Nibble, nibble, mousie, who’s nibbling at my gallery?
The Gallery Met — you know, that space off to the opposite side of the box office, over near the State Theater? Oh, didn’t you know there was a gallery there? Well, in fact, neither did much of anyone else, judging by the sparse attendance there ever since they removed the lesbian erotica (that is, the Richard Prince piece about Madama Butterfly, which La Cieca thought was kind of fun). Now, let’s see. La Cieca knows she asked you here for a reason… oh, yes, of course! There’s actually a new exhibition opening at the Gallery Met, a sort of tie-in with the New Yorker, which certainly sounds like a nice intersection of target audiences.
Gallery Met has assembled together artists from the venerable magazine, plus a few special guests, in a colorful exhibition of new, original artworks titled Hansel and Gretel. The exhibition features such familiar New Yorker names as Roz Chast, Ian Falconer, Jules Feiffer, Ana Juan, Ed Koren, Anita Kunz, Lorenzo Mattotti, Christoph Niemann, Lou Romano, Owen Smith, William Steig, Gahan Wilson, and Bob Zoell. The exhibit also features new works by artists John Currin, George Condo, and William Wegman—also inspired by Hansel and Gretel.
The Met’s new production of the Humperdinck opera opens December 24. The gallery exhibition will be on view Friday, November 16 through February 2006.
On September 29, 2007 between the season’s matinee premiere of Aida and the evening’s Romeo et Juliet, I visited the Met’s gallery, twice, featuring Guillermo Kuitica’s exhibit titled “stage fright,” dipicting opera houses around the world. Both times, I was the only one around, and the attendant was indifferent and rather lost, with no enthusiasm for the surreal subject matter. The new artists may generate more interest. I didn’t particularly like the paintings, but I was expecting a more agressive curator.