In Galerie Sardine, a New Idea of What the Art Gallery Can Be
Last summer I kept getting emails about a new venue called Galerie Sardine. Who, I wondered, would want to name a gallery after a very small fish that travels in schools and is packed tightly in flat tins? The artist Joe Bradley and his irrepressible wife, Valentina Akerman, that's who. 'You can take it with you,' Akerman says, when I visit them in Bradley's vast Long Island City studio. 'It's also not a fancy fish, and we like that.' Neither of them had ever run an art gallery before, but they took over a 1701 farmhouse on Main Street in Amagansett, at the eastern end of Long Island, and put on several shows that attracted throngs of local and far-flung art lovers, including the biggest fish in the art world, Larry Gagosian, whose summer house is in Amagansett.
'Joe and I have been collaborating ever since we met,' Akerman tells me. Their backgrounds could hardly be more different. Akerman, dark-haired and vivacious, is from Colombia, born and brought up in Bogotá. Bradley, quieter but just as playful, grew up in a family of nine children (seven of them, not including Joe, were adopted) in the scenic little beach town of Kittery, Maine. His father was an emergency room doctor. Her now retired father was a professor of economics at the National University of Colombia and wrote a Sunday newspaper editorial on politics. 'He is an incredibly luminous person who's engaged with the world and loves art and music and everything else,' she tells me. 'My decibel of life comes from my father, and I can talk with him about anything.' Her mother, now an author, was a Freudian therapist who worked with children and adolescents. 'My schoolmates were scared of her.' They didn't want to go to her house because they thought she was 'like a witch,' Akerman says. 'She's mysterious and a bit cold and a bit alluring all at once.' ('She's a very glamorous woman,' Joe adds.)
Akerman's parents divorced when she was 16, and her mother began writing books about her childhood in El Chocó, an extremely remote jungle on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Akerman studied architecture, came to New York to get her master's at Columbia University, then practiced for a few years at the high-powered Davis Brody Bond architectural firm in New York, but withdrew after she was diagnosed with metastatic thyroid cancer. She was working as a freelance art director when Bradley came into her life.
Bradley's childhood love of drawing didn't fade as he grew up. He devoured underground comic books—R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, 'that sort of thing'—and pored over art books on Picasso, Matisse, Miró, Calder, Warhol, and Lichtenstein in Kittery's public library, and also spent time at the Portland Museum. 'But it wasn't until I got to the Rhode Island School of Design that I was bitten by the painting bug, and started seeing. All of a sudden, I was exposed to all of art history.' A fixation on a small Cézanne landscape, 'a ratty little painting' called On the Banks of a River (ca. 1904-1905) at the RISD Museum, struck him as 'kind of abject and punk rock,' and gave him the feeling 'not that I could understand it, but that I could read it.' (Bradley was once the lead singer of a punk band called Cheeseburger.) His career was just beginning when he and Akerman got together. His riotously colored paintings were already drawing attention—he had a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art's PS1 in 2006, seven years after he graduated from RISD. Roberta Smith of The New York Times described his early work as 'ironic, anti-painting paintings…post-conceptual and challenging.' He has had New York galleries ever since—first the Canada gallery, then Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Gagosian, Petzel, and, since 2023, David Zwirner gallery. The vibrant new paintings all around us in his Long Island City studio are on view this summer, at Zwirner's London outpost.
Akerman and Bradley met in the early 2000s at a loft party in Williamsburg. She had to run to a dinner, but the few minutes they had together intrigued her. 'It was a classic love-at-first-sight situation for me,' Bradley says. 'Valentina had this aura, a real glow about her, and I was totally attracted immediately.' They met again three days later, by chance, at an opening in Chelsea, and that was it. 'From that night on, we were never apart,' Akerman says. 'We were just magnetically together.' They married in the early aughts and had Leif, the first of four children, shortly thereafter. Basil, Alma, and Nova came along at five-year intervals.
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Image Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video Leverage: Redemption, 'The Side Job' Cold open on a black and white pan over Puerto Nuevo, Colombia. In a shadowy pub, a hatted man seated at the bar answers his phone, saying that he needs to get to the island to close the deal before 'the blonde' finds him because she's going to kill him. Further down the bar, the camera focuses on Parker glancing over with a grin. In Louisiana, two weeks earlier, at the Ramirez Processing Plant, the hatted man, wearing a suit and no hat, directs a hesitant worker to dump the load into the bone-grinder. In his office, he finds Parker rifling through his files. He's the plant's owner, Edgar Ramirez (Ricardo Chavira). She's [allegedly] Elise Bannister, a social worker. RELATED: Olivia Morris Shares How The Librarians: The Next Chapter Hooked Her From Page One She's investigating the child labor he uses. 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Ramirez tells Harry that if he comes back in the evening, he'll get the paperwork for him, and they can discuss some potential financial accommodations. Shaking hands on it, Harry leaves. Ramirez places a call, saying that they've got a problem. Flipped In his office, he tells Parker about Harry's visit. She recommends they pay Harry off. Ramirez argues that blackmailers just keep on taking. They're better off just killing him. He's already engaged some men from Cisco's bunch. They'll wait for Harry in the plant parking lot and kill him as soon as he arrives. Parker turns to one of her hidden cameras and shoots a meaningful look at Breanna. Breanna's surveillance footage is in full color. She tries to raise Harry on the coms to warn him. Next, she tries Elliot. Meanwhile, Harry arrives at the plant. He gets a warning text from Breanna just as a black SUV squeals up behind him. The goons chase him into the plant. 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In black-and-white, Ramirez leaves the plant with his papers. Parker drives up and offers him a ride. He gets in, and she stuns him with a taser. Grabbing his phone, she messages the plant supervisor to clear the floor and send everyone home because of a spot inspection. RELATED: TV Review: Cross Season 1 In color, Sophie's waiting at the Gold Star offices and tells Breanna and Harry that Parker's late. They ping her phone and discover she left it at headquarters. Back at the now-empty plant, black-and-white Parker prepares to send Ramirez through the bone-grinder, explaining that a little while ago, someone asked her why she does what she does. When the others asked her, they didn't let her answer: they just kept guessing. Starting up the bone-grinder, she gets ready to tip Ramirez in, stating she's not sure what she's going to do. The bone-grinder stops. Faint with relief, Ramirez sees Elliot and assumes he's there to stop Parker. Elliot denies this and walks away. Got Your Back Parker follows him in color and asks him if he's going to stop her or tell on her. He tells her that they aren't like the others. Whatever she chooses to do, he's got her back. In black-and-white, Parker rushes back to the bone-grinder. She turns it on. Desperate, Ramirez tips the trolley and rolls out. By the time Parker follows him out of the building, he's disappeared. Flashforward to the Colombian pub. Cisco tells Ramirez that the papers he traveled on aren't from him. Parker walks over and ends the call. RELATED: Read our Leverage: Redemption recaps Full color when the phone hits the bar. She tells him his papers are hers. Flashback: After Parker and Breanna pulled the construction site con, she had Breanna use Cisco's software to create new Colombian papers. In the pub, she tells him he's been traveling as a wanted fugitive. Her real reason for the con is redemption. She tells him his redemption begins with empathy. In the U.S., he's dead. Flashback: Parker leaves his shoes, wallet, and cell phone next to the bone-grinder opening. Now that he has to live in a country with no papers or resources, hiding from the law, maybe he'll understand the lives of the people he exploited in his plants. Not Just the Side Job Parker returns in time for Breanna to go pick up Hardison. Before Sophie leaves for a weekend with Jack, Harry asks her to meet his mother because he wants his mother to meet his best friend. Once Hardison's home, Parker gives the team her report, the product of six months of analyzing why she does crime. She's concluded that she's a thief. She breaks the rules because the rules sometimes say it's okay to hurt others, and that's not right. This is her way because it's their way. All three seasons of Leverage: Redemption are now streaming on Prime Video. Come on, Prime Video. Let's give Leverage: Redemption three more seasons. REVIVAL: Check Out 9 First-Look Photos From Melanie Scrofano-Led Series Diana lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she invests her time and energy in teaching, writing, parenting, and indulging her love of all Trek and a myriad of other fandoms. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. You can also find her writing at The Televixen, Women at Warp, TV Fanatic, and TV Goodness.
New York Times
4 days ago
- New York Times
What would a 2025 Belmont Stakes win mean for Journalism's legacy?
Ten years ago this Friday, 90,000 people rose to their feet and exhaled in catharsis. Even in the shadows of a city that knows how to celebrate big moments, the roar that rose from Long Island on June 6, 2015, rivaled anything a sports fan could conjure. As American Pharoah came around the final turn and bore down on the Belmont Stakes finish line, disbelief gave way to stupor. And when 37 years of Triple Crown futility finally and officially evaporated, the cheers for Pharoah somehow grew louder, the stupor turning into awe for the colt's incredible triumph. Advertisement When, just three years later, Justify matched American Pharoah's efforts to win his own Triple Crown, it felt like horse racing was entering a golden age. Instead, not only has the Triple Crown entered yet another dry spell, but no horse has won even two legs of the famed horse-racing gauntlet. Even more, of the 109 horses who have entered the Kentucky Derby since 2019, only two — War of Will in 2019 and Mystik Dan, last year's Derby winner — went on to race in both the Preakness and the Belmont. Which leads us to the present day, and a horse named Journalism. The bay colt's commitment to all three legs of the Triple Crown defies convention, and as he preps to load into the starting gate for the Belmont on Saturday, he's chasing his own little slice of history. Despite a messy start at the Derby and a harrowing ride down the stretch in the Preakness, Journalism finished second in Louisville and won in Baltimore. Were he to win on Saturday at the Belmont, he would be the first horse aside from Pharoah and Justify in 20 years (Afleet Alex did it in 2005) to win two and come close to winning all three Triple Crown contests. He'd also be the first to capture two wins and a place since the beloved Smarty Jones in 2004. (Smarty did it in reverse order, winning the Derby and Preakness before finishing second by a heartbreaking length at the Belmont). Only one horse since has even come close. In the mashed-up COVID season, Authentic won the Derby (run in September) and took second in the Preakness (run in October), but he did not run in the June Belmont. 'If [Journalism] were to win, it would confirm the suspicions that this is truly a special horse,' says David Grening, the New York correspondent for the Daily Racing Form. 'To run in all three is hard enough; to run well is truly rare.' Advertisement Special, however, lives a hair off the edge of great, and in any sport, greatness is the goal. In horse racing, greatness is defined by a three-race stretch run over a five-week period. So what, then, would be Journalism's legacy were he to go two for three in the Big Three? The answer, like a lot of things in horse racing, is complicated. The way he has run to date certainly shows a fierceness that is nothing shy of extraordinary. At the Derby, Bob Baffert's front-running Citizen Bull took a hard right to get clear of the rail from the one hole. That caused what could be best described as a horse bottleneck at the start of the race, forcing Journalism to come from much farther back than his trainer, Michael McCarthy, would have liked. 'Because of that, he was 10th and out of position, and in horse racing, position is everything,' says longtime horse racing writer Dick Jerardi. 'With that kind of field, the rider has to go sooner than he wants, and out of the final turn, he was only a length ahead of Sovereignty, and that brought the best closer into the race.' True to form, Sovereignty closed with gusto to beat Journalism by 1 1/2 lengths. Then at the Preakness, Umberto Rispoli kept Journalism on the rail to save some ground, but that also put the horse behind a wall of other horses. At the top of the stretch, the jockey somehow squeezed a 1,000-pound animal through the eye of a needle. Journalism bullied his way between Clever Again and Goal Oriented to find daylight and win. Clever Again's trainer, Steve Asmussen, less than thrilled with the contact, said Rispoli rode the Preakness favorite 'like a rented mule.' 'The bravery he showed going through that hole, whether you want to credit the jockey or the horse — that colt is tough,' says Ken McPeek, who trained Mystik Dan through three Triple Crown races. 'No question he is some kind of tough. And he's fearless, which is obviously a great thing.' In so many ways, Journalism is (or at least could be) just getting started. He is just 3 years old, and the Belmont will be his eighth start. To date, his worst finish came in his debut; he crossed third. Despite the opinions of the general public, whose interest peters out post-Belmont, his legacy may not be finalized at Saratoga, where the Belmont Stakes will be run this weekend while its namesake track completes renovations. Advertisement There is recent precedent for a great horse earning his stripes post-Triple Crown. In 2007, Curlin finished third in the Derby, won the Preakness and lost by a head to the filly Rags to Riches in the Belmont. Impressive but not great by Triple Crown standards. Yet Curlin then went on to place third in the Haskell that August, win the Jockey Club Gold Cup and win the Breeders' Cup Classic, two races that included older horses. At the end of the year, he was named Horse of the Year. He repeated the feat in 2008, winning Horse of the Year again before retiring as the highest North American money-winner at the time, with $10.5 million to show for his efforts. But Journalism, a son of Curlin, would be an odds-defier were he to keep racing and keep winning. Smarty Jones and Afleet Alex never raced after the Triple Crown season, both done in by injuries. Justify retired immediately after the Belmont, his entire racing career lasting a whopping 118 days. American Pharoah went on to win the Haskell, take second at the Travers and win the Breeders' Cup Classic, cementing his legacy before retiring for a lucrative breeding fee. 'Going 2-1-1 would make him special, but what he could do afterwards really elevates where he could measure up,' says Grening. 'To me, what can really determine this horse's legacy is what he does after the Triple Crown.' Though they are well aware of the rare company Journalism could join, those associated with the horse, of course, are not terribly interested in talking legacy or what's next. 'Needless to say, it would be an enormous honor,' says Aron Wellman, one of the majority owners. 'That said, we're not taking anything for granted or allowing ourselves to get too far out in front of ourselves.'' With good reason. While only an eight-horse field, the Belmont includes some legit contenders, top among them Derby-winner Sovereignty. McPeek, for one, is a Sovereignty fan and has been since Louisville. 'I thought he was one of the easiest selections or wagers for the Derby that I've ever seen in my life,' McPeek says. He likes Bill Mott's horse even more now, what with the extra rest he's received by not running in the Preakness, and he's running at the same Derby distance at which he's already won. Another contender horse people are keeping an eye on is Baeza, who finished third in the Derby. Advertisement For now at least, the line says that Journalism will go off as the favorite. Just as he did in the Derby. Just as he did in the Preakness. Whether a win will be good enough to cement his greatness is up for debate. 'But it would be great for the game,' Jerardi says. 'You don't have to sit out the Preakness. You can still do it. The really good ones, they can do it. That's really what it comes down to. If you have a good enough horse, it's doable. He's good enough.'' (Photo by Rob Carr / Getty Images)
