Chuck Close

The other night at the Whitney Museum, they were doing it in pairs, threesomes, and, with some difficulty, all alone. A couple of new-fangled photo booths, updates on the ones of old, had invitees at the museum's fall benefit snapping away. Especially since right after they'd posed for their close-ups, the images flashed up on giant floor-to-ceiling screens for all to see.

"It's total fodder for narcissism, you know," said Ivanka Trump. She'd hammed it up for the camera with her friend, Devon. They roared and pointed to their shots on the screen.

"It's an opportunity to become a pure exhibitionist at that given moment," said Paul Saphire, a young doctor.

"Exactly," said his date, Shirelle Segal. "He even kissed me."

The artist Chuck Close maneuvered himself in his wheelchair in between the shutter and the back wall of the machine. It was a tight squeeze, but Mr. Close got his picture taken. "I was about to break the thing," he said with a laugh.

"It was a great party starter, for sure," said Paul Hasty, an architect-in-training. "It's fun to see everybody kinda loosening up a little bit for the pictures."

Not Moby. "No, I didn't do that," he said. "There was a long line for it. And I used to go to the photo booth machine...there's an arcade on Mott Street, way down in Chinatown, that has this great photo booth machine and, it seems, this is nice but sort of a pale imitation to the real thing. I'm sort of a purist, I think."

Rolling Stone contributing editor Toure: "Let me tell ya, the beautiful thing that made this different than your average photo booth: When you do the photo booth, the first picture is always fucked up 'cause you're not ready for the flash. In the second one, you're like, 'Ok, now we got it!" and in the third one, you look really good! But this one - they gave you control over the shutter, so everybody looks good because they're prepared...nobody can say they were surprised because they were holding the shutter."

"I actually didn't press the button, my DJ partner did," said Leigh Lezark of the MisShapes. "It was the three of us and Emmy Rossum, of 'Phantom of the Opera.'"

Nicolas Henderson and Kimball Hastings looked serious in their photo. "Seems like parties I go to - I've always complained about how they have no kind of decor," Mr. Henderson said. "You know, there are parties where they have so much money in the budget to really put on something that people are going to remember and will bring them back for the cause--I just loved this."

D. B. Kim, an interior designer, was pictured receiving a friendly lick on the cheek from his friend/date, restauranteur Matt Baumgartner. "It was, like, very heavenly," Mr. Kim said.

"Oh, wholeheartedly," said Mr. Baumgartner. They didn't appear to be talking about the photo experience.

"The idea was to bring people who are here into the event," said Whitney director Adam Weinberg. "So, the point is: you are the event. That's it in a nutshell."

Mr. Weinberg's photo flashed up on the screen. He was cheek to cheek with the artist Lorna Simpson. "The prettiest lady around," he said. "The smartest, too."  read more »

-- Nicholas Boston

Community Board 2 tentatively approved a plan for the development of 363-371 Layfayette Street last night, with several stipulations that the board hopes will preserve light and space for the adjoining building at 20 Bond Street, where legendary artist Chuck Close has a studio.

Tenants at 20 Bond Street and the developer 363-371 Layfayette Street, Olmstead Propeties, have been in negotiations for months concerning the new development. Aided by big guns from the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art who wrote letters supporting Mr. Close and 20 Bond Street's other tenants, the tenants and the developer are negotiating a mutually beneficial plan that will allow the building to be developed while preserving light for the next-door property.

An attorney for the tenants addressed the board last night and said the negotiations are nearly finished, yet declined to state what any sticking points might remain. Apparently satisfied, the board approved the variance request, with a few modifications.
The developers asked for variances to change the ground floor to retail and the upper floors to residential, which is not allowed in the M1-5B (manufacturing) district, and an increase of floor-area ratio to 5.5, up from 5.0.
In its resolution, the board recommended to permit the retail use of the ground floor, but not to change the upper floors to residential use--instead, it urged the developers to use the upper floors as "joint living-work quarters," with each unit required to be 1,200 square feet, eliminating the balconies from the design (to preserve light and privacy in 20 Bond Street), and that negotiations continue with 20 Bond Street, resulting in a binding agreement.
The community board's decision is, of course, strictly advisory. The Board of Standards and Appeals must sign off on the plans before work starts.  read more »

For further info, check out The Villager's extensive coverage here and here.

-Matthew Grace

Tomorrow night, architect Michael Graves will be speaking at the New School with Dean Paul Goldberger. It's the third in a series of talks that has already included artist Chuck Close and designer Bruce Mau.

For anyone looking for a bit more on Mr. Graves besides the famous Target teapots, The Observer profiled him last December, along with the remaining members of the New York Five. And Mr. Goldberger shows up there, too.  read more »

The full release for tomorrow's talk is after the jump.

It was the evening before the first round of Phillips Auctioneers' Impressionist and Modern Art Sale  read more »

I see that in the bibliography of the catalogue accompanying the Chuck Close exhibition, which Rober  read more »

"It is not like looking at someone at a zoo or some strange creature. We address the issue.  read more »