vienna. So I headed down to the Café Fledermaus on the basement level, which is also quite charming and features the same menu as the more crowded upstairs cafe.

I indulged in a traditional springtime dish of Spätzle (egg dumplings), smothered in a divine creamy sauce made slightly healthier via the addition of some fresh peas, carrots and mushrooms. I washed this down with a wine spritzer (a mixture of club soda and white wine known as a "Weinschorle" in German).

All of the items on the menu are listed in both English and German, a charming touch that lends a solid air of authenticity to the proceedings (and makes former residents of Germany and lovers of the global art metropolis of Vienna such as myself feel mighty homesick for this stuff in Europe!). The dish I ordered, for instance, was listed on the menu as follows: "Spätzle mit Schwammerln, Erbsen, Karotten & Estragon" (Creamed Spätzle with wild Mushrooms, Peas, Carrots & Tarragon).

I followed this main lunch course up with a slice of the famous Austrian chocolate cake known as "Sachertorte" and a "Wiener mélange" (espresso with steamed milk and foam). Other diners meanhwile were enjoying bratwurst and gulash dishes, as well as other delectable desserts such as "Apfelstrudel" (apple strudel).

Must-see Galerie

I would recommend going to virtually any exhibition, the bookstore and one of the cafes at the Neue Galerie in a heartbeat. Ron Lauder and the Neue Galerie staff have done an excellent job of showcasing Austrian and German art in a stunning setting conveniently located near major New York art museums.

Dessert does not survive for long at the Neue Galerie. Here's my virtually untouched, frothy "Wiener mélange" and a nearly devoured slice of delicious "Sachertorte," which is perhaps the most famous of all Austrian cakes. (It must be moist - a dry Sachertorte is a bad/old Sachertorte!)

Van Gogh Painting (Re-)Discovered @ The Hague

"It was, it wasn’t, it is: A still life once thought to be by Vincent van Gogh but later downgraded to being the work of an anonymous artist is indeed by the tormented Dutch impressionist himself, researchers announced Tuesday."

This exciting art news was recently reported by The Associated Press.

The real experts in the Netherlands and beyond were apparently not that surprised by the finding. But this is nonetheless pretty exciting stuff for the rest of us, especially Van Gogh's legions of fans. (I'm one of them.)

Van Gogh @ Philadelphia Museum of Art

I could plan an entire weekend in the City of Brotherly Love around this exhibit:

VAN GOGH UP CLOSE - PHILADEPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

Focusing on his post-Holland, and final, years in France, it aims to "engage the viewer with the strength of his emotions."

And they were STRONG.

John Peter Russell - Vincent van Gogh (1886)

I recall taking an art history class as an elective in college and the professor (who bore more than a passing resemblance to Bebe Neuwirth, that brilliant actress who played Frasier's brainy, raven-haired wife, Lillith Sternin, on "Cheers") insisting on calling Van Gogh simply "Vincent" because of the highly personal nature of his work.

"Really I have to call him Vincent in presenting these slides to you because that is what he was painting - what Vincent saw, what Vincent felt, what Vincent perceived," she said, her voice quivering with unexpected emotion, leading some of us to believe she would suddenly rip off her glasses and undo her bun, her hair tumbling in inky, wild waves about her face and shoulders like Edvard Munch's erotically defiant yet remote "Madonna" or that brazen librarian-like Asian vixen lady in the video for Thomas Dolby's smash 1982 hit single "She Blinded Me With Science."

Seeing a real live Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painting right in front of you is like gazing head on at someone you  have just fallen in love with - you simply cannot look away (but at some point you just might have to because it is almost too much to bear...) as Vincent's brushstrokes, colors and compositions sear themselves into your mind, never to be quite forgotten like the complex contours of a long-lost lover you will always pine for even if only in some frozen-out recess of your slowly fading personal memory bank.

Vincent van Gogh - Self-Portrait (1889)

I've seen Van Gogh paintings at, among other places, the National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Van Gogh Museum.

When I was an undergraduate student of political science - with a missionary-like view to eventually becoming some kind of do-gooder-nature-savior environmental journalist - up at McGill University in Montreal the walls of most of the apartments I occupied during that four-year period suspended artificially between adolesence and adulthood were plastered in various forms with Van Gogh prints torn out of a calendar and Van Gogh posters purchased at various museums. (Georgia O'Keefe and a few European Expressionists also made an appearance here and there, as well as countless "arty" postcards that seemed "cool" to just tape in various creatively conceived formations along bedroom walls or doors ... )

Van Gogh helped keep me awake at night as I typed up undergrad papers until 4 am in flannel pajamas on my brand-new Macintosch Classic with a spoon lodged bolt upright inside an open jar of Nutella perched upon the slab-like, birch-veneer IKEA desk that took up at least a third of my bedroom.

(This was before we even knew what the Internet was, or had vaguely heard it was some project of the U.S. military, and when email was only some kind of minimalistic intra-university thing used sparingly, for instance, to tell a classmate that you had, indeed, just talked to that silent hot Indian dude in the mysterious Nehru jacket you'd both been pining for all semester in that African politics class ... ah, the unbearable lightness of being young - 'tis all too fleeting one only realizes with adequate hindsight!)

Vincent van Gogh - Irises (1889) (c) All Photos: Wikimedia Commons

These papers involved muted musings heavily supported by secondary literature on the the political situation du jour in various parts of the world - possibly influenced by the strains of REM, U2, Nirvana, Depeche Mode, New Order, the Smiths, the Pixies or Sting playing faintly in the background - and were delivered, sometimes via taxi (no one owned a car), in the nick of time to the Social Science building on campus the next morning (... were you still wearing the Nutella-stained flannel pajama pants under your coat? no matter - so were several other students ... ).

Van Gogh's brushstrokes energized me because they made me feel alive. It's like they set off tiny sparks like pop rockets going off all over my brain, like pulsating electrictiy shifting it back into a higher gear.

I remember seeking out one particular Van Gogh painting ("The Night Cafe") that was depicted in my lavishly illustrated encyclopedic art history book.

It was like a pilgrimage.

Vincent van Gogh - Starry Night Over the Rhone (Arles, 1888)

I knew from my college artbook that it was located at the Yale University Art Gallery, where my older boyfriend at the time was enrolled in an MBA program. Given that he had a car and had actually worked full time (!) before, he tended to drive up to visit me in Montreal more often than I visited him in New Haven.

But finally I was going to go visit him again at Yale. I was eager to see him - and excited to seek out said Van Gogh painting while he engaged in some kind of dreadful-sounding "group exercise" with some of his super-driven Yale classmates (who later worked at places in Manhattan that sounded terribly dull to me, like Goldman Sachs, where a single annual salary + bonus was easily five times more than what I later would make starting out as a local newspaper reporter in Maryland ... but what was money? ... yep, I was an idealistic middle class white kid from Chevy Chase, Maryland).

So while my boyfriend was busy with his truly intense studies at Yale, I meandered over to the university's art gallery by myself. After foraging through some interesting, but not exactly heart-stopping, ancient Central American figurines and other similar objects, I finally entered the room where the Van Gogh was hanging ...

... and I instantly lost all sense of time and place as I was engulfed by its melancholy yet oddly radiant nocturnal gloom, by its garish, almost sickly greens, yellows and reds and by the disconcerting, zombie-like gaze of the man at the pool table.

I sighed. Now this, I thought to myself, is a true work of art that will have the same impact on someone a century from today.

That is the power of Vincent's work.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) - The Night Café (Arles, 1888)

(And we have his doting brother Theo to thank for it - Vincent was totally broke when he lived in southern France and Theo, a Paris-based art dealer who alas never managed to sell a single painting by Vincent, sent him some high quality paints from time to time. Thanks Theo!)