Art Off the Peg
The New York Academy of Art recently held their annual “Take Home a Nude” benefit event at Sotheby’s, and I turned out to honor my amigo John Currin—perhaps the most illustrious contemporary advocate of the nude in art, who was bravely recovering from a bout of meningitis—and also to support this worthy institution that counts among its founders Andy Warhol, and which is one of the few art schools in existence that still emphasizes training in traditional skills like drawing. There were many works on display which were auctioned to benefit the school, mostly paintings and photographs, but I was struck by a rather unusual sculpture which consisted of a gentleman’s outfit—a jacket, shirt and tie, all impeccably tailored out of paper. It had an eerie presence and you wanted to go up and touch it, which I did. It was a perfect men’s ensemble, cut and stitched with perfect Savile Row-like lines. It presented that sort of skewed trompe l’oeil effect that Claes Oldenberg’s soft sculptures did in the sixties.
It turned out that this was the work of Greg Lauren, a nephew of Ralph Lauren, who is a painter and sculptor. My friend Todd Eberle was also taken by the sculpture and he wasted no time tracking down Mr. Lauren, who was attending “Take Home a Nude” with his wife Elizabeth Berkley, the actress. They are both very charming and attractive, and even though it was “Take Home a Nude” night I neglected to mention that I had recently watched Showgirls again in its entirety and found it to be just as much fun as it was in 1995. And Mrs. Lauren also looks as good as she did in 1995, at least with her clothes on.
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