for breaking news visit www.qns.com SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 • The Courier SUN 39 Victoria’s Secrets Queens Museum Cleans Up! Mierle Laderman Ukeles, artist in residence for 40 years for the NYC Department of Sanitation and pioneering public artist, with Queens Museum director Laura Raicovich A Reunion of my Friends from my Trip to China Victoria SCHNEPS-YUNIS [email protected] tweet me @vschneps Dynamic $1500 off Lumineers $500 off Invisalign DENTAL WORK CALL FOR FREE CONSULTATION THE INVISIBLE WAY TO SOME EXCLUSIONS APPLY STRAIGHTEN TEETH Third Generation Dentist 175-15 Jamaica avenue, Jamaica 718-297-4100 • 718-297-4106 For me, the Queens Museum has special meaning and power. It recently opened a major and unique exhibit of the art of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the artist in residence for the Sanitation Department since 1976. Her remarkable variety of work takes over every gallery at the museum, a place I’ve come to love. Thanks to being nominated to the board by Rose Ciampa several years ago, I’ve proudly served the remarkable institution. Under the leadership of Tom Finkelpearl, who was the executive director and is now New York City cultural affairs commissioner, the museum has doubled in size, taking over the former ice skating rink facing the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and now has a stunning, large, multistory exhibition space. Last week, the museum opened to much acclaim an exhibit of an artist of great stature with a unique focus who is relatively unknown. Ukeles was born in Denver to a father who was a rabbi and a family who appreciated art. When she was old enough, she decided to pursue her art in New York and left home never to return. I related to her story of building her art career, then feeling isolated when she married and had children. “When I became a mother, I lost my identity as an artist,” she said. She took her pain and put it on paper in a “Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!” It reads in part, “I am an artist, I am a woman, I am a wife. I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, renewing, supporting, etc. Also, (up to now separately) I do art.” What woman can’t relate to this! There are many things to see in the Queens Museum’s retrospective, the artist’s first comprehensive exhibit curated by Larissa Harris and Patricia C. Phillips under the leadership of the museum’s brilliant new director, Laura Raicovich. I adored the stunning installation of an archway looking like a chuppah created from hundreds of sanitation men’s gloves and recycled materials from their collecting of our garbage! Visit the museum, Wednesday to Sunday, until 4:30 p.m. The exhibit will be on view until Feb. 19, 2017. See it – you, too, will love the experience! The Queens Crossing in Flushing was the site for a reunion in the United States of the group I traveled to China with. We had visited historic Beijing, skyscraper-filled Shanghai, shopping capital of China Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the neighbor of Hong Kong. It brought together the members of the Chinese American Chamber of Commerce and Hotel Association with their counterparts in China. Last week, the Chinese delegation met in Flushing for a U.S. economy and culture forum, and then we all dined together. I was honored to be included and had a chance to see again the unique people I met on my trip. I hope to go back one day soon! Ironically, the president of the U.S. Chinese Chamber of Commerce Dragon Deng is my neighbor who lives across the street. I had to go to China to meet him! Thomas Chen (top row, fourth from left) with members of the delegation from China and New York including William Su, Charles Wang, Cindy Chen, Long and Cindy Deng (chairman of group), John and Winnie Lam with Victoria Schneps-Yunis John and Winnie Lam Derek Lam, Cindy Chen, Cindy Long, Winnie Lam, John Lam, Charles Wang John Lam, Deng Long, Councilman Peter Koo and Wiliam Su
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