At The MoMA

Detail

Marcel Odenbach, German, born 1953

You Can't See the Forest for the Trees
2003

Cut-an-pasted printed paper, cut-and-pasted colored paper, ink, and pencil on two pieces of paper

The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift, 2005

Odenbach's upbringing in postwar Germany was inextricably linked with the country's sociopolitical history, a heritage he addresses in his compositions though the bits of text and images culled from a variety of mass-media sources that often fade into the background of the larger drawings. You Can't See the Forest for the Trees plays on a common expression and is a plea to not only see this particular forest as a forest but also take into account its context: the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was named after the many birch trees surrounding the complex.

Calder and his shadow

While in New York and a visit to the MoMA, I saw a great display of several Calder sculptures. Many were very complex, but this lone figure dangling from the ceiling and its cast shadow kept me mesmerized of its form and its ever changing shadow on the wall.

Weekend in New York

Last weekend, I was in New York with my sister to see Cirque Du Soleil's winter show Wintuk. It is currently running until January 6, 2008, 10 weeks, and will run for 10 weeks for the next six years and then they say that is it. Or maybe it will move to a new city.

The show was all 100% Cirque fantasy, imagination, wonderment, whimsical, magical and awesome! They made it snw in the WaMu Theatre at Madison Square Garden. I collected a bag of snow and brought it home. It does not show well in the image but it is light and airy and falls just like snow. It was magical!

If you get to New York, check it out.

Other weekend highlight:
• Lunch at Dumpling Man in the East Village
• Teaching my sister how to navigate Manhattan; uptown/downtown/crosstown, streets run east/west, avenues north/south
• Georges Suerat drawing at the MoMA ; studies for Sunday in the Grande Jate
• Staying in the smallest room I have ever stayed in New York at the Paramount
• New store Muji