Tovey’s List started out as a joke, albeit one nobody understood. Nobody understands it now, either. Let me explain.

RT (I don’t want him to know) is a gay, muscular art lover, “dog dad,” and minor celebrity who, it seemed to me, was unique in posting pictures of himself at Canada gallery on the Lower East Side, visiting artists in their studios, and calling Richard Tuttle’s work “challenging and historical.” I wondered, would he also go to Issue Project Room to hear microphone feedback for an hour, like I would? I wanted to think so. And so it happened he became the inspiration for the first email list I compiled: “R. Tovey’s ‘That’s So Gay’ Guide to NYC.” Soon after, I wanted it to be a “List”—à la Craig’s—so “Tovey’s” was the natural choice. Now, of course, I wish I had named it something else.  I get tired of explaining.

The underlying purpose was to solve a problem that arose when, late 2016, I discovered Sigmar Polke’s work (duh?) and realized I had missed his MoMA retrospective by two years.  I had missed several other retrospectives, as well:  Cai Guo Qiang, Rosemarie Trockel, and Martin Kippenberger, to name a few. And what else? How many other concerts, dances, and weird happenings did I miss? What was I even doing? I vowed never to let it happen again, and started reviewing events calendars religiously. Carnegie Hall spam became my prayer beads. The Artforum app my penance. The Anthology Film Archives website my cross. New York Classical Review my savior.

Tovey’s List is fairly comprehensive but not expert, and is comprised only of what I personally would like to do. Its sole purpose is to help me plan my schedule and be a kind of record or diary. It has now been a year since I started toveyslist.com—for ease of distribution and updating—and I am so glad I kept it up, because I ended up doing things I never would have otherwise.  Indeed without it, I might never have experienced the Tallis Scholars breaking into song, post concert, in front of a panoramic view of the Christmas lights on Broadway; Wendy Whelan at Joyce; Daniel Barenboim’s post-concert speech on the night of Trump’s inauguration, encouraging a nervous, sorrowful audience to continue to love and support music; Anne Teresa de Keersmaecker’s Vortex Temporum at BAM, and then transformed for the gallery at MoMA; Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim; Robert Grosvenor at Karma; Eric Rohmer’s “The Green Ray” at Metrograph, etc.

Compiling this list is not easy. It takes a long time to sift through NYC’s cornucopia of things to do. But it is hardly a secret that attention and effort toward one’s pleasure is almost always rewarded. Thank you all for joining me!

March, 2018