Escaping Artist

“I’m sitting in the railway station, got a ticket for my destination…”

Other than an old steamer crossing the Atlantic, trains, being much older than the road, might be the most romantic form of travel, and one that remains completely overlooked in this country, romantically and practically. European trains, with stations older than our historic buildings, live up to their myth, and each kind—overnight sleepers, cheap locals chugging through the Spanish desert, efficient bullets whipping between Berlin and Munich, excessively expensive rides through the Channel—exudes a certain stereotype of travel, each appeals to a certain class of passenger. I cling to the notion that traveling poor is the best way to see the underside of travel, as wealth is too warm and insulating. A French flight attendant, walking me through a snoring first class on a flight to Paris, laughingly told me, “it’s a different world up here!” When he brought a first class meal with silver wear and dessert, I had to admit it was. Trains, like buses, are more affordable (or ought to be), and therefore attract a different kind of traveler; most people do not pick the slowest way to their destination because they harbor romantic ideas about trains and passing scenery, but because of price.
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I vividly remember the first time I saw Netherlands Dance Theater perform, a truly amazing European dance company that travels too little in the U.S. The experience eviscerated my then teenage conception of “proper” dance, believing that traditional dance, or even worse that traditional ballet, was the apex we were universally training toward. Ballet teachers encourage their students to believe that those who choose companies outside the realm of ballet are settling due to a lack of talent. It always seemed odd that the dancers talented enough to learn the movements while granting them a unique life and character, were drawn toward “modern” companies. NDT dancers are not simply good dancers, they are the very best kind of dancers; precise artists who happen to use their bodies to express conceptual ideas. The style of the company is more lyrical and conceptual than Taylor’s, the choreography tends to be balletic rather than athletic, and the stories are conceptual rather than narrative.

All forms of dance consume (destroy) the body long before you would like, aging normally seems traumatic enough, and another interesting aspect of NDT is that they house not one company but three—NDT is the original, NDT II is for the young, and NDT III for the elderly—and each company serves different functions. Looked at cynically or practically, young companies usually exist to feed preferred dancers into the main group, and an elderly troupe is perhaps like Las Vegas is to singers; where dancers go to die. Thought about a little more creatively, however, three companies pulled from three different age brackets parallels people themselves at different ages; everyone has something a little different to offer. Thinking specifically of performers, the young can offer an energy and exuberance that age tempers, those in their absolute prime can offer a kind of athletic human perfection, and older performers are seasoned and experienced; they don’t make the mistakes you predict in others.

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For an archive that caters primarily to fashion, lifestyle, travel, and celebrity based imagery, which is then sold to the type of magazines owned by Conde Nast, I was surprised to find that the archive of Seydou Keïta is among our recent acquisitions. Born in Mali, he was a self-taught photographer who specialized in portraits of his family, friends, and neighbors beginning in the 1940’s. It is difficult to photograph people and places that are steeped in a history of photographic exploitation, but his perspective appears authentic. The constructed quality of the images and the subjects posed expressions reminds me of James Van Der Zee, the notorious manipulator. I am curious how accurate these portraits are in showing a slice of Malian life at that time.

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I am still amazed to discover daylight to spare after coming home from work, as it seems a magical trick performed by the promise of the warmer weather to come. Arriving home from work recently, I decided it was the perfect evening for a dusk meander.

It seemed to be a warm, tranquil night that many were taking advantage of, and it was mostly couples I passed as I followed the winding, upward path toward the Cloisters. Benches were filled with secluded, though openly visible, couples waiting for the sunset or kissing and ignoring the sunset instead. I suppose when you are alone it is natural to pay more attention than usual to those around you. Shrunken elderly ladies in twos and threes slowly plodded along the garden paths, and a few families with children played on the flat and somewhat green lawns. Men ran or walked alone with their dogs, most circled so that as I stood and watched the sun disappear, its yellow reflection lingering in the river, I saw the same pairs of man and beast pant past.

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Matt Tyrnauer: “There are a lot of people who say no one could replace you.”
Valentino Garavani: “Après moi, le déluge. Do you know what that means?”

I wondered as he said it if a king of France, Napoleon, or another figure of wealth and power had been the author of such a sentiment—it was Louis XV who said, “after me, the flood.” Valentino: The Last Emperor is an indulgent documentary about the Italian couturier Valentino Garavani. The film has shown with unsurprising popularity for the past few weeks at one of Gotham’s independent film houses. The screenings have been coupled with a Q & A with the director Matt Tyrnauer, and the editor at large for Vogue, André Leon Talley. Though the film itself does not address any aspect of the couturier’s life—his role in fashion history, his style, or his notions of beauty—in a deep or terribly engaging manner, Valentino’s life seems to be about two things; beauty and excess, and in that order.

Valentino’s sense of beauty reminded me of visiting Europe. I remember traveling through Italy with M, and her amazement at the obsessive and undeniably extravagant effort that went into creating the works of art, architecture, and ornament that were gloriously scattered from city to city. Watching Valentino fuss over his designs I thought of the different colored marble lining the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica. Every stitch, seam, and embellishment on a Valentino dress is done carefully and thoroughly by hand. It is a certain kind of beauty that Valentino fell in love with as a young man, a certain ideal he evokes with his garments, and it is a beauty that transcends the ordinary, it is an ageless, timeless beauty. Despite his tantrums, his ego, his fussing and frustrations, it is undeniable that his dresses sometimes resemble works of art rather than new pieces of runway fashion. “I love beauty,” he says, “it’s not my fault.” But it is not simply beauty that Valentino loves, he loves a certain class, glamour, and character to go along with his sense of beauty. What do women want? “They want to be beautiful,” says Valentino, stressing all the syllables of the last word.

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