Val Castronovo
Val Castronovo is a free-lance journalist specializing in exhibition and arts-related stories. She is a former reporter for TIME Magazine, where she worked for 21 years. A native New Yorker and Vassar grad, she lives in Manhattan with her husband and their daughter, Olivia.
She Was Just 17; The Gagosian Gallery Presents Picasso and Marie-Therese: L’amour fou
References to Marie-Thérèse, a full-figured, blonde beauty with a prominent "Greek" nose, were often camouflaged, or appeared in code, in Picasso’s art, and her identity was a closely hidden secret, as was the birth of their daughter Maya in 1935. more »
Van Cleef & Arpels Haute Jewelry Show at the Cooper-Hewitt Extended
There are highly stylized necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, brooches and watches, in addition to finely crafted accessories like clutches, cigarette cases and tobacco lighters. Objets d’art, such as a 1908 butler’s bell push comprised of a model yacht riding a wave fashioned from jasper, drew audible gasps. more »
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Starn Brothers Present Big Bambú: You Can’t, You Won’t, and You Don’t Stop (April 27 — October 31, 2010)
A work in progress, Big Bambú will continue to grow over the next several months until it resembles a 50-foot-tall cresting wave. Hand-assembled by the artists themselves and a team of 20-odd rock climbers from New Paltz, New York, using fresh-cut bamboo poles from Georgia and South Carolina, this urban grove is supposed to be "a microcosm of life itself in which everything is interdependent and changing." more »
The O’Keeffe show at the Whitney is the first to study, and celebrate, her abstract works
Nearly a dozen of these sexually charged photo-portraits are on display in a separate room at the Whitney. The walls are brown and echo the sepia tones of the prints, which are soft, and in the case of the nudes, hazy. Much to O’Keeffe’s chagrin, the nudes confirmed the nature of her relationship with Stieglitz (she was 34-years-old, and he was, shockingly, married and 57-years-old) and prompted the critics to respond to her paintings as “emblems of female sexuality,” the catalogue states. more »