There shall be no betting at Nassau OTB on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Roman Catholic Easter Sunday. Greek Orthodox believers do not count. See eg NY Const Art. 1, Sec. 3. One less other in NY according to the State of New York.
Arts
Stephen Antonakos, 86, Sculptor of Neon, Dies at 86
Eleni Mylonas, via Lori Bookstein Fine Art
Stephen Antonakos, in an
undated photograph with one of his works, created abstract sculptures
distinguished by vibrant colors and sinuous lines.
By MARGALIT FOX
Published: September 6, 2013
His medium was light; his materials included glass, an electrical charge and Element No. 10
on the periodic table. The result was a series of abstract sculptures
that illuminated indoor and outdoor spaces in cities around the globe,
instantly recognizable for their vibrant colors and sinuous lines.
A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.
“Neon for La Jolla” (1984).
Stephen Antonakos,
the sculptor behind those works, died on Aug. 17 at 86. Half a century
ago, he became one of the first people to usher neon out of the world of
HOT L and into the realm of fine art.
His work, which encompasses public-art installations
and pieces in the collections of the world’s foremost museums, is
leagues apart from the commercial signage that until the late 20th
century was neon’s fundamental expression.
Mr. Antonakos used neon as a painter uses paint. Minimalist, with fluid
lines and saturated colors that recall Matisse, his art has appeared in
spaces as diverse as airports in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Bari, Italy;
metro stations in Boston, Baltimore, Detroit and Athens; a power station
in Tel Aviv; and a police station in Chicago.
Two of his installations have long been familiar to New Yorkers: “Neon
for 42nd Street” and “Neon for the 59th Street Marine Transfer Station.”
“Neon for 42nd Street,”
installed in 1981 on the outside of a building between 9th and 10th
Avenues and since taken down, comprised nested arcs of red and blue.
Together they formed a glowing discontinuous spiral that, like much of
Mr. Antonakos’s work, exploits the haunting possibilities of incomplete
geometry.
In the 59th Street piece,
erected in 1990 and still standing, Mr. Antonakos outlined the facade
of a shipping terminal on the Hudson River at which New York City’s
trash is transferred to barges.
Elsewhere, his installations include “Four Walls for Atlanta Hartsfield
Airport” (1980) and “Chapel of the Heavenly Ladder,” exhibited at the
1997 Venice Biennale.
In that work, rooted in Mr. Antonakos’s Greek Orthodox faith, he built
an entire meditative room of rusted iron, suffusing it gently with neon
light.
His other work includes drawings, a series of unusual pillows and a set
of mysterious, carefully wrapped packages that passed between him and
his friends in the 1970s, many of which — by design — remain unopened.
What united Mr. Antonakos’s diverse output was his abiding concern with
illumination, incompletion and an almost mystical spirituality that is
manifest in everything from his overtly religious pieces to the grip that an unopened box has on the imagination.
Stephen Antonakos was born on Nov. 1, 1926, in Agios Nikolaos, a
mountain village in Greece, south of Sparta. His family moved to New
York when he was 4.
After graduating from Fort Hamilton High School in the Bay Ridge section
of Brooklyn, he served from 1945 to 1947 with an Army artillery unit in
the Philippines. He later attended the New York State Institute of
Applied Arts and Sciences in Brooklyn and began his career as a
commercial illustrator.
His own work included an early-1960s series of pillows
that married cloth, text, metal (including plumbing pipes and nails)
and other found objects. The last pillow in the series incorporated the
word “DREAM” in neon, and with that, Mr. Antonakos found his calling.
To study the rich possibilities of the medium, he scoured Times Square
at night. His sculptures began life on paper and afterward — in a
collaboration between Mr. Antonakos and the industrial fabricators who
bent the tubes to his precise specifications — took shape in lighted
glass.
In later pieces, Mr. Antonakos laid neon lights behind painted canvases,
or behind panels leafed in silver or gold. The technique bathed each
piece in a glowing halo, like those illuminating the figures in
Byzantine icon paintings, a tradition that long fascinated him.
His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of
American Art in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Museum; the Philadelphia Museum
of Art; and elsewhere.
Mr. Antonakos’s first marriage ended in divorce. His survivors include
his second wife, Naomi Spector Antonakos, who confirmed her husband’s
death, in Manhattan, from complications of heart surgery; a son, Stephen
B. Antonakos, from his first marriage; and a daughter, Evangelia
Antonakos, from his marriage to Ms. Spector.
In the early 1970s, wanting to expand his repertory, Mr. Antonakos asked
scores of friends to mail him packages. Among those who responded were
the artists Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt and Christo, no slouch when it came to wrapping things.
What Mr. Antonakos did not tell them was that he planned never to open
the packages — he simply exhibited them, wrappings and all. Whether
anyone sent perishable material is unrecorded.
Mr. Antonakos then reciprocated by sending meticulously wrapped parcels to a few dozen friends. These parcels,
which contained unspecified items of great personal significance to
him, came with strict instructions as to when the recipient could open
them: some were to be opened in a far-off year, like 2000; others on Mr.
Antonakos’s death; still others, never.
The project became a de facto performance piece about yearning,
distance, memory and — as things turned out — elusiveness.
One of those who received a parcel was the art critic Irving Sandler,
author of the 1999 book “Antonakos.” Decades ago, Mr. Antonakos sent him
a flat package measuring about 18 by 24 inches. It was to remain sealed
until Mr. Antonakos’s death.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Sandler was asked whether he now planned to open it.
“Yes,” he replied. “When we find it. We’re going to have to look for it.”
A version of this article appears in print on September 7, 2013, on page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: Stephen Antonakos, 86, Sculptor of Neon, Is Dead.
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LI Confidential
> Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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