Our roving photographer is roving in one of our favorite places. Spring is a great time to check out some of the latest exhibits at our museums which, lest we forget, are some of the greatest in the world. We’ve highlighted three today. Japan Fes is back and features over 25 vendors from Japan.  Life of Pi comes to Broadway and Valerie Smaldone has the scoop. Our Broadway Babe is back with more wonderful theatrical streaming finds. Ready for a perfect day? Join us at our Renewal Summit on May 19^th .

Incredible panels and specials guest; fabulous exhibitors; awesome attendees; and then a wine and a (vegan) chocolate reception at the end of the day. What could be better?

Though Aug. 13. Georgia O’Keefe at MoMA

“To see takes time,” Georgia O’Keeffe once wrote. Best known for her flower paintings, O’Keeffe (1887-1986) also made extraordinary series of works in charcoal, pencil, watercolor, and pastel. Reuniting works on paper that are often seen individually, along with key paintings, this exhibition offers a rare glimpse of the artist’s working methods and invites us to take time to look. Over her long career, O’Keeffe revisited and reworked the same subjects, developing, repeating, and transforming motifs that lie between observation and abstraction. Between 1915 and 1918, a breakthrough period of experimentation, she made as many works on paper as she would during the next four decades, producing progressions of bold lines, organic landscapes, and frank nudes, as well as the radically abstract charcoals she called “specials.”

Even as she turned increasingly to painting, important series—including flowers in the 1930s, portraits in the ’40s, and aerial views in the ’50s—reaffirmed her commitment to working on paper. Drawing in this way enabled O’Keeffe to capture not only nature’s forms but its rhythms: tracing the sun’s spiraling descent in vividly hued pigment, or committing to velvety black the shifting perspective as seen from an airplane window. GET THE DETAILS.

Happening Today. JAPANFes is in Chelsea

The festival is back and will be moving around the city each weekend.  Today it’s at Chelsea 6th ave 24-25th st! You will find a variety of popular Japanese street food options that have been featured in the media, including Takoyaki, which has been featured in Travel Thirsty Blog, Buzzfeed, Action Bronson Show, NHK/BS1, Food Film Festival, and Cooking Channel by Karls Balls, and authentic Curry Udon that has been featured in the local Japanese newspaper by J’s Kitchen! Additionally, as a sweet vendor, Chewy Mochi ice cream by Mochi-Doki joins us for the first time! They have been featured in publications like The New York Times, Forbes, Food Network, and The Today Show. GET THE FULL SCHEDULE.

At the MET. Berenice Abbott’s New York Album, 1929

The Met has a fascinating exhibit, of 266 Berenice Abbott’s New York Album, 1929, consisting of 266 small black-and-white prints arranged on thirty-two pages, In January 1929, after eight years in Europe, the American photographer Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) boarded an ocean liner to New York City for what was meant to be a short visit. Upon arrival, she found the city transformed and ripe with photographic potential. “When I saw New York again, and stood in the dirty slush, I felt that here was the thing I had been wanting to do all my life,” she recalled. With a handheld camera, Abbott traversed the city, photographing its skyscrapers, bridges, elevated trains, and neighborhood street life. She pasted these “tiny photographic notes” into a standard black-page album, arranging them by subject and locale.

Abbott’s New York album marks a key turning point in her career—from her portrait work in Paris to the urban documentation that culminated in her federally funded project, Changing New York (1935–39). Berenice Abbott’s New York Album, 1929 presents a selection of unbound pages from this unique album, shedding new light on the creative process of one of the great photographic artists of the twentieth century.

For context, the exhibition also features views of Paris by Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927), whose extensive photographic archive Abbott purchased and publicized; views of New York City by her contemporaries Walker Evans, Paul Grotz, and Margaret Bourke-White; and photographs from Changing New York.

A Neighborhood Book Store

Our roving photographer, Nicole Freezer Rubens, is at The Corner Bookstore at 1313 Madison Avenue this week.  She writes:

“This is a true mom and pop gem that certainly lives up to its name. It is an inviting neighborhood shop where the community still gathers for author readings, literary events and simply to relax and browse. It has only been open since 1978 but to me the cozy bookstore with its stone checkerboard floor, tin ceiling, carved wooden bookshelves and massive antique cash register feels twice as old.

Whenever I am in Carnegie Hill, I stop in merely to soak up the warm old school atmosphere. I also love the way they gift wrap each book like it’s a really important gift. Other than the constantly rotating new releases in so many comprehensive categories, the store and the vibe has remained the same since I first entered as a teenager. It is nice to be reminded that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Nicole Freezer Rubens is the author of poetry/photo book, “The Long Pause and the Short Breathe.” Follow her on https://www.instagram.com/nfrconsult/

Broadway Babe

Our Broadway Babe, Randie Levine-Miller is somewhat of a theatrical excavator… With “Phantom of the Opera” getting ready to end its Broadway run after 35 years, she’s dug up a 1988 press reel with the original Broadway cast;  has posted the perfect video of the multiple award winning “Elaine Stritch at Liberty”; a video of the Hollywood Palace TV show with Bing Crosby, George Burns and Sid Caesar; as well as an old kinescope from 1956, “The NBC Comedy Hour.” WATCH THE VIDEOS. 

4,000 Years of Treasures at the NYPL

For more than 125 years, The New York Public Library has collected, preserved, and made accessible the world’s knowledge. Now, for the first time, the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures showcases some of the most extraordinary items from the 56 million in our collections, inspiring and empowering visitors to discover, learn, and create new knowledge—today and in the years ahead. Highlights include Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence, and Charles Dickens’ desk. Head over to Fifth Avenue for a walk though history. Get the details.