Nadja Hansen/Art Explorations

02/09/2025

I love all my three new Christmas kitties but I have a special place for the brave intrepid one, Sly. I absolutely love snowy days like this.

02/08/2025

NY Masters Week comes to a close. Always a highlight of my year. It's the one week of the year that all the old masters galleries have an exhibition up concurrently and dealers from London and Paris come over to NY with their best pieces. It's the gallery hopping week par excellence. This year was especially good.

02/07/2025

Gave a tour of the brilliant permanent collection at the Whitney museum this week. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney grew up in the outrageously wealthy Vanderbilt family in NY and at the Breakers mansion in Newport and married into the Whitney family who'd moved to America in the 1630s and later invented the cotton gin. She was expected to be a mother and hostess and instead became a professional artist and a collector and supporter of young American contemporary artists. She opened a studio and gave young American artists a place to show their work, she bought their work and in 1930 opened a museum of American contemporary art hiring a woman to be the director. She died in 1942 but the museum has continued to thrive as an exciting progressive avant-garde institution very much as she would have wanted. The permanent collection is stellar! I prefer it to MoMA. Room of Hopper, room of O'Keefe and a brilliant collection of female and black artists whose work was under-appreciated in its time and now blows your socks off for its creativity, originality and energy.

02/06/2025

I gave a lecture today on an exhibition of one of the greatest choreographers of all time : Alvin Ailey. The discussion ranged from black beauty, ingenuity and excellence to his ability to incorporate West African rhythmic beats, European ballet, shimmering Brazilian religious dances, Haitian voudou concepts , blues, soul, jazz, black Baptist Church, modern dance, and themes of struggle, revelation, strength, sacrifice, joy and triumph into dance. As a long time fan of Alvin's Ailey's immense gift to the world it was a privilege to share this exhibit with clients.

02/04/2025

The Old Masters sale preview exhibition at Christie's. Absolutely nothing like the masters. It was a morning of pure indulgence.

02/03/2025

My work today was to look at fabulous art at the Whitney. When I needed a break I would pop out to the terrace to soak in a little sun and look at a different kind of art. What an interesting designed world we live in.

01/23/2025

I'm having fun giving tours of the Kafka show at the Morgan. His stories are straightforward and yet at the same time totally surreal. Matter of fact about being absurd. He's the PERFECT author to read during this insane time in America... this Kafkaesque nightmare... This is a Warhol image of him that's in the show. I had to read The Trial in high school and have thought of it so many times since especially concerning Guantanamo... Now I find myself returning to him... To find comfort in the fiction of discomfort.... What have you read of Kafka?

01/22/2025

In the new and fresh layout of the American wing of the Met there is a section designated 'Silhouette and Surface' highlighting star pieces of truly beautiful and interesting American furniture of the 18th century. It's all about the gorgeous materials, craftsmanship, and the flow of the lines. Really worth coming to see. I'll include it in my next " favorite things " tour.

01/17/2025

They totally changed the American wing at the Met. It's now done by theme instead of chronology and all these artworks by indigenous , female and black artists have come out of the basement or just got bought. They brought in modern art and impressionist art by Americans and incorporated them into the american story instead of the modern story. It's fabulous. I gave a tour to some of my most long time clients and they were totally fascinated. I am so glad the Met is evolving.

01/13/2025

Last chance to see the exquisite works in the Siena show. All the works truly radiate beauty and sincerity and every tour I've given of the show felt special.

12/28/2024

My whole heart many times over. The couple that asked me to marry them because we were so close came all the way to CT to celebrate Christmas as a family. That we are.

12/27/2024

What a dreamy little Christmas with my newest additions.

12/21/2024

Christmas weekend in Newport. Gilded Age opulence.

11/21/2024

Incredible works for sale in the 20/21 century sale at Christie's. Have so enjoyed giving tours of this incredible auction preview.

10/04/2024

Piet Mondrian. Brilliance.

08/18/2024

07/16/2024

My clients wanted a kid's tour of arms and armor at the Met. I'm so lucky to have such a truly encyclopedic museum at my fingertips that displays art in clear bright beautiful spaces, which makes my job so much easier. Indian, Tibetan, Ottoman, Japanese, European.... The armor of famous kings, the jewel-encrusted swords of great shahs... It's an absolute treasure trove. 70 minutes is barely enough and the kids never want to leave!

07/12/2024

My client, who lives in London, and comes to NYC every two months to see art, asked me to give her a tour of the contemporary art galleries this time. She has a driver that takes us in a gorgeous deeply air conditioned SUV with iced tea waiting for me when I get in. We break for lunch and she tells me all the insider royal gossip. We laugh a lot, we chat non stop, I show her 8-9 galleries of art I think is interesting or beautiful or highly skilled and she always generously pays me more than my fee. Yesterday I was telling her I absolutely hated my peloton, how it was a huge waste of money, and I wished ruefully that I'd bought a treadmill instead. She texted me later that night to tell me she'd arranged for me to get a treadmill. My clients are incredibly wonderful people who I'm lucky to count as friends. Also I'm totally spoilt now! ;)