Weekend Art Picks, New York

Doug and Mike Starn, Big Bambu: You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop

Appropriate to its subtitle, the latest collaboration between identical twins Doug and Mike Starn is a soaring, undulating, interlocking, and, most importantly, ever-evolving, network of 5,000 bamboo poles and 50 miles of nylon rope. The New Jersey-born duo have erected the structure, which reached a height of 30 feet for its opening on Tuesday, atop the roof of the Met in cooperation with a team of rock climbers. The work's dynamic nature will be realized in its continued construction for the duration of the exhibition, which will be filmed and documented, espousing the Starns' transcendence of traditionally separate disciplines by integrating performance, architecture, sculpture, photography, and film.


Big Bambu is on view through October 31st at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street.
Read this weekend's Art Picks in the KiptonART Magazine!
KiptonART Approved!

MET's Ex-Director, Thomas Hoving, Leaves Indelible Memory

Thomas Hoving, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Director from 1967 to 1977, passed away on Thursday, December 10.  As a child, I remember visiting the King Tutankhamun exhibitions while wondering who made it possible. Through Hoving's efforts, King Tut's tomb became the most popular exhibit in the museum's history and drew more than 1 million visitors in New York (plus another 5.6 million more at five other American museums).  Hoving was known by his peers as one who did anything to make people notice great art.  He ambitiously set out to get New Yorker's attention by hanging huge banners over Fifth Avenue to promote exhibitions.  A native New Yorker, a scholar, an art curator, the city's parks commissioner and a best-selling author, Hoving graduated from Princeton University and earned a Ph.D. in art before settling at the Met in 1959.  When he took over the Met at only 35, he was the youngest director ever to be chosen.  He was a visionary leader who created a department for contemporary works, displaying American artists such as Jackson Pollack, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol.  We'll miss you Mr. Hoving, but your legacy and energy lives on for children and adults to enjoy for generations to come. 

Above: Thomas P.F. Hoving, Jan. 4, 1967
AP – FILE - In this file photo of Hoving attending a party in New York

Kipton Cronkite Approved
Read more in the Online Magazine