DOUG MCCLEMONT, one of Saatchi Online's magazine's regular New York contributors, the former Editor-in-Chief of HONCHO, Torso, Mandate, Inches and Playguy. His writing regularly appears in publications such as Publishers' Weekly, Library Journal and Screw. He has written introductory essays for several monographs on contemporary art and is currently at work on a book of short stories entitled Little Morticians. He selects his favourite culutral moments of 2008.
Olafur Eliasson's NEW YORK CITY WATERFALLS
If pressed to name something New York City doesn't already have thousands of, a waterfall might spring to mind. Eliasson's magical public installation of scaffolding and pumps under the Brooklyn Bridge and along the East River seemed to transfix nearly everyone. Boat tour companies created new routes for tourists to enjoy the majestic, environmentally sound anomalies. I once saw an entire subway car full of locals, who were crossing the bridge into Brooklyn, get up from their seats to point and smile in many languages.
HAIR at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park
Sure, it's a soupy counterculture Broadway musical, but the Public Theater's outdoor revival this summer boasted a cast with vocal chops and the obligatory (but too dark and brief) nude scene. Bryce Ryness, a smoking actor who plays the sexually scatterbrained Woof, is destined to be a huge star as well as my future ex-husband. The night I saw the show, the crickets sang along and Bill and Hillary Clinton sat behind us. I was satisfied that the palatable anti-war message was sinking into Hillary's hawkish head. Hair's final number, "Let the Sun Shine In," was brilliantly performed not as a holding hands hippie chant, but as an angry existential plea for perhaps just one day's peace.
MATTHEW BRANNON" The Question is a Compliment at Friedrich Petzel Gallery
Brannon is a superior writer who makes installations consisting of pseudo-superficial paragraphs sharing the stage with distilled and reclaimed graphic design. Any sentence he touches becomes unforgettably handsome.
THE FALL OF RUDY GIULIANI
Perhaps even more pleasant than witnessing the ascent of Barack Obama in American politics was the sweet taste of justice while watching the slow, steady demise of Rudy Giuliani. The fascist former mayor of New York systematically took the edge off of nightlife here simultaneously attempting to censor art or museums that didn't share his repressed Catholic bent. At one point the frontrunner, Ghouliani lost his run for the presidential nomination miserably, and something was righted in the world. Like CDs and AZT, New York's former Fuhrer ended up in history's dustbin. To discover Rudi's answer to everything check out this video.
THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE: a novel by Salman Rushdie
This book was a gift from an artist friend who knows how to dream. Recommended reading for anyone with room for fresh journeys with characters who deserve your time.
DARK FAIR at The Swiss Institute
The alternative brainchild of Matthew Higgs and Gavin Brown, this Soho event was instantly legendary. Those of us who got in before the fire department came experienced art in dark booths with flashlights and glow sticks and the flames from a candle or a spliff. Sue de Beer, Tim Lokiec and Martin Creed all contributed to the artsy chaos, which you can see here.
SIGUR ROS at MoMA
The Icelandic troupe of musical geniuses performed some of its transformative tunes at The Museum of Modern Art. A film was made by Alex Simmons that highlights the post-language appeal of the band. If you haven't seen the video for "Glosoli" click here immediately and let it wash over your creative bones.
ISA GENZKEN: Ground Zero at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, London
Wouldn't it be a perfect world if the world's greatest artist designed the replacement for the World Trade Center?
BRANDON NASTANSKI at Pulse
The skillful recent graduate of the Parsons MFA program constructed for his first public project "Speakeasy," a quaint, dark mini bar behind a bookcase that revealed itself when someone pulled a certain book from the shelf that was attached to a rope. The room inside came complete with three unexpected stools and the artist himself ready to serve you a drink. His jerry-rigged but handsome homemade constructions such as "Cabin of Curiosity" appear dilapidated yet retain a gentlemanly elegance. Fears from childhood and dirty rendezvous flashbacks simultaneously haunt each of his woody installations. The artist even brings the outside inside for his secret shrines, complete with grass and sky. Being able to walk into Nastanski's cramped labyrinth/toolbox/id was one of the great pleasures of this past year.
PAUL CHAN'S "The 7 Lights" at The New Museum
His take on grand themes such as music, god and gravity often took the form of projections onto the museum's floor. Chan's seven days of creation were like fading stained glass windows refracting realities of slow but certain biblical violence.
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