In my last posting, I promised to describe two shows currently at the Whitney Museum of American Art: “Alexander Calder: The Paris Years, 1926-1933” and “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video 1961-2008.”

I’m lucky to have a place to stay just a couple of blocks from the Whitney, but these two shows would have been worth a trip across town or from out of town. In case you’re considering a visit, Eggleston ends Jan. 25 and Calder runs through Feb. 15.

Even spending the whole day in the museum (my wife, Karen, and I had lunch in the cafe there), we were unable to see all that it had to offer. I regret running out of energy and skipping a third exhibition, “Signs of the Time,” one of a series of shows that explore the rationale behind how the Whitney collects photography. Fortunately, a New Year’s discount on memberships meant that, after our admissions ($15 each), it only cost another $50 for a year of free admissions for two. So I know we’ll be back, because we took the bait and joined up.

The morning was devoted to the great overgrown child Alexander Calder, a man who invented an art form (the mobile) and whose ingenious miniature circus, which graced the Whitney lobby for decades, forms a focus of the Paris Years exhibition. An audio guide, offered free of charge, provided excellent and entertaining accompaniment.
It is a wonderful show, clearly outlining the defining period in which this artist found his strengths and let them lead him to wonderful realms of expression. Always playful and inventive, Calder made scads of three-dimensional works from metal wire in those years. Many are portraits — and marvelous portraits they are — but many are far more ambitious pieces that can claim the label of sculpture despite the nearly weightless material of their construction.

Though Calder had a serious side (and was a very seriously ambitious modern artist), all the work is imbued with a lighthearted wit that makes it irresistible to all ages.
Naturally, there were many families viewing the show — including that of Danny DeVito, his wife, Rhea Perlman, and their two young-adult kids — but not too many to ruin the experience for everybody else.

This was in strong contrast to the Eggleston exhibit, which we took in after lunch and which was rather crowded with a far more narrow demographic of hipsters, art-school grads and other fans of alienation. To be honest, I had more fun looking at them than I did at the photographs.
You may wonder why this is, as Eggleston is an icon of 20th-century American photography and a pioneer of the color medium with a massive influence on many later bloomers, including yours truly. But the show has problems.

First, it is too large. It gets repetitive, which does not reflect well on Eggleston’s evolution as an artist. Second, while the 100 or more pictures are nicely installed in clean, spacious, well-lighted rooms, the show is poorly organized. I could not for the life of me figure out in what order it was intended to be viewed, and the wall text did not disabuse me of the notion that such an order existed, because it was written in a chronological style — just not in a way that it could be followed chronologically, though that’s what I attempted to do.

Finally, I was disappointed by the show in that it included too many pictures I had already seen many, many times over the years and, though there were also lots of new pictures (that’s a plus) they were almost all less interesting than the earlier, more famous ones.

Bottom line: Democracy is a fine concept when applied to political systems but it’s not so good a way to make and choose art. While I can appreciate Eggleston’s insistence that he “has no favorites” and has to rely on his friends to tell him which pictures to exhibit, it is actually really important in art to make those hard decisions and dare to be hierarchical. Good art and good art exhibitions require an elitist attitude, not a democratic one.

Food, on the other hand need not be elitist. Indeed, I am not a foodie (so if you are, please don’t expect much from my musings on the subject), but I have traveled a lot and have learned to trust my instincts when it comes to finding great dining experiences by following my nose (sorry, bad pun).
So, on the drive down to the city (yes, we drive because it’s cheaper and we never fail to find a parking place on the street), when we realized our timing was such that eating on the way made the most sense, I put my old instincts to use.

The result was a wonderful Salvadoran meal just a few minutes from the Thruway exit in Kingston. Entering the front bar area of Pupuseria Mi Ranchito, it was immediately apparent that we were the only gringos in the place, but a warm welcome ensued and we were escorted to the restaurant in back, where an awesome home-style meal of cassava and slaw and pork and chicken and beef tongue was served.
The coffee was a bit weak, but we hit the road satisfied and financially unhurt, which is hard to do in NYC. For more info on the place, click here.
Hasta la vista!