A Lower East Side Day, Transcend with Me.

We had some German friends/family in town who requested a gallery tour of the Lower East Side. A bit tricky, since the galleries are so much more spread out than in Chelsea, but we had a map and a plan. Lots of lovely type and design and art to be found.

Walking along East First Street (between First and Second), there is a lovely little restaurant called Arlo and Esme that sports a great and invitingly friendly sign.

We were on our way to La Mama La Galleria on East First Street to see the "To Believe" show that featured artists whose work reflects the supernatural, spiritual, and paranormal (great for these troubled times). I fell in love with the work (and type) on the work by Spiritual Tours (who are Dave Hardy and Siebren Versteeg).

I loved this piece by Bede Murphy with Unarius, part of a larger installation titled Universal Articulate Inter-Dimensional Understanding of Science.

Nearby, at Participant Gallery on East Houston, the art on view was inspired by the work of actor/director Timothy Carey, who was a pioneer of underground film in the early '60s. I'm thinking that this sign was a prop from his 1992 production of The Insect Trainer aka "Le Pet" from 1992. I am a total sucker for this kind of signage (does it have a name?).

Moving on over to Bowery, as an homage to a beautiful series of Bowery photographs that Beth did, I spotted and shot a picture of this incredibly handmade sign. You could almost miss it:

We kept on: at DCKT on Bowery we saw a fabulous installation by Ryan Humphrey titled Early American (the installation views are worth a click!). The show was a bit lost on the Germans, but the concept and follow through of this install was incredible. The artist had recreated a version of an 18th Century American interior complete with parlor, but totally did a smash up with garage and car culture and heavy metal. Here's a few shots of some of the "art" that was hanging on the wall in the remade interior.

Some very happy Germans at the end of the day!