Harold's Sketchbook

Click on images in the gallery to enlarge.  www.haroldgraves.com

Click on an image to open a larger view:

Visit Harold’s Sketchbook at www.haroldgraves.com

Happy Holidays everyone!  Here are some photos I made of the snow in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn; click on each photo to see a larger image:

28°F Friday December 18, 2009
S’posed to snow maybe tomorrow–need to water my plants–Wes Montgomery on the radio

Reinventions of Allan Kaprow’s 1961 installation, Yard

In 1961 Allan Kaprow filled the courtyard of the Martha Jackson Gallery with a pile of automobile tires, and the resulting sculptural/environment/installation piece, Yard, is now regarded by many as the historical root-note for the symphony (some would say cacophony) of environments, happenings, earth-works and installations that have followed, marching along their enigmatic little way right up to the present.  One might argue that the surrealists and dadaists were pioneering this territory long before Kaprow came along (the Duchamp installation at the Philadelphia Art Museum comes to mind, as does the various antics of Salvador Dali) but never mind all that. Does anyone really care who came first?  Art historians, academics and other artsy egghead-types make their trade by arguing over the fine points of how all these things are to be distinguished from one another; the rest of us can just enjoy looking.  A folded flyer/handout/poster accompanies the installation with some interesting factoids and a reflection about Mr. Kaprow’s work as re-imagined by the three artists, William Pope.I., Josiah McElheny, and Sharon Hayes.

These are photographs I took while visiting Sharon Hayes’ “reinvention piece,” Yard (Sign), which was installed at the New York Marble Cemetery on 2nd Avenue in the East Village October 2-4.  (The “Stolen Santa” sign reminds me of Mike Kelly’s work somehow).  Yard (Sign) is gone now, but Yard (To Harrow) by William Pope.I. can be viewed at Hauser & Wirth Gallery at 32 East 69th street until October 24th.

Here are some photographs that I made during a recent visit to a beautiful area of western Massachusetts known as Khandroling:

The entrance to the Gowanus Yacht Club on the corner of Smith and President Streets in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens.  A sudden thundershower today broke up the heat wave for a moment.