Chelsea Gallerista

Above: The view from the Standard Hotel's elevator - one you don't mind being stuck in The Standard Hotel - a shingle as chicly understated as the building is understatedly chic - has opened its lounge in the stratosphere. Straddling the wildly popular Highline aerial park, which I filmed just before it opened, this Polshek-designed, Andre Balazs-owned inn reminds me of the Jolly Gray Giant. I don't even know what the latest name of the lounge is - Manifest? Boom Boom ... Boom? The celebs have christened it of course, but this post is for us plebestrians who pass between the Giant's gray chino'd thighs, peering crotchward to see if those mile high performances are just a myth (Motel Sex? Boom boom). You enter the hotel through a Lego-like yellow cylinder and reappear in a small lobby flanked by two very cool, white egg-crate like partitions. The maid in me wonders if someone is hired to featherdust each and every hole ... The elevator to the lo

From the Aperture website : During the 1994 genocide, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan women were subjected to massive sexual violence by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups, known as the Interhamwe. Among the most isolated survivors are women who have borne children as a result of those rapes. The number of children born from these atrocities is estimated around 20,000. Due to the stigma of rape and "having a child of the militia," the women’s communities and few surviving relatives have largely shunned them. Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape brings together Jonathan Torgovnik’s remarkable portraits of these women and children, and their harrowing first-hand testimonies. THIS exhibition was utterly harrowing, as it should be. It consisted of testimonial after testimonial by Rwanden women, describing their horrific ordeals at the hands - weapons, knives, broken bottles - of their captors. Each account was presented as a large portrait of t

MOMA is nowhere near Chelsea, but occasionally I make my way up there on someone else's guest pass, and since this blog is mostly about art ... On this occasion it was to see a Tim Burton retrospective with graphic artist pal, Justin Winslow . I'm not a huge Tim Burton fan, but I appreciate the pathos in his work. He reminds me of one of Australia's greatest living melancholics, Michael Leunig . I'm just going to share a few of the ones I liked - the ones I got a shot of before being told "no photos." This the Tongue Twister. What kind of criterion is required to adequately twist a tongue, as this creature is so efficaciously effecting? Let's see now ... a striped bumble body, wicked-witch gloved hands, amphibious tentacles, waspy wings, and a 'do from HAIR. And a really scary, Joker-like countenance. But of course!   I really liked Burton's "Mars Attacks!" aliens. This one, in a glittery, swirly gown and bodice, took