Bear with Me…
In Chicago, sports fans have the Cubs AND the Bears, but this week art lovers in New York are the ones showing the team spirit…
Christie’s auction house just installed Untitled Lamp/Bear, a giant yellow bronze sculpture by the Swiss artist, Urs Fischer, at the Seagram Building pedestrian plaza!!! This is no tiny teddy hanging out between 52nd and 53rd St. on Park Ave., but a 20-ton and 23-foot tall giant, built in Shanghai as an edition of three. The other two are currently in private collections and this one now up for sale is expected to sell for more than $10 million when it hits the May auction block! You can visit day or night as this bedtime bear appears to be afraid of the dark–its lamp lights up at night.
You don’t have to be a Goldilocks like me to love the timeless design of Hans Wegner’s ‘Papa Bear’ Chair! Cozy, comfy, and colorful — it’s JUST RIGHT! Designed in 1951, the chair form got its name from the armrests that embrace the sitter like great big bear paws and is featured in dozens of contemporary designs, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marden House in Virginia. So perfect for any interior…it’s like something out of a modern, mid-century fairy tale!
And, then there are the bare necessities…from the animalistic to the altruistic, you have through Saturday to see ‘Günther Uecker: The Early Years’ on view at L&M Gallery in New York or online at www.lmgallery.com. The mix of industrial imagery and organic inspiration led me to find a paw-printed shape in Blume, 1968. Other works on view that will no doubt stop you in your tracks…New York Dancer I, 1965 that spins into a furry frenzy, and String Chair, 1969, a cascade of sac leather strips down the edges of a side chair.
Uecker (b. 1930) has already made his mark in Europe, particularly in his native Germany where he was part of the Zero Group, artists joined by their efforts to remove imagery and focus on work that Uecker calls “a journey towards painting.” Represented in the collections of: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, this show curated by Amy Gold, Senior Director of L&M Gallery and pictured above in front of an Uecker installation, is the first of its kind in New York in over four decades. I’ve reserved a spot for the exhibition catalogue on the Branca bookshelves…call L&M Gallery today and buy your copy!
