1. Brilliant painting

Time for a break from ringing phones, and sick pets. My break of choice is in Brooklyn: a little culture never hurt anyone and it was opening day for the John Singer Sargent watercolor exhibit  at the Brooklyn Museum. It  will travel to Boston and Houston.

Some works by Sargent. His work in water colors with variation of translucence and opacity, some with the technique of wax resist creates wonderful texture and light.

2. Brilliant Photography

In addition, the very haunting photography exhibit of La Toya Ruby Frazier should not be missed.

LaToya Ruby Frazier, self portrait

From the Brooklyn Museum website:

March 22–August 11, 2013

Mezzanine Gallery, 2nd Floor

“LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital uses social documentary and portraiture to create a personal visual history of an industrial town’s decline. Through approximately 40 photographic works of her family and their hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier offers an intimate exploration of the effects of deindustrialization on the lives of individuals and communities. Home to one of America’s first steel mills, Braddock now has a population below 2,500 and has been declared a “distressed municipality.”

Frazier began to explore Braddock’s history in her series Notion of Family, four examples of which are on view in this exhibition. That project uses the bodies of the artist, her mother, and her grandmother both to reveal complex intergenerational relationships and to serve as a metaphor for their town’s decay. Frazier’s portrayal of this American landscape is in stark contrast to images from a recent corporate ad campaign set in Braddock, which she felt not only erased the troubled realities of her endangered town but also excluded the community to which her family belongs.

Frazier, whose work is featured in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, is Associate Curator for the Mason Gross galleries and teaches photography at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital was organized by Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum.

Generous support for this exhibition was provided by the Lambent Foundation and the FUNd.”

This is one of the most moving and brilliant photography collections I have seen in a long while. I was haunted by the images of Ms. Frazier and her family: three generations of women suffering from diseases attributed to the factory life of Braddock, Pennsylvania, where they lived. The demise of the town is reflected in the faces and futures of the residents.

 3. Brilliant Food

Then on to comfort food…

It was time for a post-Passover repast of the best pastrami on rye, and being in Brooklyn, one has to go to the source of some great comfort food, The Mill Basin Kosher Deli at 5823 Avenue T Brooklyn, NY 11234.

This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.

The series starts here

continued here