Whitney Fridays Walks

When everything suddenly loses its meaning, exposing the void of a human existence - I place myself in between of two Warhol’s noses: big and small, Before and After, [4]

The artwork’s replica used to hang on my tiny NYC kitchen’s wall, left there by previous residents, my friends. The original 1962 canvas is on view at Whitney Museum, it’s 6 feet tall - serves as a perfect backdrop for a selfie. I go there on a Friday night, for free.

After a spin of noses I approach a big-chested bronze mama  - the sculpture just around the corner. A “Standing Woman” by Gaston Lachaise.

I count graceful ladyfingers — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. This woman is in charge.

The pretty colored painting next to her is a portrait of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney - American sculptor and art collector, the Whitney Museum’s founder. I stare at her in awe: all my favorite color combinations, silks. The poetry…

Feeling lost
Next moment - found
Trapped in New York underground
Elevator “A” to “One”
Dirt and rats - next level. Done?

Headlines Art

My whole life I worked in newspapers. There was a dark storage room in Tambov Courier editorial office with piles and piles of weekly issues. Floor-to-ceiling rows of A3 trash. Typography excess - two years archive. Headlines and news columns rotting unattended, unopened. I was a 17 years old reporter with an ambition of a photographer, even artist perhaps, and I sneaked into that room once. I had a camera on a tripod with me. I’ve heard a mouse rustling some pages. It smelled like dry bread and instant coffee. I had a vision of myself positioned comfortably on top of the Archive Paper Giant.

Alëna Adamson in Tambov Courier newspaper archive room, 2006

That’s how I began my affair with printed words doomed for an infinite storage incarceration. Perhaps, that’s why yesterday I made this collage. I used a front page of New York City oldest tabloid, I selected juicy headlines meanings and splashed some acrylic paint on a canvas. In addition to all that, I decided to add “Alënka” soviet chocolates candy wrappers (I got them in a russian grocery store in Manhattan’s uptown).

Alëna Adamson creates her first collage with New York Post newspaper headlines

I went through hundreds of articles, creepy news and crime reports published in the newspaper. I checked out mugshots and celebrity galleries, I remembered Andy Warhol - he loved tabloids and copied front pages obsessively, with a pencil.

I’m not here for the pencils. I like cut-outs and neon paints. I see these headlines as a part of my identity now. They are reminders of my days working there. They are memories of loud newsroom talks. They are my emotions experienced on a day of the paper release. And it’s all saved in print and released to the public.

I glue them onto canvases and tell my own tales. I feel so seen.

Doubled // Dimension

“Assimetry” - view of The Cloisters, June 13th 2024

What would you do finding yourselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate lost humans with the power of their minds? While you’re desperately trying to figure out what’s going on they are engaged in their own domestic intrigue and won’t rest your brain. You are just very confused and want to leave, but it seems impossible - it’s just this scary dream you were chosen to watch. But you are also curious AF (and easily manipulated by fairies). Would you run away? Take deep breaths?

“Beatrice, 26 foor” 2016 - Self-portrait

You see, in the Fairyland nightmare dimension everyone is just so terrible at playing their roles that you start to laugh hysterically as if it meant to be a comedy. But it is not. And so your new master friends don’t like it and get really mad.

“Zoom-in Error” - The Cloisters, 2024 / View from Beatrice Apartments, 2016

You can sense that there’s some danger in the air, but also doubting your own fear as you start to think it’s just a dream in an unfortunate afternoon nap.

It is June Thirteen 2024 in New York City, and it got really hot today. Siesta!